The challenges of building capacity in research

Most universities around the world seek to attract and retain scholars who are productive in research. Elite institutions are distinguished by the success of faculty who produce important and published research. Those areas of the world building capacity through higher education face an uphill fight in cultivating a stable faculty, a dynamic documented by a research study that found 91% of academics in Arab nations want to work someplace other than where they are, with Europe and the U.S. being the most desirable destinations. The assessment of researcher opinions indicated that advancing in their discipline and conducting more sophisticated research was the top reason for wanting to work outside the Arab world with better research facilities, academic freedom, better salary, and escaping bureaucracy also identified by significant percentages of those responding to the survey.

While the motivations of Arab nation researchers is understandable, leaving for European and U.S. universities undermines the fight to nurture more robust universities throughout the world. Might it not benefit Europe and the U.S. to find ways to keep Arab researchers in the MENA region? Branch campuses is one way to do this with Education City in Qatar being one of the most convincing examples.