There is a question sitting at the heart of every UK university’s international strategy that almost nobody is asking out loud.
When a university opens a campus in Riyadh or signs a partnership agreement in Dubai, what happens to the community that grew up around that local institution, that relies on it, that in many cases has no equivalent anchor within a hundred miles?
This is the question the civic university agenda has made urgent at home. Institutions need their civic mission to help restore public perception and faith in the public realm, universities included.
But when the community you are developing is hundreds of miles away, and the two conversations are happening in parallel, in different rooms, with different people, there’s a risk that you create a separation that costs everyone.
The civic university at home
The government has positioned universities as critical place-based institutions, engines of regional transformation, crucial delivery partners for an ambitious agenda around inclusive growth, devolution, and regional renewal. Yet civic engagement, which has no dedicated central government funding stream, is increasingly at risk.
A ten per cent increase in the number of universities correlates with a 0.4 per cent rise in regional GDP per capita, according to research by Valero and Van Reenen cited by the Civic University Network. In Coventry, international students alone generate £651 million for the local economy each year. The University of Huddersfield’s turnover exceeds that of the area’s largest private employer. And in Exeter, Dundee, and Leicester, universities are the top international exporting sector.
This is more than an economic story, it’s a social one. Universities are the places where first-generation students encounter ambition, community health research gets done, skills gaps in local industries are addressed, and cultural immersion is anchored.
The Civic University Network identifies seven domains of civic impact including health and wellbeing, social inclusion, environmental sustainability, cultural enrichment, and economic equity. These are the foundations of civic society. They can also disappear quietly when an institution redirects its energy and resources outward.
Civic flex
Saudi Arabia needs 900,000 new higher education places by 2030. Female workforce participation has risen from 19 per cent in 2016 to 36 per cent in 2026, driven in significant part by education reform. More than six million students are being reached by the Kingdom’s new AI curriculum in the 2025–26 academic year.
The Kingdom has allowed 100 per cent foreign ownership of university campuses. Heriot-Watt, Strathclyde, and others have secured approvals or signed agreements. The demand is real and the regulatory welcome is genuine.
But the Gulf is a sophisticated buyer. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are building national workforce pipelines, going well beyond importing foreign qualifications. Vision 2030 for Abu Dhabi prioritises AI, renewables, healthcare, advanced manufacturing, and financial services.
The promising path scholarship initiative deliberately bypasses overall institutional rankings in favour of subject-specific excellence. And Gulf governments are looking for partners who understand what workforce transformation actually requires.
This is where the civic university framework becomes directly relevant. A UK university that knows how to co-design curriculum with local employers, build graduate retention pathways, engage community stakeholders, and create reciprocal social value in Nottingham or Norwich has exactly the capabilities Saudi Arabia and the UAE need. The civic muscle built at home is the same muscle required for genuine partnership in the Gulf. The problem is that muscle is weakening precisely when it is needed most.
The hidden social economy
The internationalisation agenda is built on a growth proposition, facilitated by international student revenue, and the export narrative of a high quality UK higher education offer. That conversation rarely engages with what happens to social capital when an institution’s attention turns abroad while its home foundations weaken under financial pressure.
NCIA research indicates that civic engagement in several UK universities currently relies too heavily on passionate individuals without adequate institutional support, a model described as fundamentally unsustainable. When universities restructure under financial pressure, civic roles go first.
Community partnerships that took years to build dissolve and trust accumulated through consistent presence in local life erodes. These losses appear years later in widening skill gaps, declining graduate retention in regional economies, and communities that feel disconnected from the institutions that were supposed to serve them.
The quadruple helix model, linking academia, industry, government, and community, is gaining traction precisely because it reflects what effective place-based partnership actually looks like.
Birmingham’s City-REDI, Sheffield Hallam’s Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research, and Queen Mary’s London Social Ventures initiative all demonstrate that universities can generate measurable social and economic value when they treat community engagement as structural rather than supplementary. That’s the model Gulf partnerships need to learn from.
Mobility works both ways
The Dearing Review noted in 1997 that each institution should be aware of its mission in relation to local communities and regions. Almost thirty years later, the sector is still working out how to apply that principle internationally.
Genuine reciprocal internationalisation means two things simultaneously. UK regional economies benefit when international partnerships fund research that addresses local challenges, create employment that keeps graduates circulating through regional economies, and generate knowledge exchange that connects places to global markets. Gulf economies benefit when UK partnerships build workforce capacity aligned with national development priorities, transfer knowledge that creates lasting institutional capability, and engage communities rather than simply franchise degrees.
Students anchor both. A Saudi graduate who returns to Riyadh with skills that contribute to Vision 2030 aligned sectors validates the partnership for the Gulf. And a UK student from Sheffield who gains Gulf experience and brings it back into the regional economy validates the partnership for Yorkshire. Mobility that works in both directions creates social value that stays in both places.
The civic university agenda has given UK higher education a framework for thinking about its responsibility to place. The internationalisation agenda needs to build on this framework with the overseas market environment front and centre, applied to the places universities operate in abroad. The institutions that will build the most durable Gulf partnerships are the ones that take both seriously at the same time.
