Our ability to address interconnected and complex global problems depends on our ability to collaborate globally, with people and in places where there are often striking differences in education, research, and innovation systems as well as in politics, language, and culture. Building a global knowledge economy requires us all to appreciate these differences and work with them to develop, through collaboration, both global resilience and global solutions to shared challenges. The Atlas of Islamic World Science and Innovation (AIWSI) is a unique collaborative project that explores the changing landscape of science and innovation across diverse countries with large Muslim populations in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, including in-depth case studies of Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Qatar, and Senegal. Across many of these countries, there is a renewed ambition and investment in education, science, and innovation — an ambition that brings with it opportunity. If embraced, this opportunity could profoundly influence collaboration between parts of the world with historically little mutual understanding. Working closely with partners in each of these countries, the project explores new opportunities for partnership and exchange with the wider world, particularly on shared global challenges. This symposium will explore some of the recurrent themes coming out of country studies to date by looking at three such studies: Egypt, Pakistan, and Malaysia.