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How NYU Abu Dhabi plans to retain talent in UAE, develop country's knowledge base
When the institution was being built, the vice chancellor recalled scepticism over whether Abu Dhabi could attract students and faculty needed to create the type of university NYU needed
- PUBLISHED: Fri 21 Aug 2026, 2:15 PM
Some of NYU Abu Dhabi’s most successful graduates have gone on to become professors at universities such as Stanford. Others have created companies that are growing abroad. Fabio Piano wants more of those success stories to happen in the UAE.
The university’s new Vice Chancellor says NYUAD’s next phase will focus not only on attracting and developing top students and researchers, but on ensuring more of the talent, research and companies emerging from its Saadiyat Island campus remain in the country and contribute directly to its economy and knowledge base.
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“They’re doing extremely well,” Piano told Khaleej Times. “But they’re not usually here. So we want now to have the same kinds of things happening here.”
For Piano, who helped establish NYUAD’s academic programmes as provost from 2010 to 2020 before returning to lead the university, that represents a change in what success should look like.
“The next step is how to translate this incredible capacity to continue on developing the strength of the UAE,” he said. From attracting talent to retaining it, NYUAD’s first challenge, Piano said, was proving that the model itself could work. “The first phase, which let’s say was even the first 20 years, is to essentially answer a question, which is: ‘Can we do it?’”
When the institution was being built, he recalled the early challenge of attracting the combination of students and faculty needed to create the type of university NYU envisioned.
“What was possible was much better than anybody could imagine,” he said. Today, NYUAD has more than 2,000 undergraduate students and more than 200 graduate students representing over 115 countries. It has more than 3,400 alumni, while 65 per cent of employed graduates from the Class of 2024 remained in the UAE, according to the university’s latest figures.
Piano wants that local pipeline to deepen further, particularly at the highest levels of research, entrepreneurship and academia. He pointed to graduates who have gone on to become professors at institutions such as Stanford, as well as alumni who have created companies that are becoming successful.
The ambition, he said, is not to stop graduates moving around the world, but to create the conditions for more comparable careers and companies to emerge inside the UAE. That requires more than convincing talented students to study in Abu Dhabi.
Piano wants NYUAD to become what he called a “full research enterprise”, expanding the university’s research and graduate capabilities while creating clearer routes from academic work into the wider economy.
Research that does not stop at the lab
NYUAD already has more than 90 research labs and centres, has produced more than 9,200 research publications and filed 335 patents since opening in 2010, according to university data. It has also secured more than $65 million in external grant awards.
But Piano’s next-phase argument is less about simply producing more papers.
It is about what happens to discoveries after they leave the laboratory. That direction can already be seen in a partnership signed in June between NYUAD and the Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology. Under the agreement, NYUAD became a key partner in the ScaleUp Hub, which is designed to connect university researchers and laboratories with startups, industrial companies and investors, helping technologies move from research through testing and eventually towards commercial deployment. Areas identified include AI, robotics, automation, additive manufacturing and advanced materials.
Piano said at the time that the aim was to connect research undertaken in Abu Dhabi more directly with real industrial applications and give UAE startups pathways to pilot, validate and commercialise technologies. That fits closely with what he described in the interview as the university’s next task.
NYUAD, he said, has already built research strength around areas relevant to the country, including water security, cybersecurity, quantum computing, wireless communications, genomics, sustainability and artificial intelligence.
He cited water research as an example of how the university can use NYU’s international network to bring specialised expertise into Abu Dhabi. When expertise around desalination and water security was needed, he said, the university recruited leading researchers and built capability stretching from the molecular design of membranes through to engineering and testing.
“We can be that for knowledge,” Piano said, comparing the potential role to the way the UAE has established itself as an international hub in sectors such as logistics and aviation.
Building reasons to stay
Graduate education will also play a larger role in keeping talent connected to the country for longer. NYUAD currently offers 13 Global PhD Fellowship programmes and three master’s programmes. Its business offering has also expanded through Stern at NYU Abu Dhabi. The one-year MBA’s Class of 2026 includes 47 students from 20 countries, while an Executive MBA aimed at experienced professionals is beginning in Abu Dhabi this year.
For Piano, programmes like these expand the university’s role beyond attracting undergraduates for four years.“We’re developing more and more capacity for the citizens and residents of the UAE to be trained, to be retained — the talent that we would like to help not just develop but also retain within the UAE,” he said.
The same thinking applies to faculty, research and entrepreneurship. Piano said universities across the UAE are already recruiting NYUAD graduates and staff, something he views as part of the institution’s contribution to the country’s broader education ecosystem.
His longer-term ambition is for more companies to emerge from NYUAD research, more graduates to build careers in the country and more of the university’s scientific capacity to be connected directly to UAE priorities.
In five years, he said, he would want to see NYUAD’s contribution reflected practically in graduates helping develop the economy, in companies coming out of university innovation, and in research having a larger role in the country. The undergraduate programme, he added, should continue to flourish. But research is where he expects some of the university’s most significant growth.
Ahmed Waqqas Alawlaqi is the youngest Special Correspondent, reporting from Abu Dhabi on youth, AI and innovation, and human-interest stories. His work brings exclusive perspectives from the Capital, highlighting voices that shape the UAE's future.