ICTP Director, K.R. Sreenivasan, recently travelled to Saudi Arabia, where he visited with professors and officials from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals and the King Abdulaziz City for Science & Technology (KACST), and Kuwait, where he met with professors and officials from the University of Kuwait and the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Science (KFAS). Discussions ranged from a general exchange of ideas on scientific priorities and reward systems to the concrete steps that ICTP and scientific institutions in both countries could take to forge stronger ties in the future.