Beyond recruitment

Historically, the sector has measured international success through “visible and easy to quantify” metrics such as enrolment counts and MoU tallies, which, according to Marmolejo, say little about the depth of actual engagement.

The real opportunity of the hub model lies in its capacity to shift the focus from simple recruitment to regional economic integration. At Qatar’s Education City, for example, Marmolejo highlights how a formal cross-registration system lets students take courses across eight different international universities, creating a collaborative, multi-institutional ecosystem.

Similarly, Professor Fernandes highlights how Middlesex University Dubai’s proximity to the city’s commercial and technology clusters embeds employer engagement directly into the curriculum through joint industry projects and internships.

Professor McGregor offers a parallel example from Heriot-Watt’s experience in Dubai, where the university’s position inside the region’s wider innovation ecosystem has translated into applied, cross-sector research other than classroom theory alone. She points to her university’s ties with the Dubai Future Foundation on a subsea robotics project as evidence of how “universities can work alongside innovation partners to address complex issues such as water resilience”.

The university’s sustainability and renewable-energy work - done in partnership with industry on the transition to Net Zero, alongside engagement with organisations in engineering, robotics and emerging technologies - gives students and academics, in her words, direct “exposure to real-world challenges”.

Yet, Professor Ziguras takes a more incremental view of this transition. While countries like Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore have successfully embedded international branch campuses into their local economies over two decades, he notes that newer players like India are still in “the very early stages” of linking international education to broader national development.

What makes a hub last

Creating a hub is easier than sustaining one, and the factors that allow these ecosystems to survive remain highly debated.

While long-term commitment matters, what ultimately determines success differs. Marmolejo emphasises national strategy, warning that hubs conceived merely as “transactional ventures” to generate revenue face limited long-term prospects. Professor Fernandes points to regulatory certainty, quality assurance and aligning infrastructure with “genuine demand” from local labour markets. By contrast, Professor Ziguras argues that broader liveability factors such as local housing, transport and migration policy may ultimately prove more decisive.

Successful hubs, says Professor McGregor, are “built on a shared vision, strong partnerships and a commitment to creating an environment where universities can thrive over the long term”.

“The size of the market will be a consideration, but even more important will be how much the potential host country is committed to higher education. Factors such as aligning national priorities, investing in infrastructure, access to talent, research opportunities and meaningful connections with industry contribute heavily to the growth of purpose-built hubs,” she tells QS Insights.

She points to the UAE’s own long-range planning: government priorities such as the UAE’s 2031 vision, which places significant weight on education, have given universities in Dubai “the confidence to invest, grow and make a meaningful contribution to the country’s future” - a stability she attributes as much to regulatory consistency as to the physical infrastructure of the hub itself.

Professor Ziguras points to policy risks, noting that restrictive immigration rules frequently “undercut” the growth strategies of hub agencies. Without post-study work rights and visa security for academic staff, hubs struggle to compete with traditional study destinations.

Resilience also depends on how students experience these shared environments. The 2026 University of Bath study says that while students were highly satisfied with hub life, two-thirds would still prefer a traditional, standalone campus - a psychological preference that hubs must work harder to overcome.

For Marmolejo, multi-institutional hubs fail when they act merely as “real estate developments” where universities operate in parallel. True resilience, he argues, requires institutions to view themselves as “collaborators, not competitors” to generate collective regional impact.

Professor Ziguras remains skeptical of this cooperative ideal, warning that co-located universities often end up in direct competition. An example of landlord-tenant dynamics that can restrict an institution's growth is the University of Southampton’s decision to leave Malaysia’s EduCity to build independently - following constraints imposed by the hub's "no-duplicate-programme" policy. For Professor Ziguras, durability hinges less on the hub structure itself than on whether a campus builds “deeper links into the local community”.

The next phase

Looking ahead, integration, not scale, is likely to be the defining variable of this new geography. Marmolejo expects the next phase of internationalisation to be judged by human capital development besides raw enrolment. Professor Fernandes points to GIFT City’s tight, sectoral focus on financial services and STEM as a promising, if still unproven, example of this targeted approach.

Professor McGregor expects host-government commitment, not market size, to be the deciding factor in where institutions build next.

Professor Ziguras, however, urges caution regarding the novelty of these models, suggesting that emerging hubs have less to invent than to learn from established ecosystems in Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh City and Singapore, which succeeded by embedding themselves in, rather than beside, their host cities.

The winners won’t be the countries with the most hubs, but those that turn them into real ecosystems - not just campuses.