IIM Ahmedabad goes to Dubai: From the heart of India to the middle of the world – Education News

The Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM Ahmedabad) is establishing an international campus in Dubai, marking a significant step in the business school’s global expansion. We talked to Prof Bharat Bhasker, the director of IIM Ahmedabad, who shared why this campus is unique.

When did IIM Ahmedabad start the Dubai campus?

In 2018-19, IIM Ahmedabad extended its executive education to Dubai, and set up a single-person office that functioned as a training centre – it provided short-term courses to upskill professionals from the Middle East. “That office gave us a good experience of the demand for management education in that region,” Prof Bharat Bhasker, the director of IIM Ahmedabad, told FE.

But a full-fledged campus is only starting this year.

What exactly is it?

Prof Bhaskar said that the Dubai campus will be a full-fledged international branch campus of IIM Ahmedabad. It will be recognised by the Commission for Academic Accreditation (CAA) – the federal government regulatory agency for higher education in the United Arab Emirates; for any university or college to have its degrees recognised in the UAE, it must be accredited by the CAA – and will run MBA and MBA-like programmes.

Which is the first programme?

IIM Ahmedabad is starting the one-year executive MBA this year, whose students will get a degree in August 2026. It will be only for experienced professionals, and admissions will be via either GMAT or GRE exams.

What about the student profile?

Prof Bhaskar said that IIM Ahmedabad, despite its global reach and relevance, doesn’t have global representation in terms of students or faculty, but that won’t be the case with the Dubai campus. “We will focus on attracting students from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), from Africa, and from erstwhile USSR countries, and aim that about 60% of our students at the Dubai campus will be from these regions.

Why did IIM Ahmedabad choose Dubai?

Prof Bhaskar said there is familiarity with the Middle East, and because the aim of IIM Ahmedabad is to attract students from the Global South. In addition, Dubai is a global city, with nationalities from a lot of countries. Lastly, IIM Ahmedabad has gotten a lot of support from the local government.

What about faculty?

IIM Ahmedabad has positioned some faculty in Dubai, but it will have fly-in, fly-out faculty from Ahmedabad, but it will soon start hiring local faculty. “In less than 10 years, we intend to have a 900-student campus, and for that we need to have local and international faculty,” Prof Bhaskar said. “The MBA we offer there will have a lot of local case studies, and that’s why we need local faculty. We also plan to launch two research centres – one for case study development, and another for start-up incubation. These centres will focus on regional business practices and challenges in the Middle East and Africa.”

What’s the capex on this campus?

Prof Bhaskar said that thanks to support provided by Indian and Dubai governments, the capital expenditure is almost nil. “The Dubai government is footing almost all the capex,” he said. “The temporary campus is almost fully being prepared by them. In the long-term as well, they will provide land and other capex, and we will just have to focus on operating expenditure.”

What’s the timeline for the full campus?

The land will be allocated to IIM Ahmedabad within a few months, and within 3-4 years, there will be a full campus of IIM Ahmedabad in Dubai.

What are the fees?

Most other business schools of a global stature charge more than $100,000 for an MBA in Dubai, and smaller business schools charge about $40,000, but IIM Ahmedabad has kept its fees at about $80,000 per year. “Our fees are somewhere in the middle,” Prof Bhaskar said.

Another campus outside Dubai?

“Our initial focus is on the Dubai campus, and take our brand to the rest and the best of the world,” Prof Bhaskar said. “Maybe later we can focus on other areas in the Global South.”

Is IIM Ahmedabad the first Indian institute to go abroad?

No, while it’s the first IIM, it’s not the first Indian educational institution to go abroad. There is a long list – from Dubai to Africa, and even London and California:

Manipal Dubai (2000): The Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Dubai Campus, was set up back in 2000, and it has evolved into a multicultural community with over 2,500 students from 45 countries. Manipal Dubai functions as the branch campus of the Manipal Academy of Higher Education, which is India’s largest private university.

BITS Pilani Dubai (2000): BITS Pilani Dubai is the only international campus of BITS Pilani (others are in Pilani, Hyderabad, Goa, and Mumbai). In 25 years, more than 6,000 students have graduated from BITS Pilani Dubai, and about 50 start-ups have been founded here.

SP Jain School of Global Management (2004): In 2004, SP Jain set up its first international campus in Dubai, followed by a campus in Singapore in 2006, and in Sydney in 2012. Today, it also has campuses in Mumbai and London, and recently it opened a campus in the US by acquiring the California Miramar University (CMU).

Amity University Dubai (2011): The Amity University Dubai is home to more than 2,500 students from over 70 nationalities, with 85,000 alumni worldwide. The campus is spread over a 700,000 sq. ft. area. Amity has also opened campuses in London, New York, San Francisco, Singapore, Uzbekistan, and Kenya, in addition to multiple campuses in India.

IIT Madras Zanzibar (2023): It started in October 2023 with two courses – Bachelor of Science (Data Science & Artificial Intelligence), and MTech (Data Science & Artificial Intelligence). The BSc costs $12,000 per year (about Rs 10 lakh per year) and the MTech costs $4,000 per year. Accommodation charges are extra. Preeti Aghalayam, an IIT Madras alumna and professor in its Department of Chemical Engineering, was appointed as the director of the Zanzibar campus. She is also the first-ever woman to be a director at any IIT.

Symbiosis Dubai (2024): A new campus, the Symbiosis International University Dubai offers multiple undergraduate programmes, as well as an MBA.

IIT Delhi Abu Dhabi (2024): It started as a temporary campus in Zayed University, and plans for a permanent campus are under way. Courses at the IIT Delhi Abu Dhabi campus cover areas such as energy & sustainability, artificial intelligence, computer science & engineering, healthcare, mathematics & computing, and other disciplines of engineering, sciences & humanities.

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