QS: What is your university’s vision and how is its mission and actions unique within the region?

Our vision is to be a university that transforms learners into leaders, grounded in innovation, research, and community impact. Within the Gulf region, many institutions pursue excellence, but what sets us apart is our holistic approach: we connect access with aspiration. From our inception, we pioneered as the first fully private college in Oman, and today, as we transition towards university status, we integrate global standards with local relevance.

Our mission embraces not only academic rigor but also social responsibility. We embed Oman Vision 2040 within our curriculum, innovation ecosystem, and research agenda, ensuring that students graduate with the intellectual skills and moral compass to shape the future. Our distinctiveness lies in combining international academic partnerships with deeply rooted cultural values, positioning us as both global in reach and local in soul.

QS: What skills and values does society need to succeed and why, and how is your university addressing those skills and values?

Success in the 21st century requires more than technical knowledge. Our societies need critical thinking, creativity, resilience, empathy, and ethical leadership. In a region navigating economic diversification, climate transition, and digital transformation, these competencies are indispensable. We cultivate them by embedding problem-solving and design-thinking into our programs; by promoting entrepreneurship and innovation hubs; and by offering real-world experiential learning with industry and government partners.

Equally, we instill values of integrity, inclusivity, and civic responsibility, ensuring our graduates can thrive not only as professionals but also as citizens committed to community development. Initiatives such as our Innovation X Hub and Sustainability Center provide students with opportunities to experiment, fail, learn, and ultimately succeed building a mindset that is adaptive, and values driven.

QS: Where are the biggest opportunities for growth in higher education and social advancement in your region?

The Gulf and wider Arab region stand at a unique inflection point. The greatest opportunities lie in knowledge-based economies, digital transformation, and sustainability. As governments shift away from oil dependency, higher education can become the engine of innovation, producing skilled professionals who drive diversification in fields such as artificial intelligence, fintech, green energy, aerospace, and logistics. Equally important is social advancement through inclusive access to education—particularly for women, rural communities, and working professionals. By fostering research ecosystems, strengthening university-industry linkages, and aligning curricula with national strategies, we can ensure that higher education becomes not just a system of credentials, but a catalyst for human development and societal resilience.

QS: If you could shape higher education into one keyway to make it better, where would you focus and why?

If I had the power to reshape higher education, I would focus on bridging the gap between academia and society. Too often, universities operate in isolation, with research confined to journals and classrooms disconnected from real-world challenges. My focus would be to make higher education more applied, entrepreneurial, and community centered.

This means aligning curricula with societal needs, creating pathways for lifelong learning, and designing research agendas that address pressing local and global challenges from climate adaptation to social equity. By doing so, higher education becomes not only a space for intellectual growth but a direct contributor to social well-being and economic progress.

QS: What are you most hopeful for or excited about in the future?

I am deeply hopeful about the power of the youth. This generation of learners is more globally connected, technologically savvy, and socially conscious than ever before. I am excited about the possibility of them leading transformative change not only in their careers but in how they shape societies.

With the rise of artificial intelligence, renewable energy, and cross-cultural collaborations, I see higher education becoming a bridge to a more sustainable and inclusive world. In our context, I am particularly hopeful that our graduates will carry forward Oman’s legacy of openness, resilience, and innovation, serving as ambassadors of knowledge who make a difference locally, regionally, and globally.