Internationalising Higher Education

The Gulf States, with Saudi Arabia and Qatar in the lead, are attaching a high priority to developing their research capacity as a key component of their strategy to invest today's wealth from oil and gas to ensure their future prosperity as knowledge economies. Although the region is starting from a very low base, the projected time scale is very short. Saudi Arabia, for example, aims to be the leading country in Asia in science, technology and innovation by 2020, despite the fact that there is currently next-to-no research culture and the broader public does not understand the role of research. Public universities have traditionally had primarily a teaching mission; only one university is newly represented in the Shanghai Jiao Tong University world rankings 401-500 range. There is an urgent need for highly skilled human resources - particularly if the initial
momentum is to be maintained among nationals. This session will review and discuss the challenges that the region faces in developing world-class research, the various national and university policies to address these challenges, and the role of international links in developing research capacity