Objectives and scope of the panel The objectives and scope of the panel are to examine the role and potential of transnational knowledge relations and talent mobility for developing knowledge-based societies and economies in the Gulf. Gulf societies are working consciously to develop and diversify from oil and gas natural resource-based economies towards more innovative, knowledge-based economies. At the same time, Gulf societies are striving to equip their nationals to participate in this post-industrial economy and take up positions at all levels, especially knowledge-intensive leadership positions in diverse economic spheres. To achieve these aims, Gulf societies have either imported branch campuses from the West or created institutions of higher education that exhibit strong transnational tendencies, many of which have cultivated partnerships with American, Western European, Australian or Canadian universities. These new private, transnational institutions in the Gulf are of widely varying composition and quality. Among their characteristics, which is of central concern for the building of knowledge-based societies and economies, are the transnational relations of these institutions. Recent research on universities in international politics suggest that some of the most interesting aspects of universities are their capacities to act as conduits that mediate the transfer of economic, intellectual, artistic, and political ties across global societies. Joseph Nye and Robert Keohane in 1971 suggested that transnational relations were “global interactions” of non-state actors moving information, money, people and goods across borders. We subscribe to this definition of transnational relations in our work. It is clear that transnational universities are deeply engaged in such “global interactions” of moving information, ideas, talent and financial resources between societies. As such, the organizers of this workshop similarly define transnational knowledge relations as a set of networks mobilizing knowledge workers, academic institutions, business organizations, and ideational frameworks spanning national boundaries. In other words, we view transnational knowledge relations as constituting not only organizations and knowledge workers, but also the various theoretical frameworks and ideological categories that are integral to these transnational flows. Research on universities as transnational actors also demonstrates that such universities may develop very strong relations with a wide range 3 of actors across borders, such as the academics, business elites, civil society, philanthropic organizations, and political elites. The private, transnational universities in the Gulf and the wider Middle East are to a varying extent “information and resource bridges” that facilitate heavy traffic of knowledge, talent, and financial resources in both directions. The political economy undergirding the establishment of a knowledge society will also serve as an important component of this workshop. Nationalization programs with the stated aim of reducing dependence on expatriate workers are at times in conflict with initiatives to internationalize higher education as are Emiratization in the UAE and Qatarization in Qatar. To illustrate this point, very few of the full time faculty at universities such as Zayed University in Dubai, the American University of Sharjah, or the American University of Kuwait are Gulf citizens. Therefore, existing labor laws designed to both facilitate the importation of foreign workers while maintaining control of the terms of their stay, create suboptimal outcomes for two principle reasons. First, imported academics very often stay for a short period of time (3-5 years), which prevents the establishment of institutional memory. Second, by relying mostly on imported academics, the development of national experts is undermined