The Middle East Studies community is experiencing a rupture on both sides of the Atlantic. Scholars and students based outside of the Middle East struggle to connect with people in the regions they study while field and archival research in some areas have become untenable. For scholars in the region, national security pretexts limit research and scholarly production in the humanities and social sciences. Scholars facing persecution at home seek opportunities to pursue research collaborations abroad.
In the face of these challenges, the
Middle East Studies Association - the largest network of scholars across disciplines in the humanities and social sciences specialized in the study of the region - together with
The Graduate Center, City University of New York and with generous funding from the
Carnegie Corporation launched the MESA Global Academy to sustain research collaborations and knowledge production between scholars from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and their counterparts outside the region.
To accomplish this, the Global Academy awards competitive scholarships to social science and humanities scholars from MENA to join interdisciplinary research collaborations at North American universities addressing specific thematic research clusters. The project also promotes reconfiguring the careers of individual researchers whose academic trajectory has been adversely impacted by developments in their home contexts.
The scholarly collaborations supported by the MESA Global Academy take many forms, including convening research workshops, undertaking professional development activities, and enabling publications of a variety of formats ranging from scholarly articles in peer-reviewed journals to policy briefs, blog posts, and podcasts.
For information about the MESA Global Academy charter, please
click here. 
