The University of Doha for Science and Technology (UDST) has been selected for the inaugural Innovation Sandbox of the Future Universities Alliance, a global learning network incubated by the US’s Duke University.
The UDST is the only institution from Qatar, and the only one from the Gulf, selected for the inaugural cohort, which brings together 49 institutions from 23 countries across five continents.
Selection followed a competitive application process weighing strategic priority, leadership commitment, readiness to act, and fit with a diverse global cohort.
The Innovation Sandbox is the Alliance’s 12-month global peer learning programme for institutions pursuing ambitious, institution-shaping change.
Participants bring active institutional challenges into facilitated pod sessions, milestone meetings, and the annual Global Summit.
“Higher education is not short of innovation, but it is short of the structures needed to connect that innovation, help it travel, and make it durable,” said Noah Pickus, founder of the Future Universities Alliance and Head of Global Strategy and Partnerships at Duke University.
“The Innovation Sandbox is our answer to that gap,” he said. “We are pleased to convene this inaugural cohort and grateful for the trust these institutions have placed in one another to work together in this Alliance.”
“UDST was founded on the belief that an applied university must be agile and willing to rethink how it works,” UDST president Dr Salem al-Naemi said. “Joining the inaugural Innovation Sandbox puts that belief alongside some of the most ambitious institutions in the world, and lets us contribute a Gulf perspective to a global conversation about what the university of the future should be.”
The Innovation Sandbox features three distinct pathways: “Startup Institutions”, supporting emerging universities and learning ventures building new institutions from the ground up; “New Initiatives in Existing Institutions”, focusing on transforming existing academic structures and institutional models; and “Amplifying Signature Innovations”, helping institutions expand the reach and impact of their established innovations beyond their campuses.
The UDST is participating in the “New Initiatives in Existing Institutions” pathway, bringing an artificial intelligence (AI) framework built in-house to the Sandbox.
In this system, multiple independent AI agents review exam questions.
They check that each question genuinely measures the learning outcomes a course promises, at the right level of thinking, and a question is accepted only when the agents agree.
The framework is already running in UDST courses.
Through the Sandbox, the university aims to develop it into a method that other universities can adopt.
The project speaks directly to the Alliance’s first principle, to “innovate toward quality”, which the Alliance defines by the depth, coherence and durability of learning.
Alongside Dr al-Naemi, the UDST team includes Dr Seifeddine Bouallegue, associate professor and head of Software Systems Department at the College of Computing and Information Technology (CCIT); Dr Brian McCommons, programme development and accreditation specialist; and Robert Ford, lecturer at CCIT.
