Manchester and the UAE have strong links.Let’s Improve Academics

One of the many things the pandemic has taught us is that there is no real substitute for personal touch. So my recent visit to the UAE with a team from Manchester University where I work for the first time is especially important. The timing means I can celebrate the 15th anniversary of our hugely successful Middle East Centre in Dubai, which supports working professionals and we hope to expand its role in research and business engagement.

The UAE may now be familiar to people around the world. But when it comes to this country, seeing is believing. It’s a sensory experience of tangible energy, world-class cities and familiar landmarks – you’ll soon describe it in superlatives.

However, the UAE, like my university, is not just an entity. After three days of intense meetings with high-level figures in government, academia and business, including many of our alumni, they left a lasting impression: enthusiasm and openness, optimism for the future, awareness of culture and Respect for tradition and a genuine interest in our institution.

This visit confirmed our belief that there are many opportunities for further collaboration with UAE organisations in our three strategic pillars: Teaching/Learning, Research and Social Responsibility. These are areas of strong mutual interest with the UAE. Football may be important, but Manchester’s UAE link goes way beyond that!

Our partnership model means we prefer to work with organisations and universities in the UAE and build relationships with the support of our Middle East Centre. This includes social responsibility, which has been strongly embraced by the Centre and the student and alumni community. I saw this firsthand when planting young mangroves at Dubai Cares and Emirates Marine Environment Group. Integrating social responsibility into the academic and corporate sectors can make a real difference, and we can all contribute.

One area of ​​opportunity discussed at nearly every meeting was the potential to develop research and innovation partnerships in the UAE, with current projects considered high-quality but still relatively small. Manchester’s global reputation is built on our innovation and research impact, so collaboration in mutually important areas such as environmental sustainability, clean water, artificial intelligence and technology looks very promising.

The university already has strong links with the UAE. This is illustrated by our collaboration and partnership in graphene, the revolutionary advanced material first isolated in Manchester and we are now seeing its use accelerating. Today, we have the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (supported by Masdar) and the Masdar Institute on campus. We are also building a deeper relationship with Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi around the application and business development of this potentially world-changing innovation.

Graphene also plays a vital role in sparking and promoting interest in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, math) among younger generations of students, both women and men. In my experience, people’s passions and career paths are often inspired by teachers, role models, interviews, and stories.

The UAE has all these inspiring elements to help realize its vision of a knowledge society. We see the work of Khalifa University as a beacon for STEM. In particular, I would like to see more women pursuing these topics in general. In the UK, we are still underrepresented, although our engineering department (the largest in the country) is headed by a woman. Two important factors that help encourage women’s interest in STEM are successful role models and greater career flexibility. I have always supported goals aimed at making this happen and placing young women in senior positions if they are ready, capable and well supported. The confidence and ambition of the Emirati women I met was impressive.

Science matters, and I served for 10 years on the UK Prime Minister’s Committee on Science and Technology, which advises policy on a wide range of issues. Half of the council members are successful women—all great role models. But we also discussed art and creativity, and we should not forget the real importance of the humanities, creative activity, industry and social sciences. At the University, we are passionate supporters of creativity and have creative writing centres, art galleries, museums and music and theatre performance spaces. This is what makes us human and therefore important to all societies.

I see a very clear affinity between the University of Manchester and the UAE. Manchester was at the heart of the first industrial revolution and the UAE was the enabler of Industry 4.0. The UAE has ambitions to become a knowledge society, and universities can support this through research and by becoming innovation factories, while never forgetting the unique role of universities in discovery.

The job of the University Innovation Factory is to take ideas and support and encourage our staff and students to develop them. Our new Innovation District (ID Manchester) represents a £1.5 billion investment commitment to attract innovative companies and powerful entrepreneurs to join us as innovation partners. We hope this will also benefit the UAE. I am already looking forward to my next visit.

Posted: October 25, 2022 9:00 am