With the light sound of running water against the backdrop of rough limestone walls and pastel interiors, the vast, open-plan meeting areas of Qatar’s newest university feel more like a luxury spa resort than a business and technology school.

But the Doha campus of the US’ Carnegie Mellon University is not simply the over-the-top spending of a gas-rich country. It is a central part of a strategic investment in a long-term vision to establish the state as a regional research hub.

“The design goes further than mere luxury; we are creating a culture,” says Ricardo Legorreta, an architect at Mexico’s Legorreta & Legorreta and designer of the Carnegie Mellon campus. “A university is about human contact in relaxing spaces, and we are seeking to create something that makes everybody proud of being in Doha and Qatar. It is a design for the long term.”

Global connections

The teaching facilities are also impressive, with the technology installed in the classrooms allowing students in Doha to take part in lessons given at Carnegie Mellon’s home campus in Pittsburgh. The investment in technology is no mere gimmick. The aim is to ensure that students in Doha receive everything that their US counterparts get.

“In effect, students here are enrolling in Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, only it is Doha,” says Jared Cohon, president of Carnegie Mellon University. “This campus provides Carnegie Mellon degrees. Students here get exactly the same education as they would get in Pittsburgh.”

The opening of Carnegie Mellon’s Education City campus on 22 February represents a milestone for Doha’s ambitions to become a research hub. It is the fourth major US university to offer US degrees on the site, following Weill Cornell Medical College, part of New York-based Cornell University, Virginia Commonwealth University and Texas A&M University.

Two more leading US institutions - Washington-based Georgetown University and Chicago’s Northwestern University - are due to open on the site in the next two years, and others are set to follow.

The Education City masterplan is being driven by the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science & Community Development, the charity run by Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al-Missned, consort of Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.

The project involves the development of a campus on the outskirts of Doha containing academic, recreational and residential facilities for tens of thousands of students.

It is still very much a work in progress. Education City currently covers about 14 million square metres, but the masterplan allows for many more universities to open up facilities at the site.

“At this stage, there are more than 1,200 students at Education City,” says a spokesman for the Qatar Foundation. “And it is far from complete. There are currently discussions under way to establish a well-renowned law school within the city.”

Research programmes form the backbone of Doha’s education strategy. About 2.8 per cent of Qatar’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2009, or $2bn, has been committed to funding research programmes. This includes an $8bn endowment used to establish the Sidra Medical & Research Centre. It is no coincidence that the universities selected to open at Education City are predominantly research-led institutions.

Diverse courses

Weill Cornell Medical College offers a programme of pre-medical and medical studies. Carnegie Mellon offers three undergraduate degrees, in business administration, computer science and information systems. Texas A&M offers a range of chemical, electrical, mechanical and petroleum engineering degrees, while Virginia Commonwealth offers a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

Northwestern will offer courses in journalism and communication when it opens, and Georgetown a major in international politics.

Students who enrol for a degree at one of the universities within Education City are also able to take courses at any of the other institutions on the campus, effectively allowing students in Doha to attend more than one US institution at a time. “We are calling it a multiversity,” says Mark Kamlet, provost of Carnegie Mellon.

Underpinned by investment in the physical infrastructure needed to sustain the academic programmes, Doha is gradually building up a critical mass in higher education and research that it hopes will eventually lead to the establishment of a powerful Qatari education brand in its own right.

“It has been talked about, but it is not a priority at the moment,” says Cohon.

Doha’s ambitions to become a leading centre for research are supported by the development of Qatar Science & Technology Park on the Education City site. The technology park, which launched on 16 March 2009, aims to attract investment in research and development activity from businesses in the region and is backed by European defence firm European Aeronautic Defence & Space Company (Eads), international oil majors such as France’s Total and the UK/Dutch Shell Group, US conglomerate GE and software giant Microsoft, also of the US.

The long-term aim is to encourage links between the research activities of these companies and the universities.

The universities operating at Education City offer their degrees under 10-year service agreements with the Qatar Foundation, which require them to meet agreed performance targets such as having a certain number of students and research projects. In return, the foundation provides the infrastructure and facilities needed to operate the facilities, an investment running into tens of billions of dollars.

Doha is also seeking to stimulate research through scholarship and student support funds from the Qatar Foundation, and its Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) arm, which was set up in 2006 to support researchers.

Recognised qualifications

The Education City masterplan remains at an early stage, but the relationship is working well and Qatar is now turning out local graduates with recognised world-class qualifications. The first students graduated from the first university to set up on the campus, Virginia Commonwealth, in 2001. Graduates emerged from the courses offered by Carnegie Mellon in May 2008.

The campus is another important opportunity for the universities to develop globally. Carnegie Mellon, for example, already offers courses in Portugal, Singapore, Australia and Japan. “We made a decision to internationalise about 10 years ago,” says Cohon, “And this fits right in with that plan. We have no plans to open anywhere else in the region.”

Virginia Commonwealth also has partnerships with 15 higher education institutions abroad. Cornell offers 25 undergraduate and graduate courses at a campus in Rome, and Texas A&M has facilities in Mexico, Costa Rica and Italy.

However, such international moves are not without their risks. The announcement in late February that the US’ George Mason University is closing its three-year-old campus in Ras al-Khaimah, one year before the site’s first group of students graduate, is a sign of the competitive pressures facing universities during the global slowdown.

George Mason has been hit by a drop in funding from its host emirate and suffered low enrolment rates, only enrolling 180 students out of a targeted 400.

The educational authorities in Ras al-Khaimah plan to develop a new institution, the American University of Ras al-Khaimah, to take its place, and George Mason says it has been asked to play a consultative role in the new university.

It is the first failure of a major academic venture in the region, but is a sign of how the global economic downturn is hitting many edu-cational institutions.

Cohon says universities have been hit hard in three main ways. “Academia in general has been primarily hit through he loss of asset values in investments funds,” he says.

Universities are also concerned about the ability of students’ families to pay course fees. “We have not seen any sign of this yet,” says Cohon. “But it is a concern.”

Research funding has also been hit. “External research funding is important, and this has been hit by the downturn,” says Cohon. “US government funding has been flat for about four years. “However, we are hopeful that the stimulus package will deliver some new funding. We are waiting to see what happens.”

Nonetheless, the threat of a global recession offers opportunities for universities. “In many ways, the education sector is counter-cyclical,” says Cohon. “Whenever there is a downturn, people go back to school to retrain.”

For Qatar, the potential gains are more profound. The country has to diversify its economy away from its dependence on hydrocarbons, and to equip its growing young population with the necessary skills to compete in the global workplace.

The development of Doha as a regional centre of excellence for education and research addresses both these needs. Although it will take a lot of time and money, there is no doubt that in providing such outstanding facilities, Doha is going about it the right way.

The only thing the campus needs now is students, and they are coming. “We have the capacity to take 400 students,” says Chuck Thorpe, dean of Carnegie Mellon’s Qatar campus. “At the moment we have 129 students. We will have 80 more next year, then 100 a year, which after four years will take us to our capacity of 400.”

Milestone: The Carnegie Mellon campus brings the number of US universities offering courses at Education City to four