This paper explores key levers for developing the innovative school and curriculum design that is recognized in Abu Dhabi and across the world as being important for developing knowledge-based economies. In Abu Dhabi the emphasis on innovation is embedded in a number of strategic policies, including a call to build “an environment that fosters innovation, cultivates a healthy risk-taking culture and strengthens the research and development capacity” in the Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030 and a call for an economic model of growth “driven by knowledge and innovation” in the Vision 2021. The paper also explores strategies for supporting innovative school and curriculum design in a way that responds to and builds upon local strengths and challenges.

The paper responds specifically to the challenges identified in Natasha Ridge's 2011 analysis of “the role of the curriculum in the creation of a knowledge-based economy in the UAE.” Ridge highlights pressures created by summative attainment goals, accountability and standardization and their effects upon the education system, and this paper examines evidence about particular strategies that are helpful in addressing these challenges; strategies that are also helpful in addressing some of the tensions described in some depth by Abdullatif Al-Shamsi's analysis of “school, curriculum and the knowledge economy” that was commissioned as part of the ECSSR's annual conferences.