Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University has agreed to establish a branch campus in the United Arab Emirates city of Al Ain, reports The National.

The university has formed a partnership with Mubadala, an investment fund based in Abu Dhabi that, among other things, aims to establish the Persian Gulf emirate as a hub for the aerospace, aviation, and defense industries.

Embry-Riddle has residential campuses in Daytona Beach, Fla., and Prescott, Ariz., and some 130 teaching centers on or near U.S. military bases in the United States and around the world that are designed to allow U.S. soldiers to continue working toward aviation degrees no matter where they are posted.

But the United Arab Emirates campus aims to become a full branch of the residential institution, open to applicants from around the world who are seeking collegiate degrees in the field of aviation and aerospace.

Embry-Riddle’s programs focus on teaching the science, practice, and business of the aviation and aerospace industry. The private institution conducts $10-million in applied contract research every year. It boasts that major airlines hire more alumni from the institution than from any other collegiate aviation program in the United States and that a majority of air-traffic controllers in the United States are graduates.

Details of the new deal are not yet final, but Mubadala hopes the university will begin accepting students in Al Ain this fall.

In the neighboring emirate of Dubai, the Emirates Aviation College, an offshoot of Emirates Airlines, also trains air-traffic controllers and aircraft engineers. But last year, another Dubai-based institute, the Dubai Aerospace Enterprise University, closed after less than a year of operations. —Andrew Mills