The UAE has over 70 accredited private and public higher education institutions, some of which are represented in global university ratings. The UAE university representation in international ratings has been steadily increasing - 6 universities in 2017, 12 universities in 2024.
However, according to UAE Minister of Education Dr Hasan Alhashimi, existing international ratings are clearly unable to meet the needs of the national higher education system for external comparable assessment. Firstly, international ratings are often poorly aligned with the countrys vision and development objectives. Secondly, position of any university in global rantings is highly dependent on its long-term reputation. Thus, countries with developing systems of higher education find themselves in a losing position. In addition, most UAE universities are not represented in global ratings. Thus, the UAEs higher education authorities have to establish a comprehensive public system of assessment and quality assurance to improve higher education quality in the country and ensure an appropriate level of higher education transparency and accountability.
In 2017-2022 UAE has already developed a national classification system for higher education organisations, audited by chief operators of international university ratings.
Main sources of information to assess UAE universities: centralised higher education database, scientometric systems (SciVal/Scopus), alumni survey (career tracks and labour market demand), student survey, employer survey (satisfaction with university graduates). Two different indicator models are used for main clusters of the country’s universities: research universities with masters and doctoral programmes in addition to bachelors degrees, and no-research universities with exclusively bachelors degree programmes. The assessment system excludes universities without their own bachelor’s programmes (only with masters and postgraduate programmes), newly established universities (less than 5 years old and/or with less than 3 graduation courses), universities with incomplete trial period, and universities with revoked licences.
The indicator model includes four major groups (integral factors):
- Research and innovations (group weight for research universities – 35%, non-research universities are not considered):
- Field weighted citation impact of scientific publications
- Share of publications in 25% of the most cited journals
- Number of publications per full-time faculty member
- Number of faculty members with doctoral degrees
- External research income per faculty member
- Research budget share
- Number of start-ups and spin-off companies set by faculty members
- Number of patent applications
- Number of registered patents
- Teaching process and student life (group weight for research universities - 35%, for non-research universities - 45%), 16 indicators:
- Share of faculty members with at least Ph.D degree
- Students to faculty staff ratio
- Average group size
- Acceptance rate
- Conversion rate
- Percentage of students completing the course
- Percentage of students continuing their studies after the first year of education
- Percentage of graduates
- Overall student satisfaction and their willingness to recommend their university to others
- Student satisfaction with education process
- Student satisfaction by contacts with administration and faculty staff
- Student satisfaction with university services
- Level of confidence to Commission for academic accreditation
- Share of programmes with international accreditation
- Share of faculty staff attracted from top-200 universities
- Inclusion in QS IUR (not used to assess non-research universities)
- Employability and Relevance (group weight for research universities – 20%, non–research universities - 45%), 7 indicators:
- Share of graduates who have found a job
- Employer satisfaction with graduates
- Students to full-time employment service staff ratio
- Satisfaction of former graduates with skills, demanded in the 21st century, acquired at their university
- Student satisfaction with quality and efficiency of university employment services
- Student satisfaction with internships
- Internationalization (weight for both clusters is 10%)
- Number of students arrived as part of academic exchange programs
- Number of students left as part of academic exchange programs
- Number of faculty staff attracted from universities, listed in the top-200 international ratings
- Number of faculty staff left to teach at universities, listed in the top-200 international ratings
- Joint programs with universities, listed in from the top-200 international ratings
- Share of joint publications as part of partner research projects with universities, listed in the top-200 international ratings (not applicable for non-research universities).
According to assessment results, any university may be included into one of four groups (rating classes):
- University demonstrates outstanding results in all KPIs included in the rating model
- University demonstrates good results in all KPIs included in the rating model
- University demonstrates satisfactory results
- University results meet minimum requirements for accreditation.