The UAE government and the individual Emirates have forged numerous partnerships with US institutions aimed at improving education in the UAE, and promoting exchanges between Western and Arab cultures.
- New York University is opening a campus in Abu Dhabi, the first comprehensive liberal arts and sciences campus, with a robust research component, to be operated abroad by a major US university. A temporary campus is projected to welcome an initial class of students in the fall of 2010, starting with undergraduates and phasing in graduate students. When the main campus opens on Saadiyat Island, NYU Abu Dhabi is expected to serve over 2,000 undergraduate and graduate students of diverse backgrounds and who will be recruited worldwide.
- The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is helping create the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (MIST), the first graduate level, research-driven scientific institution in the region.
- The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania has partnered with Dubai World to create the Dubai Leaders Program.
- The Rochester Institute of Technology signed an agreement with officials from Dubai to establish a new campus in the Emirate.
- Since 2005, the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) has been offering degree programs at the Center of Excellence for Applied Research and Training (CERT) Industrial Park, in Abu Dhabi. In 2007, NYIT became the first American university in the United Arab Emirates licensed by the Ministry of Education and Scientific Research.
- The Colorado School of Mines and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company signed a 10-year agreement for the development of the Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi, a one-of-a-kind collaboration between industry and academia that will bring world-class educational resources and research to the Gulf.
