UCL’s Dubai plan prompts debates over free speech and academic independence
A premier UK university is aiming to resume its cross-border education initiatives by launching a healthcare leadership training centre in Dubai, several years after it shut down its last overseas campus. The proposal, recently given the green light by UCL’s governing council, envisions an education centre in Dubai that will train healthcare managers and executives. Yet, members of the university’s academic board have voiced worries about how scholars’ human rights will be safeguarded in a country with stringent blasphemy laws.
Operated by the UCL Global Business School for Health, the envisaged postgraduate education centre is described as a compact, specialised hub for training in healthcare leadership and management for practicing health professionals.
“This is not a broad expansion of the university; it is a targeted, clearly defined offering in postgraduate and executive education delivered by the school and fully governed, quality‑assured, and awarded from London,” Nora Colton, the founding director of the school, told Times Higher Education.
“This initiative builds on the school’s existing international activities and supports its aim to improve health outcomes globally,” Colton, a professor of leadership and management for healthcare, added. She noted that “staff already work internationally through research, teaching, conferences, and partnerships, and the hub will follow the same prudent approach to collaboration and risk management.”
While UCL has emphasised the limited scope of the Middle Eastern outpost, this step into overseas education marks a change in its international engagement. The university ended its branch campus strategy in 2015 after its global engagement framework indicated a focus on educating students in London.
Having once branded itself as “London’s Global University” in the early 2000s, UCL established campuses in Australia and Qatar, but its Adelaide campus closed in 2017 due to low enrolment, and its Doha centre shut in 2020. The university also wound down a foundation year program run in Kazakhstan in 2015.
UCL’s re-entry into international teaching has sparked worries among staff about how the Bloomsbury campus will safeguard scholars’ academic freedom in Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates, where Islam is the state religion.
“UCL has long prided itself on being Britain’s ‘godless college,’ so re‑entering a country with strict blasphemy laws hasn’t been universally welcomed,” one UCL professor told Times Higher Education, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Another UCL professor told THE that staff are anxious about how academics hired locally would be protected in free-speech matters. “Most of the hires would be local—likely Qatari—and we can’t guarantee them the same protections as visiting faculty,” they explained, noting that similar concerns had been raised by UCL’s academic board earlier this month.
On the teaching model, Colton said: “Academic freedom, equity, and staff and student welfare are embedded in the project through robust UCL governance, ongoing risk monitoring, and values‑based exit provisions. This ensures the initiative, aligned with UCL’s mission to improve global health through education, remains under full institutional oversight.
“Teaching staff will stay London-based, with delivery in short blocks or online on an opt‑in basis. Any locally recruited roles will be governed by terms aligned with UCL’s standards and policies,” she added, noting that the project will now proceed to the next stage of regulatory review with Dubai’s Knowledge and Human Development Authority.
Contact: jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com
