From the Desk of Chancellor Seghir

A Monthly Statement Issued by the Chancellor of Ajman University

Born in 1988 as the first private university in the country and the GCC, Ajman University (AU) represented what was then an entirely new paradigm in higher education. This was a breakthrough in a part of the world where higher education was exclusively public. Private higher education that started a little short of forty years ago as a drizzle, soon turned into a current and is now a sweeping torrent. Equally important, AU was the first University in the UAE and the GCC to accept expat students.

Ajman University today boasts nine colleges, 7200 undergraduate and graduate students, 300 faculty members from 42 different nationalities. In 2024, they were able to produce more than 1400 SCOPUS-indexed articles thereby turning AU into a serious research hub. Local and international accreditations crown all our colleges and programs as well as the university itself. QS has ranked AU 477 globally, 17 in the Arab region and fifth within the UAE.

Building on this multi-faceted strength, AU legally and formally turned non-profit in January 2024.

It is critical for me to share with our internal and external community the broad implications of turning non-profit particularly in terms of mission, purpose, resource generation and allocation.

To be non-profit is a commitment to excellence in all our academic and professional endeavors including degree and non-degree programs, delivery innovation, and research. It is every bit as much a commitment to creating impact as it is to supporting the UAE’s transition to a knowledge economy. Above all, it is a commitment to serving our society in ways that are transformative, impactful, and based on two-way partnerships.

Going non-profit, however, means primarily success in generating alternative revenue sources. This is necessary for us to lessen our dependence on tuition fees. The world’s leading universities include many private institutions and for AU to join that league entails responsibilities that we do not take lightly. Some of these responsibilities are:

1. Going by the highest academic and professional standards for all our programs, delivery modalities, the quality of our graduates, and the long line of community services we provide.

2. Basing student admission solely on academic merit irrespective of economic status. This means a much higher level of financial aid to students for them to be able to join.

3. Excelling in all three aspects of our work namely knowledge generation (research), dissemination (delivery) and application through invasive community programs.

4. Being at once rigorous and current in all our programs but to the same extent contextual and relevant to our society as it works its way forward to a future leadership position in many areas related to the harnessing of knowledge and technology.

5. Seeking and successfully securing funding from multiple sources for financing world-class education through a sufficient and sustainable resource base. This must be done separate and apart from tuition fees. This last responsibility is key to honoring all other responsibilities given its nature as a key to sustainability, an enabler, and a driver of continuous institutional improvement.

Three specific action tracks branch out from this last responsibility:

1. Building mutually beneficial partnerships with public and private organizations in our community where we join forces in R&D efforts, build Industrial Parks, and work together towards solutions to business, environmental, health, and socio-economic challenges.

2. Attracting external research grants from within and outside the country.

3. Encouraging our community to invest in AU through embracing our Fundraising Program covering student scholarships, endowed chairs (professorships), research support, and naming colleges after major benefactors. All these entail donations that will link the name of the university and the donor together in perpetuity.

By turning non-profit, AU is now a community-owned university with all of you as fellow stakeholders working in unison with us towards scaling new peaks on the long road to sustainable eminence. With your help, we can become even more of a hub for knowledge, a center for innovation, a source of much needed societal services and a place where the future is made today.

You will be hearing from us soon on how we can work together through building lasting partnerships. As we seek your donations for worthy programs that will put us on equal footing with the best anywhere, we will in fact be inviting you to invest in Ajman University where the risk is non-existent, the returns are plenty, and the dividends will keep flowing in perpetuity.

My message to you is a call to work together to achieve jointly what none of us can achieve unilaterally. It is a call to action to bridge the gap between gown and town and build synergy where our combined efforts will far exceed the sum of our entities combined. My message is to create shared spaces for channeling our energy and build a future of our own making.

Thanks to the steadfast support of HH Sheikh Humaid bin Rashid Al Nuaimi, Member of the UAE Supreme Council and Ruler of Ajman and HH Sheikh Ammar bin Humaid Al Nuaimi, Crown Price of Ajman, Chairman of Ajman Executive Council and Chairman of Ajman University’s Board of Trustees, Ajman University has already gone a long way toward fulfilling its mission. Now that we are non-profit, we need your help for a game-changing breakthrough.

A Monthly Statement Issued by the Chancellor of Ajman University

Karim Seghir, Ph.D.
Chancellor
Ajman University

© Ajman University. All rights reserved.

University St., Al jerf 1, Ajman
United Arab Emirates

University St., Al jerf 1, Ajman
United Arab Emirates

March 2025