It is the world’s most modern university in a country where attitudes to women are medieval. The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (Kaust) is a multi-billion-pound, graduate-level campus which hopes to attract the world’s most brilliant minds and challenge western assumptions about Saudi Arabia, a country where women must cover themselves in public.

Kaust is unique in that it is co-educational. It is the only school in the kingdom where students of both sexes can mingle. In other universities, women and men are taught separately, and male professors lecture to female students via video link.

Nor will women be compelled to wear an abbayah, a full-length black garment. At the opening ceremony, a female student in modest western dress stood on stage alongside others in the robe. The audience was integrated: women were not shoved off to a corner, separated from the men, nor in family compounds, which would be normal.

I was at the opening as a guest of King Abdullah because my boyfriend is rector of Edinburgh University. We were among 3,500 visitors including heads of state and scientists from all over the world.

Abdullah, who is 85, is part of the the Al Saud family who govern the country through royal decrees. Kaust is an attempt to use the oil wealth of Saudi Arabia to diversify the economy and prepare the country for a competitive global environment. The king has also been under pressure to overhaul the educational system, which is dominated by religious studies and has been criticised for encouraging radical Islamic fundamentalism.

At the inauguration, Adbullah highlighted his goals for the university: the revival of Islamic academic excellence and the creation of a “beacon of tolerance”. He asserted that he wants Saudi Arabia to offer the world “innovations in science and technology, not terrorism”.

Saudis are conscious that their princes have sponsored Wahhabi fundamentalism in the past, which has led to accusations that they harbour terrorists. Some of the 9/11 bombers had Saudi passports. The king recently reshuffled his cabinet, ousted some hard-line clerics and appointed a woman as deputy minister of education.

Kaust is the only higher-education institute in the kingdom not to fall under the remit of the Ministry of Higher Education. It is independent and has its own board of trustees. Developed by Saudi Aramco, the state oil company, it received a $10 billion (£6.3 billion) endowment from Abdullah.

But will western students want to come here? Though it took us only eight hours to fly from Edinburgh, I realised I was in a different world when we entered the arrivals halls in Jeddah. Our landing cards announced the threat of death by execution if were caught with drugs.

Every woman in the kingdom, western or non-western, Muslim or not, must wear an abbayah over her clothing in public. They fly in, dress, and enter Saudi Arabia as if going into hiding. But they cannot slip away quietly. They need a sponsor and must be met by them on entry, otherwise they cannot cross the threshold. All women living in the country as members of a Saudi home, married or single, need the permission of the household male head before leaving the country.

Kaust is an artificial construction cut off from the rest of the kingdom. It is in Thuwal, a village on the Red Sea, and is a 9,000-acre campus made of sleek glass buildings and magnificent stone, lined with palm trees. The classrooms are practically gold-plated and the laboratories have latest technology, including an IBM supercomputer — the 14th-fastest in the world — as well as a six-dimensional virtual reality facility for space and geological research.

Many members of the faculty are prominent academics from Asia, America and Europe. About 375 students — 100 Saudis and the rest from 60 other countries — recently started their studies. Tuition is free, paid for by the kingdom, and Kaust is clearly a top-notch research institution of international repute.

Despite the highly managed environment, it became clear from talking to Saudis at the university that this is an important and exciting step for those who want a more liberal regime. At the launch, many Saudi women still kept themselves to themselves, and it was only in the ladies’ bathroom that we spoke. I stood alongside them in a serious but optimistic conversation, while they adjusted designer jeans, before they re-robed and slipped silently into the shadows of the ceremony banquet. Clearly, this trip gave me only a glimpse of a private and complicated world.

It remains to be seen what knowledge will develop, whether there are scientific breakthroughs and what impact Kaust will have on Saudi Arabia. But while there are problems with the structure and organisation of the society which cannot be ignored, it is a small, enlightened step forward. I hope this oasis isn’t a mirage.

Dr Tiffany Jenkins is an academic and writer, and director of the arts and society programme at The Institute of Ideas

Times recommends

• Students abandon the drink for gyms and juice
• Ofsted: third of Baby P-style reviews inadequate
• Top boys' school picks first woman head