Building One Research Voice Across HBKU
How HBKU created one coherent research narrative without absorbing the distinct scientific identity and credibility of its three national research institutes.
QCRI, QBRI and QEERI were established as independent national research institutes under Qatar Foundation years before their formal integration into HBKU. QCRI was founded in 2010. Each institute built its own scientific reputation, stakeholder relationships, funding channels and institutional identity.
Qatar Foundation's Annual Report 2014-2015 confirms the integration: 'This year marked the integration of Qatar's three national research institutes into the university,' bringing QBRI, QCRI and QEERI under the HBKU umbrella alongside its colleges. Even after integration, Qatar Foundation's own website describes the institutes as operating under the umbrella of HBKU while the institutes retain distinct branding and outreach channels.
The integration gave HBKU a major research mandate, but communications still had to operate across the university, its colleges, the three national research institutes and Qatar Foundation. A single university voice could not simply replace the specialist identities that the institutes had spent years establishing.
Because the institutes had operated independently under Qatar Foundation for years before joining HBKU, integration surfaced institutional resistance rather than a simple governance gap. Stakeholder interviews conducted for HBKU's brand review found sub-entities at risk of remaining 'defiantly independent,' with inconsistent endorsement of colleges and institutes because some had stronger brands in themselves.
The core challenge was building a multi-tier communications strategy that could serve HBKU as the overarching university, preserve each institute's distinct scientific identity and credibility, and continue reinforcing the Qatar Foundation master brand that gave the institutes national legitimacy and funding relationships.
Communications representatives worked across separate entities without one shared annual planning model or governance structure to coordinate priorities, messages and channels.
Architecture: research communications cut across HBKU, the three institutes and Qatar Foundation without a shared tiered structure
Identity: each institute had built its own scientific reputation and channels that could not be folded into a generic university voice
Alignment: stakeholders across the university, institutes and Qatar Foundation needed consistent endorsement of the research story
Visibility: research highlights and thought leadership were at risk of being siloed within individual institute channels
Collaboration: communications representatives lacked a shared planning rhythm to coordinate cross-entity research storytelling
The problem was not brand consolidation but communications architecture.
A flat, single-tier approach that folded everything into HBKU would dilute the institutes' internationally recognized scientific reputations and weaken the Qatar Foundation affiliation that mattered to funders, government stakeholders and academic partners.
Conversely, leaving the institutes fully autonomous would keep HBKU's research narrative fragmented.
The answer required three coordinated tiers: university, institute and Qatar Foundation.
HBKU introduced a research communications strategy built on a shared governance model spanning the university, its colleges and the three national research institutes.
The approach let HBKU communicate its overarching academic and research mandate, let each institute retain its own specialist identity and channels, and used Qatar Foundation consistently as the national affiliation.
Governance worked through a network of communications representatives and shared annual planning, with a content marketing program, annual Research Day and proactive thought-leadership activity keeping the three tiers aligned rather than competing for attention.
- Research communications strategy
- Three-tier communications architecture
- Governance model
- Institute communications representative network
- Shared annual planning
- Content marketing program
- Annual Research Day
- Proactive research and thought-leadership storytelling
- Established a working network of communications representatives across the university and institutes
- Aligned priorities through shared annual planning
- Clarified when stories should lead with HBKU, an institute or the Qatar Foundation affiliation
- Built a coordinated content marketing program
- Created recurring research storytelling and thought-leadership activity
- Used Research Day as a shared platform for visibility and collaboration
- Established repeatable workflows for cross-entity research communications
The strategy aligned research communications governance and operations across the university and the three national research institutes.
It gave HBKU a coherent university-level research narrative while preserving the institutes' specialist credibility and their direct Qatar Foundation affiliation.
Research communications were streamlined across the university, reducing duplication and helping research highlights reach wider audiences.
The visibility of research highlights and their impact increased through coordinated content marketing, thought leadership and the annual Research Day platform.
Cross-collaboration between colleges and institutes was supported by shared planning and a common communications rhythm.
Repeatable planning, platforms, workflows and governance were established for ongoing research communications.
I led the development of the research communications strategy, the three-tier architecture and the governance model, working with institute communications representatives through shared annual planning.
- Client: Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar Foundation
- Research communications strategy and governance: Houssam El Zein
- Internal collaborators: HBKU colleges, QCRI, QBRI and QEERI communications representatives