Making universities more agile

The skills agenda remains an important factor for universities and students. Where have those skills changed, and how is your university leading the conversation?

The fundamental change is that we can no longer separate technical skills from human skills. Employers need both.

AI, data, cybersecurity, automation and digital fluency are becoming increasingly important, but so are adaptability, communication, critical thinking, teamwork, leadership, creativity and problem-solving. At AURAK, we therefore reviewed our academic portfolio very systematically. We have upgraded programs, redesigned curricula and introduced new concentrations around areas such as cybersecurity, FinTech, industrial engineering, medical laboratory technology, entrepreneurship, aviation and AI-related disciplines.

We have also moved professional credentials closer to the degree. More than 200 industry-recognized micro-credentials and certifications from organizations including AWS, IBM, Google, PMI, Cisco and others have been mapped into our academic ecosystem. This gives students opportunities to graduate with a degree and evidence of specific professional competencies.

Applied learning is equally important. We are strengthening internships, projects, capstones, industry co-delivery and authentic assessment because skills are developed through practice, rather than through content alone.

This academic year we have taken another important step through AURAK Augmented Intelligence. The concept is deliberately broader than artificial intelligence. It is about combining human intelligence and artificial intelligence.

We want our students and colleagues to learn how to use AI as an everyday intellectual and professional partner while retaining human judgment, creativity, ethics, empathy and accountability. AI should augment human capability rather than diminish it.

The same principle applies across the University. We are integrating AI into teaching, research, administrative processes and decision-making, while preparing our faculty to redesign pedagogy and assessment for an AI-enabled environment. Our faculty development agenda already includes AI-enabled teaching, assessment redesign, academic integrity and the use of AI in research.

And our responsibility goes beyond our campus. Through Augmented Intelligence, we also want to help disseminate responsible AI capability across industry, government and the wider community, creating societal impact.

The key message is that the future graduate needs a combination of disciplinary depth, digital and AI fluency, professional credentials and distinctly human capabilities. The competitive advantage will come from knowing how to combine them.

What is a challenge in your region that universities alone cannot solve, and what are the key partnership areas that can?

One of the major challenges is the speed at which the economy and the workplace are changing compared with the traditional speed of curriculum development.

No university can solve the skills gap or workforce-readiness challenge in isolation because universities do not own the labour market. Industry knows where technologies, occupations and business models are moving; government understands national development priorities; communities understand their emerging social needs; universities bring education, research and intellectual capability.

The solution, therefore, is an ecosystem based on co-ownership.

I use the word co-ownership deliberately. Partnership cannot mean inviting an employer once a year to comment on a program that the university has already designed. Industry and community stakeholders should help us identify emerging skills, review curricula, contribute to courses, provide real projects and internships, participate in research, assess outcomes and help us continuously improve.

At AURAK, we have restructured our industry advisory councils across our schools, bringing senior industry leaders directly into our academic ecosystem. Nineteen new industry leaders were brought into these councils, alongside collaborations spanning technology, infrastructure, energy, government and other sectors.

We are increasingly connecting industry to the classroom through certifications, guest practitioners, co-delivered courses, capstones, internships and applied research.

The same principle applies to the community. Societal impact requires universities to listen to their communities, understand local challenges and use their knowledge and research capability to address them.

Ultimately, I would like the boundaries between university, industry and community to become increasingly permeable.

The key message is that the future university should move from industry consultation to industry and community co-ownership of the educational journey.

Where are the greatest opportunities for Arab region universities, and how can institutions take advantage of them?

I see four major opportunities, and they are closely connected.

The first is the region’s extraordinary human-capital opportunity. In the wider MENA region, nearly 300 million young people are projected to enter the labour market over the next 25 years. That creates an enormous responsibility for education systems, but also a tremendous opportunity for universities that can connect education meaningfully to employment, entrepreneurship and economic development.

The second is the pace of skills transformation in our region. Current international evidence indicates that the proportion of skills expected to change in the Middle East and North Africa is particularly significant. In the UAE, employers increasingly identify technological literacy, AI and big data, cybersecurity, leadership and social influence as important capabilities. This means Arab universities have an opportunity to become major engines of upskilling, reskilling and lifelong learning, rather than seeing education as something that ends with a bachelor’s or master’s degree.

The third is AI. It can allow the region to leap forward. The opportunity is larger than producing AI specialists. We need doctors, engineers, architects, business leaders, scientists and public servants who know how to work effectively and responsibly with AI. This is precisely the thinking behind our AURAK Augmented Intelligence initiative.

The fourth is regional and international mobility. Student mobility in the Arab region is already significant, and the evolving regional recognition framework creates further opportunities for qualification recognition, joint programs, academic cooperation and mobility. Universities should therefore think more boldly about regional mobility, joint degrees, credit transfer, research networks, shared digital learning and cross-border academic partnerships.

There is also an enormous opportunity for Arab universities to become producers of solutions rather than primarily consumers of knowledge. Our region faces distinctive challenges in water, energy, food security, climate adaptation, smart cities, healthcare, mobility and digital transformation. These can become living laboratories for globally relevant research.

This aligns strongly with our own AURAK strategy: market-responsive programs, applied and experiential learning, industry integration, technological innovation, international partnerships and research directed toward local and global problems.

The key message is that the Arab region has the opportunity to move from importing educational models and technologies to becoming a global laboratory for talent, innovation, AI-enabled learning and solutions to real societal challenges.

If you could set the direction for all of higher education, what is the one area you would direct the sector towards?

If I had to choose one, it would be adaptability.

Higher education has historically been built around stability: programs, curricula, structures and qualifications designed to last for long periods. The environment around us now changes much faster than that.

Technology, AI, employment, geopolitics, sustainability and student expectations are continuously reshaping what graduates need. Universities therefore need the institutional agility to respond without compromising academic rigour or quality.

Adaptability means being able to review a curriculum continuously, introduce new learning rapidly, embed micro-credentials, work with industry, use data intelligently, redesign assessment and create flexible pathways for lifelong learners.

It also means preparing students to be adaptable. The most valuable thing we can give a graduate is not simply knowledge for their first job. It is the ability to continue learning, unlearning and relearning throughout a career.

This is why institutional agility is one of the central aspirations of our strategy. We explicitly connect digital transformation, data-driven decision-making, operational excellence and continuous improvement.

And Augmented Intelligence fits naturally within that direction. Universities should neither resist AI nor surrender educational judgment to it. We need institutions capable of absorbing technological disruption, experimenting responsibly and continually redefining where human intelligence creates the greatest value.

Ultimately, relevance is never permanent. A university remains relevant only if it possesses the capacity to renew itself.

The key message is that if I could set one direction for higher education, it would be to build universities that are institutionally agile and graduates who are intellectually adaptable. In a world of continuous disruption, the ability to learn and reinvent ourselves may become our most important educational outcome.