The Media Line: UAE Cuts UK Universities From Scholarship List Over Security Concerns 

UAE Cuts UK Universities From Scholarship List Over Security Concerns 

Abu Dhabi removes British institutions from eligibility lists as officials and analysts cite risks tied to Islamist influence, antisemitism, and campus governance 

By Giorgia Valente/The Media Line 

The United Arab Emirates has removed the UK from the list of foreign universities eligible for government scholarships, a move already reverberating through British higher education and raising wider questions in Europe about foreign influence, campus governance, and ideological pressure. 

According to official information published by the UAE Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, the scholarship framework is designed to ensure “quality, alignment with national priorities and future labor market needs,” with eligibility based on global rankings and periodic review.  

While the published criteria do not explicitly single out countries, multiple international media reports say UK universities were excluded from the most recent eligibility list amid Emirati concerns over campus radicalization, antisemitism, and the presence of Islamist networks, including those linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. 

The shift comes as political trust between Abu Dhabi and London has frayed, including over diverging approaches to the Muslim Brotherhood, which the UAE designates as a subversive and terrorist organization, while the UK does not. 

Emirati political analyst Ahmed Sharif Al-Amri said the move reflects security concerns rather than a technical adjustment based on rankings. 

“The UAE has decided to cut the funds due to the Muslim Brotherhood infiltrating some universities, and the UAE will not put their students and their children in harm’s way—especially not through the Muslim Brotherhood and radical extremist Islamists,” he told The Media Line. 

Sharif frames the issue as a structural failure by Western institutions. 

“They planted a whole rainforest, a whole ecosystem, whereas the West is too busy asking, how can I stop them from planting one tree?” 

He argues that universities have become incubators of ideological influence rather than places where overt extremism is easy to spot. 

“They already planted millions of trees, whether it was in universities, it was through charities like the Pillars Charity, like Islamic Relief. They have so many places where they have infiltrated, and they start infiltrating young minds now, and they found it as incubation spaces through universities and campuses like the University of Birmingham, like places in Manchester, London, and Ireland as well,” he said. 

Sharif contrasts Western tolerance thresholds with Emirati legal norms, particularly on antisemitism. 

“In the West, there is also something called antisemitism, but this kind of hatred is allowed today by labeling this as an opinion. Whereas in the UAE, it is a crime. You get punished for it. That’s why we are a country of tolerance. We are not afraid to condemn what is fundamentally dangerous and wrong,” he said. 

He says recruitment does not begin with overt ideology or religious symbolism. 

“The Muslim Brotherhood never approached the West with long beards, with the Arab clothing. They approached the West with suits, with smiles,” he said. 

Instead, he says influence spreads through informal social environments. 

“Sometimes they will find people on a football pitch playing football, and one conversation will lead to another. And then one prayer together will lead to another prayer and then a sermon and then slowly to private meetings,” he said. 

Those meetings, he adds, rarely occur in mosques. 

“They would actually happen in their apartments. They would happen in restaurants, in coffee shops,” he noted. 

He warns that academic credentials can mask ideological agendas. 

“You will see people with Ph.D.s, with master’s [degrees] connected to this network. You will see doctors, lecturers, even in universities now—very intellectual, very smart, well-articulated, soft-spoken people. But slowly but surely, they will start putting drops of poison in the honey that they present,” he said. 

In contrast, Sharif argues that Emirati students are institutionally prepared to recognize such dynamics. “We are taught in our national service how to smell a terrorist from a mile away,” he said. 

Sharif links the spread of slogans on Western campuses after the Gaza war to ideological exploitation by Islamist groups, including Hamas. 

“Many, not just the Palestinian cause—many causes have been exploited. But over the past two years and a half for sure, the Palestinians have been exploited by Hamas, by Muslim Brotherhood-led radical extremists,” he noted. 

He argues that empathy for civilians should not translate into manipulation. 

“The people in Palestine deserve to live peacefully. The people in Israel deserve to live peacefully as well. But what they don’t deserve is Muslim Brotherhood and terrorist radical Islamists using their case and brainwashing people abroad to use them for their advantage,” he said. 

From a European security perspective, Daniele Garofalo, an expert on Islamist and radical groups, interprets the Emirati decision as a geopolitical signal rather than a narrow education policy.  

“The Emirati decision is a geopolitical signal, not an administrative whim,” he told The Media Line. 

Garofalo argues the most consequential element is the strategic use of education funding. 

“Abu Dhabi has effectively excluded UK universities from the list of institutions eligible for public scholarships and funding and, above all, is using the ‘education funding’ lever as an instrument of strategic pressure on London, within a framework of ‘ideological security’ and prevention of Islamist influence on campuses,” he said. 

He argues that academic funding is never neutral. 

“Financial flows toward academia are never neutral, as they can become soft power, diplomatic hedging, an instrument of public discourse alignment, and an element of ‘risk transfer’ when the funding actor considers the host ecosystem permissive toward hostile networks or ideologies,” he added. 

Garofalo says the core challenge in Europe sits below the threshold of formal proscription. 

“This event brings the Muslim Brotherhood issue in the West onto an operational plane—not ‘the group’ in a formal sense, but the ecosystem of influence,” he said. 

He said that mismatch creates governance gaps. 

“Criminal law and counterterrorism tools often do not capture ‘gray’ conduct, yet such conduct can nonetheless produce security effects in the medium term,” he noted. 

Garofalo points to Italy as a case study, citing the investigation involving Mohammad Mahmoud Ahmad Hannoun, a Palestinian activist whose name has entered parliamentary debate and judicial proceedings. 

Italian prosecutors have alleged that Hannoun and associated organizations raised and transferred funds to Hamas-linked entities under the cover of Palestinian humanitarian assistance. Several arrests were made, and millions of euros were reportedly seized during the investigation. Hannoun’s case has become emblematic of how activism, charity structures, and transnational networks can intersect. 

Garofalo explains why the case matters analytically. 

“The correct angle is not just the individual, but the function he performs as a node within a wider network,” he said. 

He describes the structure in layered terms. 

“Analytically, this is textbook: street mobilization through demonstrations as the visible surface, organizational infrastructures as the intermediate layer, and financial channels and transnational relationships as the strategic layer, including fundraising, support networks, and logistical facilitation,” he explained. 

From an intelligence standpoint, he adds: “In military-policy terms and from an intelligence assessment perspective, the Hannoun case is useful for mapping ‘narrative–mobilization–resources’ chains,” he said. 

Garofalo is explicit that the issue is not political expression itself. “The boundary is not only what is said, but what is enabled.” 

He argues that universities often fail to act until dynamics have already solidified: “Political activism on campus is physiological; the red line begins when indicators of radicalization or instrumentalization appear,” he noted. 

These include moral disengagement, intimidation, and the transformation of protest into organizational infrastructure. “In practice, university policy must reason in terms of harm reduction and risk management, not moral judgments on political content,” he said. 

Despite their different vantage points, Sharif and Garofalo converge on the need for structural responses. 

Sharif frames the issue as a failure of sustained Western attention: “The Muslim Brotherhood will stop at nothing. They will move from universities to sports, to other sectors. The West is a very bad multitasker on this front compared to the UAE.” 

“It’s not a matter of what the UAE is going to say anymore on the matter. It’s a matter of when the West is going to listen,” he concluded. 

Garofalo frames it in terms of institutional design: “Either the university equips itself with a posture of ‘institutional resilience’—governance, transparency, compliance and cognitive security—or other actors will continue to treat the campus as a permissive terrain with low cost and high return.” 

As European governments and academic institutions reassess foreign funding, activism, and campus governance, the Emirati decision has placed a sensitive question at the center of the debate: How to preserve openness without allowing universities to become low-risk, high-yield platforms for ideological influence.