On September 16–17, 2018, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) hosted the first working group under its research initiative on “Science and Scientific Production in the Middle East.” Over the course of two days, scholars discussed issues around: the social impact of scientific research; Islamic ethics and legitimacy of scientific innovation; women and science…
Amidst international disputes and conflicts, the Gulf region stands out as a political hot zone. Seeking to find out why the region is so chronically unstable, Mehran Kamrava, Professor and Director of the Center for International and Regional Studies at Georgetown University in Qatar, set out to explore this phenomenon in depth. He performed extensive…
On September 10, 2018, CIRS formally launched the CIRS Undergraduate Research Advancement program (CURA) by hosting a reception that was attended by GU-Q students, staff, and faculty members. CURA aims to support GU-Q students in the development of their passion for research, by assisting them in developing new skills and providing opportunities for students to present on…
On August 12–13, 2018, the Center for International and Regional studies (CIRS) held the second working group under its research initiative on “Nation-Building in Central Asia.” Over the course of two days, scholars were convened to present and critique a number of papers that tackled issues relevant to nation-building, such as: multiculturalism, civic identity, migration, perceptions…
On May 6-7, 2018, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) hosted a working group on “Citizenship, Class, and Inequality in the Middle East.” During the course of two days, scholars were convened to discuss and critique their draft papers that covered a wide array of topics, including: passive and active citizenship in the…
The Center for International and Regional Studies collaborated with Qatar-based partners to study the health of migrant workers in Qatar with a roundtable meeting on April 26, 2018. The project considers the state of healthcare provision to this segment of the population with a goal of contributing to the formulation of policy guidelines with suggestions for improvements to the state of…
On April 15–16, 2018, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) hosted the second working group meeting of its research initiative on “Water and Conflict in the Middle East.” Over the course of two days, scholars came together to present their research papers on a variety of topics including, water mismanagement in the Middle…
On April 12, 2018, CIRS convened its first CURA Discussion Seminar under the center’s new initiative: CIRS Undergraduate Research Advancement. The seminar was introduced to support the research needs of undergraduate students at Georgetown University in Qatar, and to provide them with opportunities to hone their research skills. As part of the seminar, CURA fellows…
The Center for International and Regional Studies invited, Islam Hassan, CIRS Research Analyst, to present his study, co-conducted with Nael Shama, at a Dialogue event on April 11, 2018. Hassan noted that, for the past decade, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has had foreign policy objectives in the Red Sea and East Africa in its…
On March 28, 2018, George Osborne, former British Conservative Party politician and current editor of the London Evening Standard, was invited by CIRS to deliver a Focused Discussion in which he spoke to Georgetown University-Qatar faculty, staff, and students about the increasingly challenging state of international politics. He began the conversation by noting that “there…
The Center for International and Regional Studies hosted a workshop on Universal Basic Income (UBI) experiments. This was part of the CIRS-Faculty Book Series, which provides an opportunity for faculty members to present book manuscripts to scholars and receive critical feedback in advance of publication. The workshop was held on March 26, 2018, and included…
“There is always a sense of timeliness about the politics of the Middle East,” and a pressing sense of the issues, according to Beverley Milton-Edwards, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center. “It doesn’t matter what day of the week it is, what time of year it is—the Middle East is always in the…