Qatar Foundation Aims At Making Learning A Personalised Experience For Its Students

(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Emphasising to build a truly personalised learning experience for the students of the Education City in the years to come and highlighting that about 40% of the research papers published in Qatar are by Qatar Foundation scholars and 50% of the patents achieved in the country are by QF researchers, Francisco Marmolejo, president of Higher Education at QF, in conversation with Faisal Abdulhameed al- Mudahka, Editor in Chief, Gulf Times noted that the Education City is well poised to transform the teaching learning ecosystem in a big way, paving way for more innovation and development.
In this exclusive interview, Marmolejo underlined that Education City is a melting pot of cultures with students from most parts of the globe and is helping the country in its path to realising the vision of becoming a knowledge based economy. The academic highlighted the sojourn of the Education City from the infant stages as well as the last three decades and how this journey is transforming the country to greater heights. The academic also spoke about the decision of the Board of Texas A& M University to pull out of the QF network of universities and how it has been well managed to help the students continue their studies seamlessly and build up a new idea of Multiversity Nest'. He also stressed that Qatar Foundation is positioned to embrace the evolving dynamics of the modern times and is set to drive and lead Qatar from the front providing new dimensions to knowledge and lifelong learning.
Here are the excerpts from the interview.
1: What have been the contributions of QF's Education City to develop the nation on its path to a knowledge based economy?
Qatar Foundation ( QF) has played a key role in fulfilling the mandate and the very legitimate aspiration that Qatar has to transition into a vibrant and very dynamic knowledge-based economy and society. To kick start the process, some 25 years ago, we have had the first university coming here- VCUarts Qatar. At that time, the national capacity to enable the advancement of human talent was confined to just one university in the country, Qatar University. I think the vision that Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Qatar Foundation had, sort of leapfrogged, bringing the best from the world, analysing the strategic sectors of development Qatar needed to have the best education of the world, but at the same time, locally connected. It resulted in this array of universities that we have today, which has no comparison in other parts of the world. Now, we have the largest, top-level, highly ranked concentration of universities in any single place. That's a unique proposition and a truly unique campus hich we refer to as blade-->

2: As an international academic expert, how would you compare the Education City with similar campuses and international universities? What are the unique strong points of EC?
I have been privileged to see in action higher education systems in more than a hundred countries. In those that I have seen, there is nothing that you can find which combines not only a combination of great universities, but each of them working in a particular discipline, highly connected to the needs of the development of the country producing engineers, doctors, computer scientists, business people among others.
Students at QF not only have the best education in the world, but also a very, multidimensional experience, and a stronger connection to the community. Therefore, we have this idea of having the three pillars of education, research, and community development as enablers of unlocking the human potential of individuals. Moreover, there is a multiplier effect, because QF has been developed for the needs of Qatar but it has resulted in a significant education hub for the region, and the world. Currently, we have students from more than 120 countries, a very unique ecosystem that enables the unlocking of that human potential of individuals. So we believe that we need to nurture the best possible education, preparing people for the profession, preparing people for life, for society, for work, to become truly committed citizens here in Qatar, or any part of the blade-->

3: What role does Qatar Foundation play in the public diplomacy vision of Qatar, and how it is very important?
Honestly, I don't see that as a goal, but I might say it has a very nice consequence. First of all, a student who has the opportunity to be part of our community here at Education City, because the type of education that is received and because of the holistic sort of preparation, will become that agent of transformation. And also, we want them to be the best ambassadors of life and society in Qatar and beyond.
Let me give you one example. We had the first student from Brazil at Northwestern University, about, I believe, eight years ago. Today, the largest concentration of students from Latin America in Northwestern University comes from Brazil. The same with students from Central Asian countries in other universities in Education City. Education is the best means towards openness of perspective, towards respect of different cultures, towards the capacity to develop what I refer to as the otherness, the ability to see others without creating stereotypes, without preconceived definitions of others. And that's where we are preparing people here at Qatar Foundation.
Personally speaking, the first time, I came to Qatar was to attend a World Innovation Summit for Education conference. At that time, I was working at the World Bank and I remember, speaking to myself about Qatar, and of course, you come up with all these preconceived ideas of a place. But once I have seen and understood the country, I was so positively impressed of such a great amazing development. I never imagined that someday I would be part of such a phenomenal story.
4: With Texas A&M University in Qatar set to wind up its activities sometime soon, do you plan for the branch campus of any other universities ? What are the efforts to make Education City the most prominent education hub in the region and beyond?
The ecosystem of our institutions here is very dynamic. In the past, we had, for instance, University College London, there was a cycle and it ended and then they made the transition out of QF ecosystem. In the case of Texas A&M, there was a decision made by the board of Texas A&M University System, not the university but the system, to depart from the partnership by the year 2028. And even though we don't agree with that decision, at the end of the day, it is a decision made by the institution for the reasons they considered. We wanted to make sure first that the quality of education being provided to the students would be available until the cycle ends. So there has been a process of transitioning out and the expectation is that all students at Texas A&M will have the proper completion of their studies, no later than 2028.
At the same time, it gave us a very unique opportunity to further develop the capacity of our own home grown university, HBKU, to offer academic programmes at the undergraduate level, specifically in the area of engineering in the same campus. So, there has been a very nice transition as a significant number of Texas A&M faculty members and staff were hired by HBKU and they are onboard. They continue working in the same building and there is a gradual transition. So last year, we received students in engineering as HBKU students for the first time. There is a process of transitioning laboratories, research work, and community engagement. I believe that this transition is going to help a lot to further solidify our national capacity to prepare the type of engineers that are needed for the country and the region.
It is also a great opportunity as well to revise the curriculum, to see what changes in the curriculum can be made, considering the new developments, the new technologies to make sure that now the graduates of HBKU engineering school are going to more meaningfully contribute to the country and the region.
Another interesting fact is that immediately after the announcement was made about Texas A&M departing, we started to receive inquiries from some great institutions all over the world expressing interest in joining the Education City ecosystem.
Every single week, there is at least one or two institutions knocking the door of Qatar Foundation and saying, we would like to partner with you. So this gave us a very nice opportunity to take advantage some of these many great offers from other institutions.
So we decided to analyse the offerings made by those institutions and how relevant are them to Qatar. Eventually we could pick some stand-alone offerings that can be made to fulfill a particular need in a very flexible way. So now we are in the process of establishing something that we refer to as the Multiversity Nest.
And the idea is that of creating a facility and the framework to enable the offerings of not only the existing universities but many more institutions that can come and offer in partnership with our institutions with academic programmes that currently are not available in the country and that are in need for the country and the region in a very flexible way.
5: What are the efforts taken to attract more national and international students to the Education City?
We have now more than 14,000 graduates of our alumni from our institutions with opportunities for professional development. So we are working in creating that capacity. The new Multiversity Nest as we refer today, will allow us to offer flexible professional development opportunities for the many graduates of QF universities and other professionals in the country.
Regarding ways to attract more international students, we must make a stronger case about this unique model that we have here in Qatar that we are very proud of and that can be known more effectively globally. And so we have been working as a team with a programme 'Study in Qatar' not only in Qatar Foundation Universities, but also with Qatar University, University of Doha Science and Technology, Doha Institute of Graduate Studies as well. Under the leadership of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education now we are presenting internationally the concept of Qatar as an education hub that can be available for collaboration in different parts of the world.
On the other side, we have a lot of constant inquiries from governments as well, embassies and institutions from various parts of the world. And so, we are doing a significant effort in having the opportunity to enable the possibility of research collaboration internationally and the possibility of faculty and student exchanges.
Most of our graduates live and work in Qatar, but also we have graduates of Qatar Foundation in about 115 countries and there are some pockets of where there are more. One of them is the United States and we established a chapter of Qatar Foundation alumni in the United States last year. Another very important pocket we have is in the UK. So this year we opened a chapter there as well with a big event.
Almost 200 alumni living there joined the chapter. Now we are planning to open chapters in other parts of the world as well.
6: How are the alumni of Education City faring and what has been the response from various stakeholders?
An overwhelming majority of our graduates are working or are entrepreneurs or are pursuing further studies. There is only a very little-in single digits- number graduates who are not working. That's a very good indicator. Secondly, an overwhelming majority of our graduates connect their performance, and success to the educational experience that they had in Education City. Recently, we conducted a survey with employers as well and we found a very interesting set of convergences on that. In the survey we found that the graduates of our institutions are fulfilling the expectations of the companies, the employers. And also they give us information about areas that they feel we should work in order to improve. Again, another very interesting fact is that a significant majority of the graduates of our institutions, who are not from Qatar, decided to stay in Qatar and work in Qatar.
7: What are the areas of research by the universities in the Education City and what are the major outcomes so far?
We have very clear priorities at Qatar Foundation for research. One of them is artificial intelligence. The other one has to do with environment and sustainability. The third one is precision health and we have a priority in terms of social development as well. So, in each of these areas, there is ongoing work that each of the universities do. The research centres that we have at Qatar Foundation are clustering their work among other ways.
I might say, more than 40% of the knowledge creation in the country, in terms of reflected into the publishing of papers, comes from Qatar Foundation. And about 50% of the patents achieved in the country also is from Qatar Foundation. The nice fact is that a faculty member in our universities, as part of his or her mandate not only teaches, but also conducts research, providing great opportunity to achieve our priorities.
Our research at Qatar Foundation has two sides. One is to making sure that the research being done here is as much as possible relevant to the needs of the country and the region. The second element has to do with the opportunity for our students to be part of that great research world. We created last year an ambitious internship programme for our students, pushing our students to spend time in the laboratories, to be part of the research work. It is not easy in other ecosystems, but here it is possible because we have all these universities, that students not only can take courses from any of the institutions, but also they can create their own areas of specialty if they want. It allows us to connect the teaching part with the research element and with the participation of students inside of the classroom, as well as outside of the classroom.
8: What are your future plans for the EC and any specific initiatives that will be launched soon and where do you see QF in next 30 years from now?
We are ready for the next 30 years. I truly believe that the future is not something that you guess or you extrapolate from the past with mathematical modelling. The future is something that we build. And the mandate that we have from Her Highness, Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, is very clear about that. The way that we see, the future is transitioning to a resilient higher education ecosystem and by this we mean growth in terms of flexibility. I believe in future, we will be able to build a truly personalised learning experience for our students. You as a student, come and say, the journey at Qatar Foundation is taking classes from here and there, learning something in other things, being recognised for the knowledge outside of the classroom, getting the opportunity to have experience in the different entities of Qatar Foundation or Qatar in general, and being able to be that lifelong learner.
It is very challenging but unless we define our dreams at that high level, we won't be able to enable those type of things. And then the other element that I see for the future is the idea that education at the end of the day is the most important enabler of transformation of individuals and societies City Qatar Foundation Francisco Marmolejo Faisal Abdulhameed al- Mudahka

MENAFN27092025000067011011ID1110119683