The Office of the Associate Provost for Research (OAPR) is devoting every possible efforts to expand the international collaboration, maximize the benefits of such collaboration, and enhance the image of the UAE University at the global level as a Research Intensive University. Specifically, the initiatives are implemented.  Prof Ahmed Murad Associate Provost for Research indicated that the University stressed on the importance of the regional and international collaboration to increase  research productivity and knowledge transfer.

Dr Murad added that the UAEU is allocating additional funds for internal grants including Strategic Research, University Advanced Research, and Start-up grants to support the collaboration with the top ranked 100 Universities worldwide. The additional funds can be used to conduct research activities and support students and researchers at the other universities. The funds can also be used to purchase small items/equipment as well as to invite the collaborators to visit UAE University.

In addition, Prof Murad mentioned that the university  has established a number of collaboration and supported collaboration projects with highly ranked international universities in specific areas. Examples of such collaboration include, but not limited to:

• National University of Singapore, Medicine and Health Science
• University of California- Barkley, Material Science and Engineering
• University College London, Education
• Indian Institute of Technology- Bombay, Health Science   

UAE University is an active member of the Asian Universities Alliance (AUA), which includes 15 Universities. The university has supported 6 projects in 2018 and approved to support 14 new projects in January 2021. Overall, this program is successful and has resulted in a good number of publications. The most successful projects are with National University of Singapore and University of Malaya, Malaysia.

At the regional level, the UAEU has established research collaboration with Sultan Qaboos University and King Saud University. This collaboration has also been very successful.

In addition to the formal collaboration efforts, individual faculty members in the different colleges have on-going international collaboration with many researchers worldwide. Specifically new faulty members when they join UAE University continue to conduct research and publish articles in collaboration with their mother University from which they graduated or have been working before.

Based on the above collaboration activities, during the years 2015-2020, more than 3900 publications which represent two-third (67.3%) of all  the publications of the UAE University were co-authored with other researchers from international universities worldwide.