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Business School

DCU Business School

DCU Centre for Executive & International Programmes

International Programme - DCU@PNU

In Summer 2012, DCU signed an agreement with Princess Nora Bint Abdul Rahman University (PNU), Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest women-only university, to deliver two undergraduate programmes.  These are the Bachelor in Business Studies (International Finance) BSIF, and Bachelor of Marketing, Innovation and Technology (MINT).   

It is hard to adequately describe the sheer scale of the PNU campus which boasts its own elevated, dual track, light rail system,  1,444 residential units ranging from apartments to villas, an 80,000 sq metre library which will hold a collection of five million volumes, schools spanning the pre-, primary, intermediate and secondary levels,  research centres, student support centre, sport facilities for staff and students, a convention centre, a 700 bed hospital and fifteen faculties designed to cater to 60,000 students in phase one of the development.

PNU was named by King Abdullah in honour of his aunt, the progressive Princess Nora, sister of the founder of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the late King Abdulaziz Bin Abdulrahman.   PNU strives to educate and inspire its female students with leading edge, innovative programmes.   The 8 million square metre campus, which opened in 2011, was constructed in a record time of two years, supported by 75,000 construction workers.    Construction has not yet finished.

DCU@PNU welcomed the first intake of over 100 students in September 2013, and these students have just completed year one of their programme.  Over the initial four years of the project almost 600 Saudi female students will participate in the programme. 

In a society where the education of women at third level (higher education) is a relatively recent phenomenon, the impact of obtaining a DCU degree on the lives of these young women is likely to be very significant. More importantly, DCU has committed as part of this project to transfer to PNU staff the capability to deliver programmes of this quality without external support. This will ensure that, long after the initial intervention has been completed, the DCU @ PNU project will continue to make an important contribution to DCU’s mission of transforming lives and societies.