As Professor of fluid dynamics and Energy, Khatib holds a Ph.D. (1998) from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany in Environmental Technology Engineering, an M.Phil. (1990) in renewable energy engineering from Cardiff University-Wales in Great Britain, and a B.Sc. (1985) in mechanical power engineering from Helwan University in Cairo-Egypt. Khatib has joined the Palestine Polytechnic University in 1986 where he founded and directed the Renewable Energy and Environment Research Unit (REERU) from 1999 to 2011, he has also founded and directed the Department of Scientific Research at PPU during 2002-2005, then was appointed dean of Scientific Research and Graduate Studies during at PPU during 2007-2009. In 2011, Khatib joined College of Engineering at Birzeit University as a visiting professor until 2014, In July 2014 Imad Khatib was appointed the President of Palestine Polytechnic University until July 2021. Since September 2021, Khatib was appointed the Executive Vice President of AQU Campus in Jerusalem.
Professor Khatib was assigned as the principal investigator of Climate Modeling Group in the German BMBF funded program titled: “GLOWA-Jordan River (2003 – 2009)” that was directed to investigate the global climate change impact on the hydrology cycle of east Mediterranean basin, and in his capacity, he has contributed to the National Communication Report of the Climate Change: Mitigation and Adaptation (2015) in collaboration with the Clima-South Euro-Mediterranean Program. He has prepared the first National Energy Efficiency Action Plan (NEEAP 1) in a collaboration between European MED-ENEC and the League of Arab States, as well as being a senior scientist of the Dutch Government funded program: “Strengthening Palestinian Environmental Action Plan” (SPEAP) and of the World Bank METAP program for building national capacities in Environmental Impact Assessment (1999-2001). Khatib was assigned by the UN-ESCWA as a technical advisor to the ESCWA-Technology Center, and the UN-ESCWA-Science, Technology, and Innovation Observatories (STIOs), where he has established the national STIO in Palestine Academy for Science and Technology, in addition to being assigned by the UNESCO to prepare the STI National Framework Policy Report (2016). Besides, Khatib contributed, as a scientific reviewer, to the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (FAR), and the preparation of the UNEP 6th Global Environmental Outlook (GEO6), as a panelist of the UNEP GEO6 (2019-2020), and as an advisor the German BMBF Strategy for Fostering Innovation in MENA (2017-2020). Khatib has initiated/co-initiated several programs and projects that were funded by and implemented collaboratively with the EU-FP programs 5,6,7 and H2020, USAID, US-CEP, AFD, HPF, BMBF, WB–QIF, ESCWA, UNDP, UNEP, UNIDO, IDB, UPM, and IAP.
In 1999, Khatib was assigned as the advisor to the founder and president of Palestine Academy for Science and Technology, and since the beginning of 2001, he was appointed the Secretary-General, where he managed to direct and expand Palestinian scientific membership in several prestigious scientific organizations (e.g. IAC, IAP, IAMP, NAS, HRN, NAISC, and MAS), and to initiate and implement several national initiatives, including; the International Conference on Water: Values and Rights (2005, 2009) in collaboration with PWA and UNDP, the Environmental Field Center in Jericho (2003) in collaboration with GEF, the BMBF funded Palestine-German Science Bridge (2017-2025), in addition to many other initiatives.