The #ResearchCultureUncovered podcast team is excited to share our latest episode featuring a fascinating conversation with Professor Adel Ahmed. Adel worked in the UK higher education for over 20 years before moving to the United Arab Emirates in 2015.
Join host, Ged Hall, as he reconnects with his former colleague to explore research culture in the UAE and the wider Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
🔹 Discover how higher education in the UAE is strategically designed rather than historically inherited — built around national development priorities, societal impact, and economic diversification, not just rankings and publications.
🔹 Learn about the UAE's ecosystem of federal, semi-government, private, and international branch campus universities, and how this model is spreading across the MENA region.
🔹 Hear how outcome-based evaluation frameworks are reshaping what research success looks like — moving beyond citation counts to measure real-world impact, industry collaboration, and student participation in research.
🔹 Explore what it's really like to move from the UK to the UAE as an academic, and why breaking down silos, embracing interdisciplinary working, and thinking globally while acting locally are at the heart of research culture in the region.
Ged Hall 00:00:23 Welcome to the Research Culture Uncovered podcast.
My name is Ged Hall, and I'm Head of Researcher and Development at the University of Leeds. Now, this episode is a bit of a departure from my usual content, which focuses on research impact, and mainly that's been, um, that's been driven by some recent work we've done with Worldwide Universities Network, where, um, we did some webinars, and I kind of thought, "Really need to internationalise this."
And it suddenly made me realise that I know lots and lots about the UK, um, edu- higher education sector, but actually hugely little about lots of other countries. So to try and address some of my ignorance, I thought, "I'm gonna reach out to some, um, some colleagues I know in, in different places." So the first person I thought of, um, was Professor Adel Ahmed.
rpool Hope University back in:
So I thought, "What a wonderful way to, to do two things." First of all, connect with somebody I know well and, um, and, and, and catch up on, on what he's been up to since we last worked together, uh, and also get some, uh, get some insights from him. Um, so as I said, he's, uh, he's been in the United Arab, Arab, Arab Emirates, I will be able to say that at some point, since 2015, um, where he's worked in three different universities in a range of senior roles.
So Adel, it's lovely to reconnect with you, and thanks for agreeing to being on the podcast.
Adel Ahmed:
And I, I have been in a system that's still being actively designed, and particularly in how research culture is evolving, to be honest. I'm really looking forward for these conversations, Ged, not in terms of comparing one system as better than another, but in exploring what different regions can learn from each other about building a healthy, more inclusive, and more impactful, impactful, very important.
You're going to see this word will be repeated again and again because I have a passion of the impact of our research culture. So thank you for the invitation. It is a pleasure to be part of these discussions.
Ged Hall:
But, um, i- interesting, I was looking at our stats. We've been downloaded, actually, we've just tipped over into 113 countries, but only a small number of those, uh, downloads have actually come from the MENA region, with, um, Saudi Arabia being the highest at about 130 downloads. So actually the vast majority of our listeners are from outside the region, so I wonder if you can give people a, that, um, more detailed structure about what's, what's the higher education sector like, how is it structured, how is it funded, those sorts of things, both within the UAE and, and the wider region.
Adel Ahmed:
Uh, to be honest, i-in UAE, we try to produce a graduate, uh, to be a global citizen. Therefore, serving the national development priorities, serving the society, serving the challenge facing this local, um, environment, but we take care as well of the global. And this why in UAE here, and the region generally, we, we always, um, take a global thinking but local acting, which is very important because one size does not fit for all.
Therefore, if you take the global north, it is completely... I cannot take the system in the higher education in global north and put it in the global south and say, "We'll, we'll have the same result or the same goal." Therefore, the system here, as I said, it is around national development priorities such as employabilities, very important, innovations and sustainability and economic diversification.
We need to have a variety of the economic because most of the country here it was, is the, on the oil economy. Now you need to have industrialisation, you need to have the healthcare, you need to have a higher education, you need to have a retailers. They have, they have a lot of manufacturing as well.
Therefore, we need to make sure the higher education has already fulfilled the need for the society, for the economic development. There are three main type of university here in the UAE. A small number of federal public university. It means it is already got the fund from the public. To give you the context as well, for example, UAE has, uh, seven emirates, and every emirate, they have their own local government.
Like, for example, like America, you have a USA, United, United State. Um, it have like a, uh, how many states they have, and every state they have a local. Here we have as well a federal public university, which i- run by the whole federal, the seven emirate. But we have as well inside each emirate, like Dubai, like Abu Dhabi, like Ras Al Khaimah, Al Fujairah, and so on, there is a seven emirate.
They have their own universities as well, but we cannot call it federal because this is not-
Ged Hall:
Adel Ahmed 00:08:45 funded by the The, the federal government, but funded by the local government, and this sometime we call it a semi-government university. Therefore, we have a government university, which a small number, it is a federal public university, and this carry a strong national mandate for a capacity building and the research in priorities area as a whole, as a whole country.
But some of the emirate, like Dubai, they have their own economy, like a tourist, for example. They need to build as well, um, the universities which build the, uh, the tourist, uh, place, uh, property, for example. Um, a- another places like Al Fujairah, they have a manufacturing there industry. Uh, Sharjah, they have a, like a culture and art, uh, activities therefore you need as well the universities it is provide their needs in their emirate as well.
Uh, in the same time as well, Abu Dhabi, as well as a capital for the whole country as a not Arab emirate. This is, as I said, this is a federal and, and, and semi-government. The second one, it is a private, very important here, it's a private national university. Therefore it is built here, but it is private national university, which are typically teaching intensives in the beginning, but now they have to do a research as well.
This highly market responsive and increasingly expected to demonstrate a research and industry impact as well. Therefore, the federal public and the private, the second one, and the third one, it is a quite unique here Which is the UAE host one of the largest international branch campus, we call it IBC, which is international branch campus.
Like one of, one of the university I was working before, it is a UK university open a branch here. But if you go to see the goal of opening a branch here, different than the home campus in the, in the UK. But the ecosystem in the world with the UK, therefore you have a UK university here, you have Australian university, you have a European university, you have a Asian university, you have a Indian university.
But operating all of this under local regulations, very important, and federal regulation because the Minister of Higher Education, they becoming as a regulations for all the university, whether it is a federal, uh, as a public or, um, semi-government or even the private, and as well the international branch campus.
Therefore they have to work under the umbrella of the, uh, local regulation. Yeah.
Ged Hall:
Adel Ahmed 00:12:09 No, actually it is picking up now.
For example, in, in Egypt, for example, as, um, they, they already open now, it's called, um, uh, some it's called, I think, uh, Knowledge Village, something like that, uh, Knowledge Park, I think, in Egypt, and they accommodate all the international branch campus. But some of them, they are not a fully branch campus. It is like a franchises.
Ged Hall:
Adel Ahmed 00:12:36 Some of them like a franchises. Okay. It's just only because any branch campus in Egypt, they have to have a local, um, investors going with them, and here you can notice here investors. Therefore you can see now the quality will be something about financial incentives more than quality of education, uh, to be honest.
Uh, as well in Saudi, they starting now, uh, um, opening the international branch campus as well. Uh, but Saudi, most of the universities are federal public university.
Ged Hall:
Adel Ahmed 00:13:12 Uh, because as well, if you don't notice as well, and don't forget, Saudi is around 35 millions populations, and all national- Therefore this 30 are the bigger space as well.
Um, in Kuwait because it is so small as well, Qatar exactly the same. I, I believe Qatar, they have only two federal university, and the rest it is, uh, uh, private or the international branch campus. In Oman, uh, they start picking up now for the private university. Even they have only one university as a public, uh, federal university, uh, owned by the government.
Mm. And if you go for the, um, Bahrain, similar story as well. Uh, to be honest, even Morocco as well, as the MENA region as well, uh, is starting now picking up the, uh, the French university as well open a branch here in Morocco. Sure. Or the- So- ... North Africa
Ged Hall:
Is that how we, um- Yeah.
Adel Ahmed:
Ged Hall 00:14:18 yeah. I can
Adel Ahmed:
Ged Hall 00:14:33 Sure. So moving, moving on to think about how research is assessed, um, obviously that's a really strong driver, uh, assessment over any culture.
So what's the, what's the assessment framework like in the UAE?
Adel Ahmed:
We have as well a community engagement. We have a industry connections. We have industrial cooperation as well. All of this, it is a holistic rule. To be honest, so for here in UAE, for example, we have something called the outcome based evaluation framework. Outcome based evaluation framework. Sometimes we call it OBEF, which overseen by the Ministry of Higher Education.
Ministry of Higher Education means that the federal- Mm ... Ministry of Higher Education for the whole universities here. So for every higher education institution in UAE would be assessed by the OBEF, outcome based evaluation. And this outcome based evaluation including everything Including the research activity, including the teaching, including the employability, including the quality, including the faculty-student ratio, including, uh, destination as well, how long the graduate will got a job or a career in the same job, how many they are starting up their own business.
All of this like, um, a KPI, uh, not like REF as said in, in UK, uh, which it is like, uh, uh, bureaucratic or it is like, um... But in OBEF, O-B-E-F, to be honest, it is a continuous, it is system-wide. Every year we have a evaluation. And evaluation what? Evaluation everything. What is particularly interesting here from the, uh, research culture as your podcast, research culture perspective, is that the OBEF, which is Outcome-Based Evaluation, define research outcome very broadly.
Yes, publication, it's one of them. Citation, it's one of them. But the important thing, it is the impact, and this why I told you I go to repeat this word, the impact. The impact of the research in the society, and this called the societal impact. Mm, this is important, and how this research will solve a real-world problem.
You are not doing a research for just the publication. Yes, publication, that's fine, but as long as this publication, it is connected to the real-world problem, to the national agenda, to integrate with the cooperation with the industry, because you cannot do a research for just the sake of research and citation.
No. What is the impact of that? What societal impact? What is the commercialisation as well? How many of this publication you can make it, um, generate income from it? Uh, how many of this research it is funded by the university or funded by the industry as well? That's very important. Industry collaboration.
And one very important here in UAE, to be honest, and not only in UAE, in all MENA region, about student participation in the research. I just today I had, today, this morning, um, international conference, and I was presented by paper, and this paper, it was joined with a master student.
Ged Hall:
Adel Ahmed 00:19:02 And next month I have a conference here in Dubai as well, I joined by two undergraduate student.
Very important to bring the research To the undergraduate and the postgraduate because research, it is one of the capacity building. Doesn't matter you will be in the, in the academia or not because research, scientific research, methodology, collecting data, analysing the data, anywhere once you go to work, you go to do all of this.
Plus as well funding. How much fund you got for your research, and the funding here we have two type of funding. We have internal funding for every university. They put like, uh, uh, bids and every faculty going. Sometime you call it faculty research grant. Therefore you apply for research grant and you got the money.
Sometime you call it exploratory, sometime medium-sized, sometime, um, uh, like comprehensive. But one is very important. Any research projects you apply, you have to bring a student with you, you have to bring a postgraduate with you, you have to bring a, what you call it, a research affiliate. You have to bring as well somebody from another, um, uh, higher education with an international, preferred to be international higher education, and as well how many of those people working with you from the industry.
Very important to bring the industry aspect as well, and one of the very important aspect for the, uh, OBEF, which it is outcome-based, it is IP, intellectual properties. How many intellectual property
Ged Hall:
Adel Ahmed 00:20:56 Yeah. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. Because we believe, not only in my university, for all the region here, what is the purpose of the research? To solve a problem. Therefore, if the research does not solve a real-world problem, it does not need it. We don't need more research publication in a Q1 journal or a Q2 journal or a high ranking.
But who go to read it? Who go to use it? If you-
Ged Hall:
Um, actually improving the, the society, improving the outcomes of people living in those societies as well. So yes, I, I, I can understand that, that being a, a strong desire.
Adel Ahmed:
Ged Hall 00:22:15 Mm.
Adel Ahmed:
I am from accounting and finance background. I'm not talking about just only money. I talk about impact. I talk about societal impact, about the purpose. And if the research you do, you are not train the student, mentor the early career researcher, what's the purpose? Sometime you're doing a research just to mentor the, the early career researcher.
Very important for that. I, I'm not saying, uh, uh, research is just only for applied research. Yes- Mm ... there is a basic research, but this basic research would be the foundation to have a ultimate goal, which it is applied research. Therefore, even the applied research cannot do it without basic research, but you have to have a goal.
What is the ultimate goal of the research? Sure. It is the, like this.
Ged Hall:
Adel Ahmed 00:23:50 Yeah, actually, it is a very important you, you take me now since around 10 years ago, exactly 2016, because I started 2015 as a dean of the College of Business and one of the universities here.
And while I'm doing my role as a dean, I found there is a lack, a lack of capacity building for the faculty member. I found some faculty members, they are good in teaching, but they are not doing research. Some of them, they are good in research, and always coming to me as a dean, "I need to have a release from teaching because I'm doing research."
And I always believe any faculty member, they have to do teaching, they have to do research, they have to do community engagement. Always I call it third, third, third. I'm not dominate some faculty member only to doing a research for the sake of research. No, you have to do research because you have to be part of the community which building the graduate later on And even as well, if you are a teaching and you are focused in teaching, you go to teach theory.
You are not connected to the industry. And the research, once you're doing a research connected with the industry, you will know exactly what you can bring this to the classroom. Very important. And that's why I starting, I am actually, I was the founder of this professional development, uh, unit in, in the university, and it was the, uh, first of kind to have in z- like this in, in the university.
We don't have this before I was the founder. But when I moved there, I found actually my primary focus should be in a capacity building rather than compliance.
Ged Hall:
Adel Ahmed 00:26:02 One of my key priorities was establishing a professional development as a central institutional function, because I was a director of professional development for four colleges, not only business.
We have a school of engineering, a school of nurse, a school of, um, education, a school of social science, a school of pharmacy as well. Therefore, you have to bring all of this interdisciplinary as well. You cannot ask the people doing the research as a silo. No, we need to break the silo. And this is why I said I need to go to establish a central institutional function rather than something as ad hoc.
We built, when I say we, I'm not saying I am myself. No, we as a team come with a common goal and a, a common ground. There is something here, we need to fix it. We need to make sure the faculty member, they are, uh, structured around learning and teaching, around research skills, and community engagement.
Recognising that many colleagues were coming from very diverse academic system. Therefore, why in the engineering faculty they have a good, um, practice on teaching something, why don't you borrow this teaching methodology to, in the, in the science or teaching methodology in the, in the, in the account of finance?
Myself, account of the finance, I can give some, uh, good practice as a community, and this is why I built up what's called the Community of Practice, CoP. Sharing the good practice, whether you are from engineering or pharmacy or, uh, business or social science or education, because in the end of the day We all working together.
We need to make sure we have this. Uh, from the research culture, if we talk about teaching, but in the same time as well from the research culture perspective as well, the emphasis was on, uh, confidence, very important to build the confidence of the people like they don't done any research before. They've been 20 years teaching, teaching, teaching, but they are not doing a research because nobody ask them to do a research.
-:
Capability and the community, community of practice, helping colleague to understand first local expectation while value their international experience. Yes, I am came from UK, therefore you value my international experience, which I can bring it with me. Somebody coming from Canada, they bring their own experience from Canada.
Somebody coming from Egypt, therefore, uh, somebody coming from Algeria, somebody from Morocco. We're, we're at the time around 20 nationality in the same universities. Yeah. And everyone coming from different things. And plus as well, part of the professional development I was building that, uh, to include mentoring early career researcher.
Somebody got a PhD and just only join us. Why not? We, we need those people as a early career researcher as well, and as well supporting the grant writing. The proposal to get a grant, for research grant, you have to give them the, the tools in order to win this, um, grant, uh, writing as well, and creating, as I said before, community of practice.
Aim wasn't not to replicate the UK system, no, at all, but to translate the good practice to the local context. And this why I always believe global thinking and the local acting.
Ged Hall:
I'm also motivated by that kind of impact angle. Um, what would I You know, if I was to move from the UK to the UAE and take up a, a role at, uh, at one of the three different types of universities, uh, in the country, what would I notice? What would I notice are the similarities and what would I notice are the differences in, in the two, uh, in the two environments?
Adel Ahmed:
But here it is good, yes, but in the same time as well, you have to utilise your experience approach to make it localised here for the need as well. Uh, I think expectation around academia integrity will be the same. Um, uh, peer review, it is the same. Publication quality, it is the same. International collaboration are very familiar here, especially in the international branch campus as well-
Intro:
Adel Ahmed 00:32:34 and the globally connected institution. In terms of the different institutions, in UAE, teaching load tend to be heavier, and the research time is more explicitly, um, tied to institutional prioritisation.
Ged Hall:
Adel Ahmed 00:32:54 But after this outcome based, they try now to make a balance-
Ged Hall:
Adel Ahmed 00:33:01 between teaching load and the research as well, as long as you have the outcome based and you achieved your KPI.
And the KPI is not individual. There's the KPI individual, there's a KPI for the program, for you working as a team. KPI as a college, for example, college of business, there is a KPI for college of business. It means they encourage the people here to work together. It's not only isolated doing research.
This is also much closer, approximately, to industry. Very important here, the research. Uh, and as well, one of the key element, it's, uh, how your research provide the recommendation for the policy and the government, uh, decision maker as well. Very important, which can be refreshing for researcher interest in, as you already mentioned, in applied research or impact Driven work, and this is why again I call it impact-driven research.
In terms of the mobility, to be honest, university increasing support this international cooperation. Yes, they have a lot of visiting appointment here. They have a lot of joint project. I doing a lot of work with UK and Australia, and I have around 100 plus, uh, research publication, uh, maybe 60%, uh, published with a joint, uh, researcher as a co-author in different country.
You can see one of my paper, they have somebody from Malaysia, somebody from Indonesia, somebody from Morocco, somebody from Nigeria, somebody from Egypt. Therefore, we have to work together, and this very important here because all the university, um, supporting the international collaboration and joint project as well.
And professional development pathway like we have in the, uh, part of our annual leave, we have there is some annual leave for the professional development itself. Therefore you need to use this annual leave as a professional development for doing a lot. Everyone, they have a couple of days, uh, sometime like five days, um, sometime you have, eh, eight days, sometime 10 days only for a professional development, and this not exist there in UK, to be honest, because it is like now when, when I was there, it is doing a professional development very important because here, as I mentioned, in the UAE you have a 200 nationality, therefore you have to work with a cross-culture, not only a cross-culture, across discipline, and this what's called the interdisciplinary and applied context.
Therefore here, to be honest, it's a lot of work in the interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary as well. I hope you got the, the, the research culture here. If the people would like to move here, they have to accept different culture. They have to work with o- other people. They have to work with industry collaboration.
They have to work with colleague, not in isolation. We here, we break the silo. We break the silo in order to work as a team. Yeah. And this is why I said we.
Ged Hall:
Adel Ahmed 00:36:34 I. We as a
team.
Ged Hall:
Adel Ahmed 00:36:51 Uh, generally Uh, I'm not going to use just only the buzzword sustainability, but really first to have a sustainable research culture means you have the environment which supporting the research, and it's why you need to have a sustainable research culture. You need to have the, the administrations like the president and the dean and all the, the people in the higher, uh, administrations, you need to support the research as well.
You need to have the culture of research. It is a cult- country culture, holistic culture. And this why the Minister of Higher Education put priorities as outcome-based. One of them it is a research. It's not just increasing the output, and this is very important. And this, if you notice here, this is called outcome-based, not output-based.
Because output is not talking about number, how many paper you published. That is not the outcome, but what's the impact of this paper you published? If you publish only one paper, but you have a outcome, the helping the industry, the, um, mentoring a, a undergraduate student to do a good research. Therefore, it's very important to have a sustainable research culture, not just increasing the output but the outcome.
But ensuring as well researcher have the support, as I mentioned, and the time, and the very important, the wellbeing needed to thrive. Not only survive, but to thrive as well. Second, so for first sustainable research culture. Second is a deeper integration with the industry and society, particularly around sustainability, climate action, digital transformation, ethical investment, ethical finance.
For example, we are here in UAE, there's a 38 university come together, just only one goal. It's called the climate action. And 38 university making a network together for the climate action. It's called, uh, University Climate Network, UCN. Very important. This is bring as well how we can work together.
Therefore, it is not only abstract research theme in the region But they are urgent policy priorities as well. So for first, sustainable research. Second, deep integration with industry and society. Third, talent development and retention. Building a long-term research career. Strengthening, for example, doctoral education.
Embedding the student into the research ecosystem early across the MENA region. More broadly, the challenge will be balancing between global competitiveness with the local relevance. And this is why I said before, thinking globally but acting locally. And this is why, if you notice as well, the, for example, the international ranking institution like QS and Time Higher Education, THE, they're doing now a ranking for the Arab University, for the MENA University, for the Asia University, for the Global South, because they recognised you cannot judge the academia in terms of research in the Global South with the same criteria and the same KPI in the Global North.
Because this is like, as I said before, it is inherited. Like you cannot compare, for example, University of Cairo, University of Alexandra with Oxford. And this is why you cannot put it in the global ranking. And this is why the QS is doing now a global ranking and as well they have a regional ranking as well.
Why? Because you need to recognise there is a local relevance, but in the same time, they have a global competitiveness as well with that. I hope this will give you the indication about the pillars of successful or successful research, which start with sustainable research culture, deep integration with industry and society, talent development with the student, and challenging, which it is balancing between the global and the local need as well.
Ged Hall:
Now, would you like to say goodbye to them and offer them any final thoughts?
Adel Ahmed:
And I would like to thank the listener as well, and I hope these conversations has helped demystify the higher education and the research culture in the UAE and in the wider MENA region. And to be honest, my final thought would be that research cultur- culture is not something you import. You cannot import it, but it's something you have to design intentionally.
You cannot say you got the research culture in UK, I can import it, and I bring it here in UAE, or inherit it. No, it is something you and me and all the people working in the higher education intentionally design, design to the needs, then design to the priorities for which country you are serving. And plus as well, as a global citizen, you have to think globally, and this is very important.
That's a lot the different region can learn from one another. No one say, "I have a priorities," or, "I have a superiority than other." No, we all together, and these conversations are becoming more important than ever. So I'd like to thank you for creating the space for this dialogue, and it has been a real, real pleasure to reconnect again and try to be part of that team as a global team- to support each other.
Thank you very much, Ged.
Intro:
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