MASDAR Reviews

Any time you make a complaint or suggestion to the administration, you get an invitation to a meeting in which you are intimidated and reminded that you should be grateful for being in Masdar. This, for those who are unaware, is a clearly racist comment. It originated when they noticed that certain nationalities found this opportunity extremely advantageous allowing them to start a family and send money back home. For Europeans, Americans, Latin-Americans and others, Masdar provides just an average salary and exposes you to racism, discrimination and disrespect. The likelihood that your adviser will be a conflictive person is really high. Faculty members are paid about 12k euro per month, working far less than in any other country. They are required to "make Masdar a known brand" and by this, I mean publish. So you will be pushed around to publish whatever half decent result you have. Even if it is only one data point. Some faculty have been accused of manipulating data. However, no real investigation was conducted and the accuser got fired. There have been students complaining about unfair grading, not being allowed to change advisers, only allowed to take classes from faculty members who were in good relation with their adviser and a few were forced to resign and leave the institute. International ladies should be careful: it's highly likely to find a misogynistic adviser (they call themselves "conservative"). Assume that all the above are easy to swallow for you. You just love research. You want to come to Masdar to do just that! Well, prepare for a 6- to 12- month waiting period to actually get the consumables and/or equipment you will need for that. The "award winning" procurement office is worse than any bureaucratic governmental office I've ever seen. And prepare for extremely long "down time" in equipment: getting maintenance is just as hard. Don't you dare buying the stuff yourself and ask for reimbursement. I will take a year to get the money back and you will have to explain in great detail why you didn't follow procedure. I could write a book. But I think this is enough.

- Decision-making is centralized in very few people - even top managers (division heads) lack real authority - Standard (for UAE government companies) emphasis on advancement for locals (UAE citizens), so limited advancement opportunities for expats. This is not a bad thing, just something to be aware of. - Once the UAE economy had a downturn, the massive sustainability push went out the window as it became uneconomic, so much of the effort is around small-scale projects to keep up appearances