UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM HIRES KEY LEADERS FOR DUBAI CAMPUS
First ‘top 100’ university from Britain to come to UAE brings senior administrators to keep standards high
The University of Birmingham Dubai, the first British “top 100” university scheduled to open in the UAE, has appointed two senior academic leaders as it gets ready to open a permanent campus in 2020.
The university has named Glyn Watson as its inaugural provost. Mr Watson, who holds the position of interim pro vice chancellor and head of the College of Social Sciences at the home campus, will take up the post in April.
Ben Bailey has been appointed director of campus operations after working as director of student services at the university’s UK campus.
The University of Birmingham recently placed 84th in the QS World University Rankings 2018, making it one of the leading universities in the world. It placed 86th for graduate employability.
The employment of two top officials from the main UK campus as lead administrators at the university’s first international branch in Dubai was strictly by design. The university hopes to emulate its UK success abroad, said Mr Bailey.
“We will have key leads who are existing University of Birmingham employees, like myself,” he said. “We are going to supplement that by flying in academic staff so people will be taught here by the same people as students in the UK, while we also build our in-country academic base.”
The new campus is not a separate entity from the main university, Mr Bailey said. It is being funded and governed by the University of Birmingham.
“We want to offer a wide range of subjects for a wide range of disciplines,” Mr Watson said. “We expect the subjects, certainly for the first few years, to be exactly the same degree programmes that you would get if you were studying at the University of Birmingham.”
Another similarity between the campuses is their degree certification. Students who graduate from the University of Birmingham Dubai will be issued certificates from the University of Birmingham.
One big difference, however, will be the campus. While the University of Birmingham is a century-old, red brick institution with 30,000 students and 350 undergraduate programmes, the Dubai branch will have a capacity of about 4,500 students when opens.
But that difference in size would probably be a draw for many students, Mr Bailey said. “Different types of students are looking for a different kind of experience.”
Until the permanent campus opens, students who enrol at the University of Birmingham Dubai will attend classes at a building in Academic City.
Officials said they expected to enrol about 300 students across the four undergraduate and three postgraduate courses available from September.
“We are going to start with some of the subjects we think are likely to have the strongest resonance with people who have a strong career focus,” Mr Watson said.
These include business management, computer science, economics and mechanical engineering.
Each full-time course is three years long and can be taken with an integrated foundation year. Postgraduate courses are being offered in computer science and international business.
Recently, in response to the education needs of the emirate, the university added a oneyear postgraduate certificate of education programme.
More courses will be added, Mr Watson said.
“For the Dubai campus to be successful, it very much has to feed into broader national agendas and they’re not just teaching agendas, but also research agendas,” he said.
“That’s the kind of unique selling point of Birmingham coming to Dubai. We will be the first research-intensive Russel Group university with a physical presence in Dubai and, for that to work for us and I think for Dubai, we have to be meshed with the life of Dubai.
“We have to reflect the priorities of Dubai.”
All students who register by the end of next month will be offered a 5 per cent discount. Scholarships are also available.
For the Dubai campus to be successful, it very much has to feed into national agendas