Transforming Adversity into Strategic Success: Management Approaches in Palestinian Higher Education

Abstract

Palestinian higher education institutions operate under extraordinary challenges due to military occupation, including movement restrictions, resource limitations, and institutional closures, requiring university leaders to develop innovative approaches to maintain academic standards. This study explores how deans in Medicine, Law, and Engineering—the first programs established in Palestine—navigate these constraints through strategic management practices that transform them into strategic capabilities. Using semi-structured interviews, we conducted in-depth qualitative research with three program deans who possess a comprehensive understanding of their faculties’ organizational dynamics and adaptive strategies. Thematic analysis revealed several key management approaches, including the strategic adaptation of curricula to meet community needs while maintaining global standards; deliberate investment in faculty development and international collaborations; the integration of critical pedagogy that connects academic learning with social responsibility; and the successful advancement of gender equity in traditionally male-dominated fields. Deans created innovative solutions, including community-based medical training, legal clinics addressing occupation-related cases, and engineering projects focused on local infrastructure challenges. These findings demonstrate how educational leaders transform systemic constraints into opportunities for pedagogical innovation and institutional strengthening. This research contributes new theoretical insights into management practices in crisis-affected higher education, demonstrating how strategic leadership can sustain academic excellence despite severe restrictions. The insights offer valuable lessons for university administrators worldwide facing similar challenges, particularly in conflict-affected regions where educational continuity is threatened.

1. Introduction

Higher education institutions worldwide face unprecedented administrative challenges that require innovative management responses from university leaders. The ability to remain flexible in the face of unexpected challenges or crises while maintaining commitment to the institutional mission and values has become increasingly important (Clark et al., 2025). University administrators must navigate complex operational constraints while sustaining academic excellence and institutional effectiveness. Institutional resilience has emerged as a key differentiator in higher education, with those prioritizing holistic risk planning and adaptive strategies better equipped to navigate an increasingly complex and unpredictable landscape (Hoit et al., 2024).

Global higher education institutions face significant challenges in maintaining a high-quality mission while remaining accessible. Many nations are reducing government support for education while increasing tuition and private funding. According to the World Bank (2023), this trend exacerbates inequality and restricts opportunities for disadvantaged students, exacerbating the global student debt crisis (UNESCO, 2020). Financial pressures on graduates may constrain their economic growth, indicating a troubling pattern in global education. Technological improvements and job market shifts force universities to modify their curricula, with the World Economic Forum (2023) emphasizing the need for job-relevant skills for graduates. Global political trends, notably increased nationalism and governmental interference, threaten academic freedom and international collaboration, thereby affecting the globalization of higher education (De Wit & Altbach, 2021). Educational leaders must be swift-thinking and fast-acting in their approach, demanding the building of resilience through comprehensive crisis leadership training and strategic management capabilities (Hill-Berry & Burris-Melville, 2024). Public higher education institutions face the additional challenge of balancing academic excellence with community service while navigating political and economic pressures. This study examines how Palestinian university leaders have developed management approaches that turn systematic constraints into sources of institutional strength, offering insights for public administrators and institutional leaders facing similar challenges worldwide.

These challenges intensify dramatically in conflict zones, where traditional management approaches prove insufficient for maintaining operations under extreme external pressures. Palestinian higher education presents a compelling case study of crisis management and administrative innovation under prolonged adversity. In this complex socio-political environment, Shibib (2021) highlighted that Palestinian colleges and universities differ significantly from typical educational institutions globally. The Israeli occupation poses substantial problems for Palestinian higher education institutions (Palestine Ministry of Higher Education, 2023), including financial constraints, mobility restrictions, and frequent institutional closures (Iter et al., 2023; Isaac et al., 2019). The brain drain of competent Palestinians, particularly academics, impacts academic excellence and research productivity (Mataria et al., 2008; Abusamra, 2024). Effective management practices become crucial for navigating these multifaceted challenges systematically and sustainably.

Palestinian institutions must adapt their curricula to economic and social needs while addressing the social effects of ongoing violence and occupation that impair students’ mental health and academic performance (Thabet & Abdalla, 2018). Medical education faces particular challenges in this context, requiring innovative approaches to clinical training despite limited hospital access and infrastructure constraints (Kerr Winter et al., 2015). These universities face resource constraints, high student-to-teacher ratios, and frequent academic disruption (Koni et al., 2012), requiring them to secure consistent government financing and recruit talented academics despite significant barriers (Isaac et al., 2019; Reach Education Fund, 2022). The Israeli occupation has severely impacted Palestinian education, limiting access and disrupting learning (Hammond, 2012), with recent escalations intensifying these challenges. The 2023 Gaza conflict led to faculty displacement, infrastructure destruction, and an accelerated academic brain drain (Abusamra, 2024). Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted critical gaps in digital infrastructure, as Palestinian universities struggled to implement effective online learning under occupation-related resource constraints (Atout et al., 2022). Beyond material challenges, systemic inequities persist, as education’s influence on career opportunities remains constrained by discrimination and restricted access, limiting graduates’ ability to benefit from their qualifications (Eid & Daoud, 2025). Israeli universities remain implicated in policies that constrain Palestinian academic freedom and institutional development (Wind, 2024).

Despite growing scholarly interest in organizational resilience, a significant gap remains in understanding how higher education administrators implement effective management practices under severe operational constraints while maintaining institutional effectiveness. The conceptualization of resilience as a complex management variable has not been fully achieved, particularly in the higher education context during extended periods of instability (Shaya et al., 2023). While research exists on educational resilience across various contexts, few studies examine the specific management strategies university leaders employ during protracted crises. Understanding how institutions navigate these challenges through strategic management, operational change, and administrative innovation has become essential for institutional survival and effectiveness (Sharma, 2024).

The deficit in educational leadership research is particularly pronounced in conflict-affected regions like the Palestinian territories. While Palestinians have maintained their educational system despite military occupation constraints (Naqib & Ismail, 2020), limited research exists on the specific leadership strategies that enable higher education institutions to maintain academic quality under such conditions. This study examines how university leaders in Medicine, Law, and Engineering—the first programs established in Palestine—navigate operational constraints by strategically adapting their curricula, pedagogical approaches, and institutional practices. Higher education’s role in national development extends beyond human capital formation to include academic freedom—the institutional capacity to operate independently in research, teaching, and service (Altbach, 2001; Güven & Güngör, 2024). In conflict zones, systematic interference through institutional closures, restricted mobility, and censorship constrains universities’ developmental contributions (UNESCO, 2020). Understanding how Palestinian institutions navigate these constraints while maintaining their societal role illuminates the relationship among academic autonomy, institutional resilience, and capacity-building under occupation.

Research Questions:

Main Research Question: How do Palestinian university deans adapt institutional practices to maintain academic standards under conditions of military occupation?

Secondary Research Questions:

• What strategic adaptations do deans implement in curriculum design and pedagogical approaches?
• How do leadership decisions regarding faculty development and international partnerships contribute to institutional sustainability?

This study draws on Freire-influenced organizational resilience and critical pedagogy (Freire, 1998, 2021) as theoretical frameworks to examine how Palestinian higher education institutions navigate adversity through strategic leadership practices. The research employs qualitative methodologies, specifically semi-structured in-depth interviews with Palestinian higher education leaders. This analytical approach effectively captures the complex dynamics of adaptation, innovation, and strategic management in educational settings under occupation, as demonstrated by Golan and Shalhoub-Kevorkian (2019).

The study’s focus on crisis management aligns with the current understanding that effective institutional responses require systematic approaches enabling organizations to build comprehensive capabilities while maintaining stakeholder trust and operational effectiveness (Dayagbil, 2023; Wulandari & Layna, 2025). By documenting and analyzing these adaptive strategies, this research enhances understanding of educational leadership in conflict-affected regions, offering insights with both local and global applications.

Understanding the Palestinian context of resilience, as Giacaman (2020) emphasizes, is essential for comprehending educational challenges and achievements under such circumstances. The perseverance and strategic innovations demonstrated by Palestinian higher education institutions illustrate how thoughtful leadership and effective management can foster institutional sustainability and contribute to broader societal development despite sustained adversity.

2. Literature Review

This literature review draws on four key theoretical areas to understand resilience in Palestinian higher education. Educational resilience theory examines how institutions and individuals sustain learning in the face of adversity, while organizational resilience frameworks examine mechanisms of institutional adaptation. Critical pedagogy offers insights into transformative educational approaches that resist oppression, and comparative research on higher education in conflict zones provides a contextualized understanding of the Palestinian experience. Together, these perspectives provide insight into how Palestinian institutions navigate prolonged adversity through strategic adaptation and effective management practices.

2.1. Educational Resilience

Educational resilience involves overcoming barriers to sustain learning across multiple socio-ecological levels (Masten & Obradović, 2008). Family and community support empower students’ passion, ambition, and tenacity, building resilience and self-efficacy (Cassidy, 2015). Additionally, technological and pedagogical adaptations, along with favorable campus climates, further enhance resilience (Mills, 2021; Scholtz & Williams, 2025). Education’s role in community empowerment and identity development becomes crucial amid turmoil, with cross-scalar interactions shaping resilience through family and school support for adolescents as they overcome adversity.

The occupied Palestinian education system exemplifies this resilience, persevering and innovating despite military interference. Students pursue education despite movement constraints, believing it empowers community identity and self-reliance. Palestinian institutions face significant challenges, including funding constraints, barriers to international collaboration, and difficulties in research management (Isaac et al., 2019). Despite these documented challenges, Palestinian institutions demonstrate resilience by cultivating global relationships, localizing pedagogies, adapting to research limitations, and implementing effective management practices. Recent studies reveal that Palestinian students display remarkable resilience under extreme conditions, with resilience moderating stress, anxiety, and depression during the 2023–2024 Gaza war (Abuejheisheh et al., 2024; Salameh et al., 2025). Similarly, resilience and coping strategies prove pivotal for nursing students in critical care training amid war disruptions, with problem-solving emerging as the most effective approach (Salameh et al., 2025). Bibliometric analyses demonstrate that educational resilience in conflict zones is increasingly studied as a transdisciplinary phenomenon, emphasizing continuity and recovery strategies under armed conflict (Artyukhov et al., 2024). Masten and Obradović (2008) define educational resilience as the collective resolve to nurture the young, preserve the social fabric, and sustain identity amid disruptions—embodied by the Palestinian cultural concept of Sumud (steadfastness) (Marie et al., 2017; Hammad & Tribe, 2020).

2.2. Organizational Resilience and Strategic Flexibility

Organizations survive turbulent settings through resilience that extends beyond crisis response to include adaptation and problem-solving, with effective management serving as a key strategic component (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2015). Modern conceptualizations of organizational resilience draw from two complementary theoretical frameworks that illuminate different aspects of institutional adaptation.

Ecological frameworks emphasize the connectedness of organizations with their surrounding ecosystems, where variability, redundancy, and interdependencies provide continuity under stress (B. Walker et al., 2004). These frameworks illustrate how ecological variety and redundancies enable organizations to withstand external pressures while maintaining essential functions (Bento et al., 2021). Cognitive models focus on internal organizational dynamics, examining how leadership, communication, and collective sensemaking influence an institution’s ability to mobilize against adversity (Lengnick-Hall & Beck, 2005). These models illuminate how psychological and behavioral components influence organizational responses to crises (Putra & Istiyani, 2022). Recent research emphasizes adaptive cultures and digital transformation as critical drivers of resilience in higher education institutions (Gull et al., 2024), while systematic reviews highlight resilience as a growing trend in post-pandemic higher education scholarship (Polanco-Lahoz et al., 2024).

Strategic flexibility emerges as a crucial mechanism for operationalizing organizational resilience, particularly in conflict zones where maintaining academic excellence is essential despite significant restrictions. Herhausen et al. (2021) define strategic flexibility as the ability to allocate resources and reconfigure strategies, enabling organizations to navigate rapidly changing environments. Strategic flexibility resonates with the Palestinian concept of Sumud (steadfastness), embodying adaptive persistence and strategic resistance in the face of prolonged adversity (Marie et al., 2017; Hammad & Tribe, 2020). While strategic flexibility emphasizes organizational resource reconfiguration, Sumud represents culturally grounded resilience that refuses defeat while systematically adapting. This theoretical integration illuminates how Palestinian institutions achieve both adaptation and resistance—reconfiguring practices to maintain excellence while preserving mission and cultural identity.

Resilience manifests through two interconnected elements: operational resilience, which addresses sudden disturbances, and strategic resilience, involving long-term external changes and institutional positioning (Xiao & Cao, 2017).

Empirical evidence demonstrates diverse applications of strategic flexibility across higher education contexts. Bondzi-Simpson and Agomor (2021) show how entrepreneurial approaches enabled the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration to overcome financial crises, while Pieprz et al. (2021) emphasize the importance of flexibility in campus planning for multidisciplinary pedagogies. Hoeft (2022) proposes a conceptual model that aligns institutional strategies with contemporary student expectations by integrating components of strategic flexibility. Recent conflict research reinforces these principles, with Ukrainian universities exemplifying evolution from resistance to resilience strategies, emphasizing flexibility and international collaboration during wartime (Spivakovsky et al., 2025). Palestinian higher education institutions similarly demonstrate how curriculum adjustment and international partnerships sustain academic relevance amid occupation, illustrating the intricate relationship between internal organizational capacities and external environmental constraints.

2.3. Critical Pedagogy

Critical pedagogy challenges assumptions of knowledge neutrality by viewing education as inherently political, problematizing oppressive hierarchies while promoting collective learning focused on structural critique to empower marginalized communities (Giroux, 2007). Rooted in equity movements, this approach fosters analytical empowerment by challenging conventional systems that perpetuate domination (Freire, 1998, 2021; Shor & Freire, 1987). Spanning educational contexts globally from early childhood to higher education, critical pedagogy confronts urgent justice issues, including racism and environmental harm (Luitel et al., 2022). Recent syntheses reaffirm its transformative potential, demonstrating enhanced student engagement, critical thinking, and social justice orientations across diverse settings (Hunaepi et al., 2024; A. Walker et al., 2024).

Service-learning integrates academic instruction with community service, enabling students to develop professional competencies while addressing genuine societal needs (Mufron & Vann, 2024). This experiential approach differs from traditional community service by structuring reflection to connect experience with academic content (Richard et al., 2017). Research demonstrates that well-designed service-learning enhances student outcomes, civic engagement, and professional skills across diverse contexts (Nortomaa & Grönlund, 2019; Cheng, 2018). In conflict-affected regions, community-based learning assumes particular significance by maintaining educational relevance despite infrastructure limitations. The Palestinian context provides an opportunity to examine how these pedagogies operate when community needs stem directly from political constraints, extending understanding of service-learning’s transformative capacity (Stewart, 2011; Rodríguez-Izquierdo, 2022).

Within the turbulent context of Palestine, critical pedagogy is deeply relevant, enhancing teaching practices through liberatory dialogues and participatory meaning-making about the effects of occupation and neocolonial pressures (Baramki, 2010; P. Johnson, 1986). Recent studies demonstrate how inclusive pedagogical redesign promotes engagement and collective empowerment, even under conditions of conflict (Zeedan, 2024). This approach aligns with resilience objectives by nurturing analytical and self-reflective capacities that enable self-determination, thereby reinforcing the dual role of critical pedagogy as both liberatory and sustaining practice in contexts of prolonged adversity. These pedagogical approaches operate within broader institutional contexts shaped by conflict dynamics, as evidenced by comparative research across conflict-affected regions.

3. Methods

3.1. Research Design

This study employs a qualitative research approach, recognized for its capacity to explore complex phenomena like organizational transformation and educational resilience in extreme contexts (Creswell & Poth, 2018). This methodological choice proves ideal for understanding administrators’ multifaceted perspectives, experiences, and strategic responses to prolonged adversity (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015). The research utilized in-depth, semi-structured interviews to gather rich, comprehensive data on institutional adaptation and management practices under occupation. This interview format maintains flexibility while ensuring rigor and validity in capturing the complex dynamics of resilience, innovation, and management practices (Roulston & Choi, 2018).

3.2. Participants

The study employed purposive sampling to select three deans from the engineering, medical, and law faculties, representing the foundational programs of Palestinian higher education. This strategic sampling approach aligns with established qualitative research principles that prioritize information richness over sample size (Patton, 2014; Ahmad & Wilkins, 2024). In qualitative research, particularly when investigating elite informants in specialized contexts, small samples can yield more meaningful insights than larger ones (Nowell et al., 2017; Beamer, 2002).

The three deans represent public universities in the northern and central West Bank. While all face occupation-related constraints—movement restrictions, closures, resource limitations—the intensity varies by location. These institutions operate within Palestinian Authority governance alongside Israeli military control, creating varied operational contexts that strengthen the findings by demonstrating consistent strategic approaches across different institutional environments.

The selection of three participants reflects several methodological considerations that enhance rather than limit the study’s validity. These deans provide unique insights as institutional leaders with comprehensive oversight of faculty operations, strategic planning, and adaptive responses. Their positions offer both institutional-level perspectives and program-specific insights, representing what Patton (2014) terms “information-rich cases” essential for understanding complex organizational phenomena. This purposive sampling approach prioritizes depth of insight over representativeness, aligning with established qualitative principles that emphasize selecting participants who can most effectively illuminate the research problem (Shaheen et al., 2019; Wan, 2019).

Despite varied contexts, these institutions demonstrate consistent strategic management approaches within the broader occupation framework. This enables focused analysis without the variability that larger, more diverse samples might introduce. Additionally, the intensity sampling strategy, focusing on the most successful and foundational programs, ensures that findings reflect proven resilience strategies rather than peripheral responses.

The selection of medicine, law, and engineering disciplines reflects strategic theoretical sampling based on several criteria. These programs represent the first established disciplines in Palestinian higher education and demonstrate the most successful performance records, providing exemplars of institutional resilience. Medical education in Palestine exemplifies these challenges, operating under significant resource limitations while maintaining international standards (Kerr Winter et al., 2015). More critically, these professions constitute fundamental pillars for societal self-sufficiency, enabling operation independent from Israeli authorities, a crucial factor for national resilience and self-determination under occupation. This selection strategy ensures that findings address the most theoretically significant cases for understanding educational management in conflict zones.

For clarity in presenting results, participants are coded as follows: Dean of the Medical Faculty (D.M.F.), Dean of the Engineering Faculty (D.E.F.), and Dean of the Law Faculty (D.L.F.). These codes are used throughout the Results section.

3.3. Instruments

The semi-structured interview protocol explored institutional challenges, strategic adaptations, curriculum innovations, faculty development, and measurable outcomes. Participants were provided with questions in advance to facilitate thoughtful preparation and comprehensive responses regarding their management practices under occupation. The protocol began with open-ended inquiries about professional backgrounds, institutional challenges, and strategic initiatives, allowing participants to articulate their experiences while ensuring coverage of key research areas.

3.4. Procedure

Semi-structured interviews ranging in duration from 70 to 88 min (M = 79 min) were conducted in Arabic in the deans’ offices between July 2022 and April 2023. Following Denzin and Lincoln (2017), considerable attention was devoted to establishing an appropriate rapport with participants. Preliminary meetings explained research objectives, addressed questions, and built trust essential for eliciting authentic narratives about institutional adaptation under occupation.

All interviews were conducted in Arabic, the participants’ native language, and subsequently translated to English using AI assistance. To ensure translation quality, particularly for politically sensitive terms, a rigorous validation process was implemented. The author, a native Arabic speaker with advanced English proficiency, reviewed all translations against original transcripts. A second bilingual expert independently backchecked 30% of translations to verify semantic accuracy. Discrepancies were resolved through discussion and reference to original recordings, with cultural nuances and contextual meanings carefully adapted to preserve original intent.

3.5. Data Analysis

The interview transcripts were analyzed using qualitative thematic analysis to identify meaning units, develop thematic categories, and generate theoretical explanations (Braun & Clarke, 2019). Transcripts were analyzed manually using thematic coding procedures, following the principles of Braun and Clarke (2019).

The analytical approach involved systematic coding to identify core themes and interpretive abstraction to understand patterns of institutional adaptation. Departmental colleagues validated interviews, transcripts, and analyses to ensure the dependability and trustworthiness of findings.

4. Results

This section presents findings from thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with three Palestinian public university deans conducted to examine management strategies under occupation conditions. Four primary themes emerged from the data: (1) Strategic Institutional Management and Adaptation, (2) Pedagogical Innovation and Curriculum Development, (3) Faculty Development and International Partnerships, and (4) Academic Excellence and Community Impact. The findings are organized thematically and illustrated through participant quotations, demonstrating how Palestinian academic leaders navigate external constraints while maintaining institutional effectiveness.

4.1. Strategic Institutional Management and Adaptation

All three deans described multifaceted approaches to institutional management that transformed external constraints into strategic opportunities. Their accounts reveal systematic decision-making processes that balance immediate operational needs with long-term institutional development.

4.1.1. Strategic Program Development

All three deans pioneered foundational programs in their respective disciplines. The Medical Faculty responded to occupation prohibitions by developing alternative pathways for students seeking medical education:

“Since the occupation prohibited us from establishing hospitals or basic medical sciences, many high school graduates with strong grades who wanted to study medicine were taken abroad. After the Soviet Union collapsed, this option disappeared. Students must pay for coursework and living expenses without governmental aid. It will be challenging for students. Europe is closed, favoring EU students and making international admission tough. US medical schools struggle to admit international students. Top students want to be doctors, but international colleges do not accept them. Arab countries admit fewer Palestinian students. After Oslo in 1994, 10% of students were hardly accepted in Arab countries. We had a tremendous desire to act.”

(D.M.F)

The Engineering and Law faculties, both established in 1882, were similarly first in their fields at the national level. They pursued distinctive pedagogical strategies. Engineering emphasized integrated first-year approaches:

“European, American, and Jordanian models are used in our teaching. The approach is unique since all students spend the first year together and are divided into engineering industries.”

(D.E.F)

Law developed specialized programs through strategic international partnerships:

“We increased the budget for legal ethics in partnership with USAID and traveled to examine American colleges’ experience in this sector. The legal clinic is the first in Palestine and the Middle East universities.”

(D.L.F)

4.1.2. Implementation Challenges and Solutions

All deans addressed significant implementation challenges requiring adaptive management strategies. The Medical Faculty encountered substantial infrastructure limitations:

“It was difficult. For instance, established clinics must provide community medicine, yet few qualified doctors exist. We lack a family medical center that connects people to the hospital.”

(D.M.F)

Despite these constraints, ambitious program goals guided institutional development. The Medicine Dean articulated a vision integrating community engagement with international standards:

“This includes providing adequate medical staff and building a strong team with a leadership vision to guide the Palestinian physician community. Students studying Palestinian society may create research systems that fit society and follow the international norm for medical studies, which is community-oriented rather than hospital-oriented.”

(D.M.F)

The gap between institutional vision and operational capacity required creative problem-solving:

“Experts help, but we need community infrastructure. Vision and goals are harder to express than reality. Community medicine needs clinics and administrators. Family medicine replaces hospital specialties. Hospitals now accept family medicine. Family physicians globally are often the first point of hospital admission. We had vision but no infrastructure.”

(D.M.F)

External partnerships enabled systematic curriculum development. Law leveraged international support for program innovation:

“With the help of a project funded by USAID (The United States Agency for International Development), we have developed the curriculum and improved content as well as the staged trial; in this course, I teach students how to conduct international or local law. The student gets a position as a lawyer.”

(D.L.F)

This partnership extended to an internship model innovation:

“I proposed considering our staged trial. The student will gain experience in coordination with the bureau during the study. Similar to the legal clinic, which will train our students and have them participate for 6 or 3 months during the internship period. It is great that he will be trained practically during the academic period, simplifying the two-year internship.”

(D.L.F)

Engineering adapted programs to meet regional market demands:

“The Faculty of Civil Engineering also made program changes to help graduates meet field and local and regional market needs: In the Gulf states.”

(D.E.F)

4.1.3. Institutional Identity and Competitive Positioning

All three deans emphasized competitive excellence and global standards while maintaining institutional identity. International performance benchmarks demonstrated graduate quality. The Medicine Dean highlighted exceptional results:

“In the USMLE (United States Medical Licensing Examination), 18 of 25 students scored 99% from the top 99%. No one can compete with medical graduates.”

(D.M.F)

Regional competitive positioning required a strategic philosophy. The Medicine Dean articulated explicit criteria for excellence:

“I remind them that we are between Israel and Arab states like Jordan; therefore, to succeed, you must improve on all sides. Only professional factors, not personal ties or favoritism, are the focus.”

(D.M.F)

Law and Engineering differentiated their institutions through distinctive program features. Law emphasized practical integration:

“We offer a unique practical curriculum in the third and fourth years, not found even in Israel. Government courts, prosecutors, police, and human rights groups are included.”

(D.L.F)

Engineering highlighted their comprehensive pedagogical requirements:

“Our studies include several prerequisites and tasks. The approach is unique since all students spend the first year together and are divided into engineering industries.”

(D.E.F)

4.2. Pedagogical Innovation and Curriculum Development

All deans described extensive pedagogical innovations that address both academic excellence and community engagement. Their approaches reveal systematic efforts to transform traditional educational methods while maintaining rigorous standards.

4.2.1. Student-Centered Learning Transformation

The three deans implemented active learning methodologies to replace traditional instructional approaches. The Law Dean provided a comprehensive explanation of their pedagogical philosophy:

“Our objective was to introduce self-directed learning to students instead of the traditional frontal teaching method used in high schools. In the traditional method, the instructor takes control and teaches the lessons, discouraging students from exploring and trying independently. Due to this, they may find it difficult and unacceptable to engage in self-study. They often lack the confidence and experience to take on projects independently or with peers. This is a new approach in our school, and we understand that the school’s attitude plays a crucial role in students’ preparedness. However, the school curriculum can often hinder intellectual study, a challenge we aim to overcome.” (D.L.F)

The Medicine Dean expressed institutional commitment to educational transformation:

“Join us in this transformative, innovative method to improve everyone’s future.”

(D.M.F)

Engineering integrated this approach into their comprehensive first-year design:

“Our studies include several prerequisites and tasks. European, American, and Jordanian models are used in our teaching. The approach is unique since all students spend the first year together and are divided into engineering industries.”

(D.E.F)

4.2.2. Community-Based Practical Training

All three deans developed innovative community-engaged learning models despite facility constraints. The Medical Faculty implemented a phased expansion of community-based programs:

“We experienced challenges due to limited clinics and hospitals that could accept many students. We had 30 students initially, then 45 in the second group, and so on. We started with a few students to implement the technique.”

(D.M.F)

Community engagement began in students’ first year:

“Students attend community institutions, meet people, and listen to their needs.”

(D.M.F)

4.2.3. Skills Development and Professional Training

The deans emphasized comprehensive professional skill development adapted to local and global contexts. The Medicine Dean addressed communication deficits in traditional medical education:

“Most doctors who were in the field and studied in the old scheme do not have behavioral skills with the patient or with parents. For this purpose, we introduced a theoretical course followed by simulations.”

(D.M.F)

Law implemented specialized legal competencies:

“We have also added another track of legal writing; we will train the future attorney how to write a lawsuit in the future or write in the language of lawsuits in the State Attorney’s Office. To demonstrate social intent and a commitment to train for society’s future.”

(D.L.F)

Law further integrated multiple professional dimensions:

“Clinic legal terminology, information technology, and professional ethics are merged within our US-adopted field. This section has helped law students train and improve.”

(D.L.F)

4.2.4. Curriculum Specialization and Innovation

All deans developed advanced curriculum innovations tailored to professional and social needs. Law created specialized pathways for focused expertise:

“We concentrated on law disciplines in the new curriculum, which is transformative. Students initially learn the basics of the law. After the third year, he can study international, criminal, administrative, commercial, or civil law for 15 h.”

(D.L.F)

Medicine emphasized community-oriented medical education as foundational to curriculum design:

“Students studying Palestinian society may create research systems that fit society and follow the international norm for medical studies, which is community-oriented rather than hospital-oriented.”

(D.M.F)

4.2.5. Critical Pedagogy and Social Engagement

All deans incorporated direct engagement with social and political realities into academic programs. Law pioneered legal clinics integrating human rights education with professional development:

“The legal clinic is the first in Palestine and the Middle East universities. It started several years ago. Legal clinics 1 and 2 exist. The student studies human rights and observes occupation rules such as home demolitions, targeted assassinations, and Israeli court lawsuits. Today, we improve the clinic by having students fight in court with an attorney under his supervision. A legal clinic resembles US training. He can sue at a US forensic clinic but not here until he finishes school and conducts a two-year internship.”

(D.L.F)

The law created public engagement opportunities for student research presentations:

“Every year, I watch students perform legal research before graduation. I brought the Jerusalem educational television and the student’s parents, and the student explained his study for 10–15 min as a Ph.D. student. I believe it shapes the student’s personality and abilities in presenting themselves to the Office of Attorney or other bodies. He will also know how to write scholarly research. We also teach academic research methodologies, which are unique.”

(D.L.F)

Engineering addressed societal infrastructure challenges through capstone projects:

“The final project referenced sociopolitical reality. For instance, a great initiative in which students designed a secure way from Gaza to the West Bank as a viable connection.”

(D.E.F)

4.3. Faculty Development and International Partnerships

All the deans described strategic investments in human resources and global partnerships as essential for building institutional capacity. Their approaches reveal systematic commitment to faculty excellence and international collaboration.

4.3.1. Strategic Faculty Recruitment and Development

All three deans prioritized recruiting internationally credentialed faculty and developing research capacity. Medicine established integrated research centers:

“We established a neurology center. Our graduate was interested in this profession and received a US scholarship. He undertakes research in the US and remotely and sends it here; our students are also participating. Students are studying depression and Alzheimer’s. Students are actively involved in early research. Today, we urge students to focus on research projects and study.”

(D.M.F)

Medicine systematically recruited internationally trained graduates:

“Top graduates were immediately accepted into the Faculty of Medicine upon returning from PhD studies in the US, Europe, or France.”

(D.M.F)

Law maintained rigorous faculty selection standards:

“All our faculty members are Ph.D. holders or professors, and they are exceptional in their fields. Many years of experience… As the first faculty, we hired specialists with the best qualifications…We have excellent commercial and public sector teachers in many fields.”

(D.L.F)

Engineering emphasized international credentials:

“Even though I graduated from the US, 85% of engineering professors have European or American doctorates. Our Teaching Assistants are accomplished faculty members obtaining graduate degrees and doctorates, then returning to the faculty.”

(D.E.F)

4.3.2. International Collaboration and Exchange

All deans developed extensive international partnerships for faculty and program development. Law maintained multi-dimensional international engagement:

“Our private international law and human rights institute hosts seminars, events, and conventions. Today, we are partnering with the University in the US to study international law and human rights in English. The faculty has extensive international contacts, notably with US universities. We cooperate with other universities in Europe as well.”

(D.L.F)

Law facilitated active faculty exchange and collaborative research:

“We have relationships with universities in Egypt, Morocco, and Europe. We present at their conferences. I attended a class on illegal Palestinian immigration to Europe with a friend. We want Europeans to attend a meeting on building the Palestinian constitution. Lawyers and lecturers can learn what works for them from others’ experiences and exchange diverse research topics.”

(D.L.F)

Medicine connected local students with international research networks:

“Our graduate was interested in this profession and received a US scholarship. He undertakes research in the US and remotely, and sends it here, and our students are taking part.”

(D.M.F)

4.3.3. Global Training and Professional Development

All deans incorporated international training approaches and external funding to enhance programs. Law integrated international professional standards:

“Clinic legal terminology, information technology, and professional ethics are merged within our US-adopted field. This section has helped law students train and improve.”

(D.L.F)

Law leveraged external funding for curriculum development:

“With the help of a project funded by USAID, we have developed the curriculum and improved content as well as the staged trial; in this course, I teach students how to conduct international or local law. The student gets a position as a lawyer.”

(D.L.F)

Medicine adopted international training methodologies:

“For this purpose, we introduced a theoretical course followed by simulations.”

(D.M.F)

4.3.4. Student International Exposure

All deans valued international opportunities for comprehensive student development. Medicine structured international programs with a transformative impact:

“During six weeks, students travel abroad to engage with people, observe different situations, and interact with other students. Many of them come from backgrounds with limited resources. However, as they travel and meet other students, they realize their conditions are better than they thought. This discovery boosts their confidence and shows they are doing well despite their limited resources.”

(D.M.F)

Law expanded student learning through international partnerships:

“Today we are partnering with the University in the US to study international law and human rights in English.”

(D.L.F)

4.4. Academic Excellence and Community Impact

All deans provided extensive evidence of exceptional academic achievement and meaningful social contributions. Their accounts reveal institutional commitment to rigorous standards alongside community service and social progress.

4.4.1. Academic Standards and Merit-Based Selection

All three deans emphasized rigorous admission standards and merit-based selection. Medicine maintained competitive excellence with explicit criteria:

“Our program is competitive; they want only the best doctors. We also accept top high school students. We want a top doctor. I remind them that we are between Israel and Arab states like Jordan; therefore, to succeed, you must improve on all sides. Only professional factors, not personal ties or favoritism, are the focus.”

(D.M.F)

Engineering provided quantitative documentation of selective admission:

“This faculty has one of the highest admission thresholds, admitting 600 students annually. We registered 300 Tawjihi students with an average of 93 or higher.”

(D.E.F)

Law highlighted distinctive practical components:

“We offer a unique practical curriculum in the third and fourth years, not found even in Israel. Government courts, prosecutors, police, and human rights groups are included.”

(D.L.F)

4.4.2. Gender Equity and Social Progress

The deans achieved remarkable gender equity in traditionally male-dominated fields. Medicine reported substantial female enrollment:

“About 60% of our students are women. Local and regional originality compared to the Arab globe for the initial ones.”

(D.M.F)

Engineering documented similar progress with broader implications:

“60% female enrollment highlights a trend toward gender equality in historically male-dominated professions in Palestinian academia and beyond.”

(D.E.F)

4.4.3. Graduate Success and Professional Impact

All the deans provided evidence of graduate achievements across multiple sectors. The law detailed comprehensive alumni accomplishments:

“The Palestinian law faculty has numerous distinctive qualities. Many alumni, including junior judges and magistrates, serve as judges, demonstrating that the faculty is of the highest caliber. The Faculty of Law produced the first female Shari’a (religion) judges. Seven law faculties were selected from ten attorneys who participated in competition examinations for judicial training and coaching last year and the year before. The highest percentage of State Attorney’s Office judges and Bar Authority nominations comes from our faculty. Approximately 4200 faculty alumni, including lawyers from the State Attorney’s Office, intelligence and security authorities, and consultants, have worked in the legal system. Most of them earned doctorates and teach at our faculty. Some studied in the US and Arab countries. Our alumni teach at other Palestinian universities.”

(D.L.F)

Medicine documented local and international recognition with specific metrics:

“We talk about our students’ quality everywhere. Local doctors recognize the quality of our university’s medical graduates; therefore, they seek them out. Students must interview for the residency program in the US, and because they invest in them, they need them to work for a while. Yes, we promote ourselves. It is great to demonstrate where we are, but not to advertise. Students also prove themselves and promote me and our curriculum.”

(D.M.F)

Medicine emphasized exceptional international performance:

“In the USMLE (United States Medical Licensing Examination), 18 of 25 students scored 99% from the top averages. No one can compete with medical graduates.”

(D.M.F)

4.4.4. Global Recognition and Collaboration

All deans described extensive international recognition and collaborative relationships. Law is engaged in ongoing international knowledge exchange:

“Our relationship involves presenting at their conferences. Lawyers and lecturers learn from others’ experiences what works for them. In addition, lecturers exchange on diverse research topics.”

(D.L.F)

Medicine positioned graduates in international professional networks:

“Local doctors recognize our university’s medical graduates’ quality; therefore, they seek them out. Students must interview for the residency program in the US, and because they invest in them, they need them to work for a while.”

(D.M.F)

Collectively, these findings demonstrate that all three deans have developed comprehensive institutional management approaches that integrate strategic positioning, pedagogical innovation, faculty development, and measurable outcomes while operating under significant external constraints. Their strategies systematically convert occupational challenges into opportunities for programmatic distinction and institutional resilience.

5. Discussion

This study explored how deans of medicine, law, and engineering faculties in Palestinian public universities navigate prolonged military occupation and political instability to maintain educational excellence. Through in-depth interviews with academic leaders, we sought to understand the strategic management practices that enable these institutions to thrive under extreme constraints rather than merely survive them.

The analysis revealed four interconnected themes that characterize how these leaders transform constraints into exceptional performances. Strategic institutional management demonstrated how deans transformed limitations into opportunities, creating Palestine’s first community-based medical training and legal clinic despite hospital prohibitions. Pedagogical innovation involved shifts from traditional teaching to community-engaged learning, with students addressing real occupation cases and societal challenges. Faculty development and international partnerships focused on building expertise, with 85% of faculty internationally trained while maintaining local commitment through partnerships that strengthened their mission. Academic excellence and community impact delivered measurable results, including 60% female enrollment in male-dominated fields and graduates scoring in the 99th percentile internationally, with alumni now serving across Palestinian institutions.

The strategic management approach these Palestinian deans developed goes well beyond typical crisis response. Rather than just managing constraints, they systematically transform limitations into institutional advantages, what we might call constraint-based strategic management. When the Medicine Dean was prohibited from establishing hospitals, this created the opportunity to develop Palestine’s first community-based medical education program. Similarly, Law Dean’s establishment of the first legal clinic in the Middle East emerged from working within restrictions rather than being defeated by them.

These leaders operate in ways that conventional crisis management frameworks do not quite capture. They consistently reframe infrastructure shortages as pedagogical innovations, maintain competitive excellence through merit-based standards, and develop institutional identities that strike a balance between local authenticity and global competitiveness. This represents strategic thinking that fundamentally refuses to accept constraint as limitation.

This approach builds upon current research on strategic flexibility in higher education, which typically emphasizes the reconfiguration of resources in response to changing environments (Herhausen et al., 2021). However, the Palestinian case shows strategic flexibility operating under systematic political constraints where conventional options do not exist. Research on organizational resilience demonstrates how institutions with prior disruption experience develop superior adaptive capabilities (Shaya et al., 2023), and the Palestinian experience provides concrete evidence for constraint transformation rather than merely constraint management.

The approach aligns with emerging research on strategic management under extreme constraints (Shevchenko et al., 2025), which argues that strategic constraints can actually serve as catalysts for organizational growth in volatile environments. Palestinian research confirms that systematic strategic planning enables enhanced performance under severe constraints (Dwikat et al., 2022), revealing the specific mechanisms through which this occurs. This extends existing frameworks for managing hostile environments by demonstrating how institutions can achieve success through systematic constraint transformation rather than despite them.

Contemporary research on educational resilience emphasizes the importance of adaptive capacity and strategic flexibility in crises (Artyukhov et al., 2024; Spivakovsky et al., 2025). However, the Palestinian experience demonstrates resilience that goes beyond crisis response to systematic constraint transformation, contributing to an understanding of what Alieksieieva et al. (2025) identify as institutional adaptation under prolonged adversity.

The pedagogical innovations these deans developed go beyond curriculum reform. They have essentially transformed critical pedagogy into a strategic management tool, making educational practice the primary vehicle for achieving institutional objectives. The Law Dean’s shift from traditional lectures to community-engaged legal clinics addressing real occupation-related cases, or the Engineering Dean having students design infrastructure connecting Gaza to the West Bank, these are not just teaching methods. They represent systematic integration of social reality with academic excellence.

What makes these pedagogical innovations particularly significant is how they transcend conventional community service learning. Students do not just learn about law or medicine in abstract terms; they develop professional skills by addressing real community needs created by occupational conditions. This approach views pedagogy as strategic management, in which educational innovation serves multiple institutional objectives simultaneously: academic excellence, social transformation, and institutional resilience.

This approach substantially extends Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy framework (Freire, 1998, 2021) by demonstrating its successful operationalization in prolonged conflict contexts, where education serves dual functions: professional preparation and social resistance. Systematic reviews confirm that critical pedagogy enhances academic achievement and fosters critical thinking across diverse educational settings (Hunaepi et al., 2024). Research on middle-grade education also demonstrates improved student engagement through critical pedagogical approaches (A. Walker et al., 2024).

The Palestinian implementation challenges a persistent assumption that critical pedagogy and academic excellence represent competing objectives. Studies on inclusive learning environments demonstrate that the development of critical consciousness enhances educational effectiveness (Supriyadi et al., 2024), and the Palestinian case provides empirical evidence for this integration in higher education. The approach aligns with research on community-engaged pedagogies that emphasize local relevance and social transformation as essential to democratic higher education, extending theoretical understanding of how critical pedagogy can achieve multiple objectives simultaneously when implemented through effective management practices.

The internationalization strategies these institutions developed challenge conventional wisdom about global engagement in higher education. The Engineering Dean’s achievement of 85% of faculty with international doctorates, while maintaining a strong local commitment, exemplifies constrained internationalization: global engagement specifically designed to strengthen institutional capacity to address local challenges, rather than pursuing prestige or economic benefits.

These partnerships operate quite differently from conventional internationalization models that often prioritize economic benefits or global rankings. Palestinian public institutions demonstrate purposive international collaboration that serves the social justice needs of their communities. The Law Dean’s partnerships with US universities for international programs alongside local Palestinian legal services illustrate how global partnerships can be strategically designed to enhance rather than compete with local relevance.

This finding challenges assumptions in current internationalization literature (De Wit & Altbach, 2021) that global engagement necessarily creates tension with local commitment. Research on higher education partnerships emphasizes mutual benefit and sustainable collaboration (Qwaider, 2021). The Palestinian model demonstrates how these principles can be operationalized even under political constraints that limit conventional partnership approaches.

The approach extends research on faculty development in challenging contexts by demonstrating how international exposure can be systematically leveraged to build local capacity. Studies on faculty resilience during challenging periods emphasize the importance of supportive institutional environments and clear professional development pathways (Yang et al., 2021). The Palestinian model demonstrates how these elements can be maintained through strategic human resource development approaches that combine global expertise with cultural grounding.

The integration of cultural resilience with strategic management practices is a distinctive feature of Palestinian public institutions’ adaptation, extending research on culturally informed resilience approaches (Marie et al., 2017; Hammad & Tribe, 2020). The concept of Sumud (steadfastness) operates at institutional levels, providing a foundation for both adaptation and resistance that differs substantially from Western resilience models typically discussed in higher education literature (Mills, 2021).

The Dean of Medicine’s strategic positioning, balancing excellence requirements with cultural authenticity while serving community needs, exemplifies nuanced identity management that integrates professional aspirations with cultural grounding. This represents complex identity work serving both professional and political objectives while challenging negative stereotyping through demonstrated academic achievement (Bruhn, 2006; Zeedan, 2024). Previous research has demonstrated cultural resilience as an individual coping mechanism during crises (Abuejheisheh et al., 2024; Salameh et al., 2025), but our study shows how it becomes systematically integrated into institutional management practices.

The measurable outcomes achieved by these institutions challenge conventional assumptions about institutional performance under extreme constraints. The achievement of 60% female enrollment in traditionally male-dominated fields, graduates scoring in the 99th percentile on international examinations, and alumni serving across Palestinian institutions provides empirical evidence that excellence and equity can work synergistically when implemented through effective management practices.

What is particularly striking about these findings is how they reveal systematic approaches to promoting inclusion while maintaining rigorous academic standards. Merit-based selection processes operate alongside supportive institutional environments that enable students from challenging backgrounds to achieve exceptional outcomes. This represents an institutional transformation that serves both individual opportunity and broader social change objectives.

The achievement of gender equity significantly extends current research on women in STEM fields. Systematic reviews emphasize that eliminating gender barriers requires challenging social norms and institutional biases through targeted policies and inclusive academic environments (Nweje et al., 2025). While research identifies cultural expectations and institutional biases as primary obstacles to female STEM participation (Tereshchenko et al., 2023), the Palestinian achievement demonstrates that culturally aware strategies can promote equity within existing structures without requiring wholesale cultural transformation.

This finding contributes to understanding how public educational institutions can serve as catalysts for broader societal transformation by modeling equity through their practices. The success in traditionally male-dominated fields under conditions of cultural conservatism and political stress aligns with research highlighting how universities can influence social change beyond academia through the implementation of deliberate, gender-responsive policies (Nkosi & Maphalala, 2025). Research on inclusive excellence in higher education supports this approach, demonstrating how institutional policies and culture can create supportive environments that enhance academic persistence across demographic groups, even under external constraints (Nehoda et al., 2024).

The findings align with but also extend organizational resilience frameworks proposed by Weick and Sutcliffe (2015), which emphasize adaptability, problem-solving, and continuity under stress. Palestinian public institutions demonstrate all these characteristics while adding a crucial dimension: the systematic transformation of external constraints into institutional advantages. This extends ecological models of resilience (B. Walker et al., 2004) by showing specific mechanisms through which environmental volatility becomes a source of organizational strength rather than merely something to endure.

Research on organizational resilience in higher education emphasizes the importance of adaptive capacity, strategic planning, and stakeholder engagement during crisis periods (Shaya et al., 2023). Studies of university responses to COVID-19 demonstrate how institutions with prior crisis experience develop superior adaptive capabilities (Scholtz & Williams, 2025). However, the Palestinian case extends these frameworks by demonstrating resilience in the face of systematic, long-term constraints rather than temporary disruptions.

The Palestinian experience also extends cognitive models of resilience (Lengnick-Hall & Beck, 2005) by demonstrating how leadership communication and collective sensemaking create unique forms of institutional adaptation. Current research on educational leadership during crises emphasizes the importance of maintaining institutional vision while adapting tactical responses (Hill-Berry & Burris-Melville, 2024). The integration of cultural steadfastness (Sumud) with strategic flexibility represents a culturally informed resilience model that bridges individual and institutional levels of analysis in ways that existing frameworks have not fully captured.

Analysis across all three disciplines reveals four interconnected management approaches characterizing institutional success under systematic constraints: Constraint Reframing, Community-Centered Innovation, Cultural-Professional Identity Integration, and Strategic Network Building.

Constraint reframing reconceptualizes limitations as strategic capabilities rather than obstacles. The Medicine Dean’s response to hospital prohibition exemplifies this—developing community-oriented medical education that became a competitive differentiator precisely because of its constrained origin. Community-centered innovation integrates social transformation with professional preparation; the Law Dean’s legal clinics enable students to develop competencies by addressing real occupation cases. Cultural-professional integration leverages cultural grounding to enhance excellence; the Medicine Dean emphasizes merit while maintaining Palestinian identity, positioning cultural values as professional distinctiveness. Strategic network-building designs international partnerships to enhance local mission; the Engineering Dean achieved 85% of the faculty trained internationally while maintaining local commitment.

These approaches operate synergistically, reinforcing one another to create resilience that transcends mere survival and achieves transformation.

5.1. Palestinian Higher Education in Comparative Conflict Context

The strategic management approaches identified in Palestinian universities align with, yet extend beyond, patterns documented in other conflict-affected higher education systems. Research across diverse contexts reveals how institutions respond to violence and instability in varying ways.

Post-election violence in Kenya demonstrated how conflict can profoundly disrupt public universities, underscoring the importance of supporting affected communities and promoting peacebuilding initiatives (A. T. Johnson, 2013). In contrast, UN peacekeeping deployments in conflict-ridden African countries increased enrollment and gender parity by encouraging educational investment through stabilized environments that enabled student mobility (Reeder & Polizzi, 2021).

Regional case studies illustrate diverse institutional responses to prolonged instability. Yemen’s escalating volatility compelled private universities to cultivate external relationships to sustain student participation (Al-Salhi et al., 2021), while the Boko Haram insurgency in Northeastern Nigeria drastically reduced higher education participation and institutional performance, displacing students and blocking access (Audu, 2018). Tenret (2016) examined the implementation difficulties of affirmative action programs supporting war-affected Sudanese students, revealing challenges including inconsistent execution, limited political prioritization, and evolving contexts that eroded program efficacy over time. These cases demonstrate how conflict profoundly impacts academic infrastructures, necessitating targeted interventions and strategic management responses.

Recent research on Ukraine illustrates how institutions evolved from emergency resistance toward more comprehensive resilience strategies, emphasizing flexibility, international cooperation, and value-based crisis management (Spivakovsky et al., 2025). Digital transformation has proven crucial for displaced Ukrainian institutions, ensuring educational continuity and innovation under martial law (Alieksieieva et al., 2025).

The Palestinian experience extends these frameworks by demonstrating a form of resilience that encompasses transforming systemic constraints rather than responding to temporary crises. While the Ukrainian and Yemeni cases show institutional adaptation to acute disruptions, Palestinian institutions have developed more durable approaches over decades of occupation, transforming prolonged systematic constraints into sources of institutional strength and innovation.

Transferability and Contextual Considerations

The Palestinian experience includes distinctive features that may not be directly replicable: long-term adaptive experience developed over decades of systematic disruption, Sumud as a culturally embedded organizational resource, and a balance between resistance and academic legitimacy. Research on educational resilience in conflict zones emphasizes the importance of context-specific approaches (Artyukhov et al., 2024), reflecting the particular historical and cultural circumstances of each region.

However, globally transferable elements provide value for institutions facing various constraints, including strategic flexibility as a management approach, community-engaged pedagogy that transforms limitations into institutional strengths, merit-based governance that balances excellence with equity, international partnerships designed to enhance local relevance, and systematic approaches to promoting inclusion while maintaining academic standards.

Institutions with prior experience of disruption develop enhanced capacity for responding to future challenges through accumulated adaptive capacity (Salehi & Veitch, 2020), underscoring the broader value of these findings for global higher education facing increasing uncertainty. Conflict-affected educational systems demonstrate similar adaptive patterns. Ukrainian higher education during wartime shows how targeted digital strategies and community-based pedagogy enhance systemic resilience (Londar et al., 2024; Alieksieieva et al., 2025), while academic responses to political constraints in various contexts (Spivakovsky et al., 2025) suggest that underlying principles of constraint transformation and mission-focused adaptation have broader applicability for institutions under systematic limitations.

5.2. Management Approaches Under Systematic Constraints

The findings reveal four interconnected management approaches that characterize how these Palestinian deans successfully navigate systematic constraints. These approaches emerged consistently across all three disciplines, suggesting a coherent framework for understanding strategic management under extreme limitations. If these approaches enable institutional success under prolonged systematic constraints such as military occupation, they offer valuable insights for administrators facing less severe but still challenging operational environments.

Constraint reframing as a strategic practice fundamentally reconceptualizes limitations as sources of strategic capabilities rather than obstacles to overcome. Institutions must develop systematic approaches to identifying unique opportunities within constraints while building organizational capabilities to leverage them. The Medicine Dean’s response to the hospital’s prohibition exemplifies this approach; rather than lamenting the lack of clinical facilities, the institution developed community-oriented medical education that became a competitive differentiator precisely because of those constraints. This practice manifests through strategic planning processes that explicitly examine constraints for opportunities, leadership communication that reinforces possibility-oriented thinking, and institutional reward systems that recognize innovative responses to limitations.

Community-centered innovation management demonstrates how programs achieve academic excellence by integrating rather than merely adding social transformation objectives. Educational innovation operationalizes critical pedagogy as an institutional strategy, creating experiences in which students develop professional competencies by addressing real community needs arising from constraints. The Law Dean’s legal clinics exemplify this integration; students develop legal competencies by working on real occupation-related cases from the beginning of their education rather than learning theory first and applying it later. Successful implementation depends on curriculum design that integrates community needs with professional competency development, faculty preparation for community-engaged learning, and assessment systems that evaluate both professional skill development and community impact.

Cultural-professional identity integration suggests ways to build institutional capacity that challenge negative stereotypes while achieving international standards through authentic cultural grounding. Cultural identity becomes a source of institutional strength that enhances rather than compromises professional excellence. The Medicine Dean’s emphasis on professional merit while maintaining Palestinian identity demonstrates this integration; the institution achieves competitive excellence by leveraging cultural values as sources of professional distinctiveness. This approach emerges through leadership development that articulates connections between cultural values and professional excellence, faculty recruitment that values both international credentials and cultural commitment, and community engagement that demonstrates how cultural grounding enhances professional capability.

Strategic network building demonstrates that international partnerships are designed to enhance local mission fulfillment rather than to pursue conventional metrics of global engagement. Careful partner selection and effective relationship management ensure that global engagement strengthens institutional capacity to address local challenges, rather than diverting resources away from local needs. The Engineering dean’s achievement of 85% of faculty trained internationally while maintaining local commitment illustrates this practice. Implementation encompasses partnership development that evaluates collaborations based on local mission enhancement, faculty development that combines international exposure with local engagement expectations, and resource management to ensure that international partnerships contribute to, rather than compete with, local mission fulfillment.

These four approaches appear to operate synergistically in the Palestinian context, offering insights that extend conventional resilience models by demonstrating how constraints can become sources of innovation and institutional strength. While these findings emerge from a specific context, the underlying logic suggests potential applicability to other institutions facing systematic constraints. While these approaches emerged from a particular context, their effectiveness under extreme constraints suggests they merit consideration by institutional leaders operating under various types of systematic limitations.

6. Contribution

This study makes significant theoretical contributions to three main areas of scholarship, extending existing frameworks while introducing new concepts that advance our understanding of the field.

Organizational resilience theory demonstrates how cultural steadfastness can be systematically integrated with strategic flexibility to create resilience models that differ from Western approaches in management literature. Most resilience research focuses on adaptation and recovery (Shaya et al., 2023), treating cultural factors as individual coping resources. The Palestinian case demonstrates how Sumud can be operationalized at the institutional level to create adaptation that transcends survival and achieves transformation and innovation as resilience outcomes. The integration of cultural identity with strategic management provides mechanisms through which cultural resources become organizational assets. This extends research on culturally informed educational resilience (Mills, 2021) by demonstrating how cultural factors can be systematically leveraged for institutional development, rather than merely helping individuals cope with limitations. This demonstrates how resilience operates across multiple levels simultaneously—individual, institutional, and cultural—creating synergistic effects that enhance effectiveness beyond existing single-level frameworks.

Critical pedagogy theory demonstrates that educational innovation can serve as a primary strategic management tool rather than an alternative teaching approach. While systematic reviews demonstrate the effectiveness of critical pedagogy across diverse contexts (Hunaepi et al., 2024), most research treats it as a pedagogical rather than strategic innovation. The Palestinian case demonstrates the successful integration of critical pedagogy with internationally competitive academic standards in politically sensitive contexts, challenging the assumption that these represent competing objectives. This identifies mechanisms through which programs address practical needs while fostering critical consciousness, extending Freire’s concept of praxis by demonstrating how critical reflection, integrated with social action (Freire, 1998, 2021), can be systematically implemented at institutional scales. This extends research on lower-grade applications (A. Walker et al., 2024) to university contexts, demonstrating how the development of critical consciousness can enhance professional preparation when implemented through effective management practices. The innovation of pedagogy as strategic management demonstrates how educational practice serves as the primary vehicle for achieving academic excellence, social transformation, and resistance simultaneously.

Strategic management theory demonstrates that excellence, equity, and internationalization can be achieved simultaneously rather than requiring trade-offs as often assumed. The Palestinian case illustrates integrated strategies that advance all objectives, demonstrating how institutions can achieve strategic effectiveness through systematic transformation of constraints. This challenges conventional assumptions and provides frameworks for proactive institutional development. This extends research on institutional resilience in higher education (Gull et al., 2024; Polanco-Lahoz et al., 2024) by showing how resilience can encompass transformation and excellence beyond survival and recovery. Research on higher education transformation emphasizes technological or market-driven changes (Sharma, 2024), but the Palestinian experience demonstrates adaptive leadership under systematic political constraints that eliminate conventional strategic options. These strategic management approaches offer insights into institutional leadership under prolonged political constraints, thereby addressing gaps in the existing crisis and resilience literature.

7. Conclusions

Palestinian higher education institutions demonstrate that constraints need not limit institutional excellence when leaders integrate cultural resilience with systematic management practices. Rather than accepting false choices between global standards and local needs, or excellence and equity, these institutions achieve multiple objectives simultaneously through synergistic approaches that transform external limitations into sources of institutional strength. The findings reveal four interconnected approaches that, while emerging from the Palestinian context, may offer insights for institutions facing systemic constraints: constraint reframing, community-centered innovation, integration of cultural and professional identities, and strategic network building. These practices provide concrete guidance for institutional leaders navigating systematic limitations while upholding dual commitments to academic excellence and social responsibility. The study’s theoretical contributions extend organizational resilience theory by demonstrating systematic integration of cultural factors with strategic management, advance critical pedagogy theory by showing educational innovation as a primary strategic tool, and contribute to higher education management by providing evidence that excellence, equity, and internationalization can be achieved simultaneously rather than requiring trade-offs.

The achievement of 60% female enrollment in traditionally male-dominated fields, the production of globally competitive graduates, and the integration of critical pedagogy with international standards provide empirical evidence that excellence and equity work synergistically when implemented through effective management practices anchored in authentic cultural identity and an unwavering commitment to social purpose.

These findings offer profound lessons for global higher education facing mounting pressures and uncertainties. The four management approaches—constraint reframing, community-centered innovation, cultural-professional identity integration, and strategic network building—emerged from extreme conditions but offer practical frameworks for institutional leaders navigating various forms of systematic constraints. Public sector educational institutions can implement these approaches through purpose-driven internationalization that operationalizes global engagement for local service, constraint reframing systematically identifies opportunities within restrictions, community-centered innovation that integrates professional preparation with social responsibility, and strategic partnerships designed to enhance rather than compromise local mission fulfillment.

The Palestinian experience demonstrates that systematic constraint transformation can become a source of strategic strength rather than merely something to overcome, providing models for institutions worldwide that seek to balance competing demands while maintaining institutional integrity and social relevance in an increasingly constrained environment.

8. Limitations and Future Research Directions

This study’s focus on three disciplines and dean perspectives enables a deep analysis of institutional leadership, but it limits generalizability across different fields and stakeholder levels. Although we employed purposive sampling and interviewed elites to capture strategic decision-making processes, this approach constrains understanding of implementation experiences across broader institutional hierarchies. The qualitative approach within Palestinian public universities offers rich insights into management practices, but it limits the understanding of quantitative outcomes and broader applicability.

The Palestinian context’s distinctive features, including Sumud as a cultural resource and prolonged experience with systematic constraints, may limit the direct transferability of specific strategies to other contexts. Future research could explore comparative applications across different institutional and cultural environments, examine quantitative impacts of constraint-based management approaches, and investigate broader stakeholder perspectives on these practices.

Additionally, research extending these frameworks to various types of systematic limitations and organizational contexts could yield more generalizable approaches to institutional leadership under constraint. Future research could longitudinally track these four strategic management approaches to assess their sustained effectiveness and evolution. A longitudinal investigation would reveal whether these represent temporary adaptations or durable capabilities, examining how they transform as conditions change and identifying boundary conditions in which constraint-based strategies require reconceptualization.