The Middle East is getting serious about steel education
- BlogSmarter AI
- Blog
- February 20, 2026
Table of Contents
The metals industry has a skills problem. Everyone knows it. But Metal Park and the World Steel Association have actually decided to do something about it.
The two organisations have launched the Middle East Education Ecosystem for Metals (MEEEM) — a proper, joined-up effort to build foundational skills, advanced metallurgy, and engineering capability across the region. No half-measures. No vanity press releases. An actual programme.
Vahid Fouladkar, CEO of Metal Park, put it plainly: “Metal Park was conceived as more than physical infrastructure—it is an operating ecosystem where standards, talent, capability, and production are developed together.”
The initiative plugs in Steel University, the World Steel Association’s educational arm, and aligns squarely with the UAE’s “Make it in the Emirates” and “Operation 300bn” strategies. In short: the UAE wants a serious industrial base, and you can’t build one without people who actually know what they’re doing.
Fixing the talent pipeline — globally
This isn’t just a Middle East story. Jorge Muract, Director of Steel University, made clear the ambition goes further: “The alliance seeks to secure the industry talent pipeline through strong collaboration and alignment among academia, industry, its value chain, and government.”
He also flagged the plan to link up with similar initiatives in Europe, Saudi Arabia, India, and Latin America — so talent can move across borders and the industry stops reinventing the wheel in every region.
That’s worth paying attention to. Cross-border talent mobility in metals manufacturing has been talked about for years. This is one of the first credible attempts to actually build the infrastructure for it.
Why this matters
The metals industry is not short of experience. It is short of a structured way to pass that experience on — especially as experienced workers retire and younger engineers come in without the hands-on background.
MEEEM is a bet that the solution is an ecosystem, not a training course. Bring together governments, regulators, industry partners, and universities, and you get something that actually sticks.
As Fouladkar put it: “By partnering with the World Steel Association and Steel University, we are embedding global best practices directly into the industrial environment, ensuring that education translates into measurable performance, competitiveness, and long-term national value for the UAE.”
That’s the right framing. Training that doesn’t connect to production outcomes is just expensive box-ticking. If MEEEM delivers on this, it could be the template the rest of the industry needs.