Future Universities Alliance Names Inaugural Innovation Sandbox Cohort

The Future Universities Alliance has selected 49 institutions from 23 countries for the inaugural cohort of its Innovation Sandbox, a 12-month peer learning program for higher education leaders advancing ambitious, institution-level innovation.

The cohort brings together founders of new universities, administrators and faculty leading high-stakes changes within established institutions, and leaders of proven models exploring how their innovations can travel to new contexts. Participants were chosen through a competitive process that drew applicants from around the world in its inaugural year.

The Alliance was launched in January 2026 as a global learning network incubated by Duke University. It grew out of the New Global Universities Summit, a 2024 event that brought together leaders of emerging universities to explore how institutions could learn from one another rather than innovate in isolation.

“Higher education is not short of innovation, but it is short of the structures needed to connect that innovation, help it travel, and make it durable,” said Noah Pickus, founder of the Alliance and Head of Global Strategy and Partnerships at Duke. “The Innovation Sandbox is designed to create those structures.”

Organized around three pathways, the cohort consists of 15 institutions building new colleges and universities from the ground up. Another 28 participants advancing early-stage innovations within existing institutions, working to move ambitious ideas from concept to durable practice, and seven more have proven models and are exploring how to expand their impact responsibly through adaptation, partnerships, or networks.

The participating institutions come from Australia, Botswana, Germany, Ghana, Honduras, India, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Tanzania, Thailand, Türkiye, Uganda, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Their work spans AI-enabled learning, applied STEM and agriculture, liberal arts renewal, venture creation, curriculum redesign, credential innovation, and models built around learners poorly served by existing structures.

“What connects these institutions is not innovation for its own sake,” Pickus said. “It is a shared conviction that the central questions facing higher education are fundamentally about what constitutes high-quality learning, how we know it when we see it, and how it can reach more students in more places.”

Beginning in July, participants will engage in monthly facilitated small-group sessions organized around shared innovation themes and structured milestone meetings with executive sponsors. In October, they will participate in the Alliance’s first Global Summit, which will be held on Duke’s campus in Durham, N.C.

The Alliance is part of Duke’s broader commitment to global engagement and educational innovation. Duke’s experience establishing partnerships around the world informed the Alliance’s design as a network built on institutional collaboration rather than a single exported model.

For more information, visit the Future Universities Alliance website.