Deadline: 15 August 2019
Applicants are invited to apply for Nahrein Network Visiting Scholars Programme.
The Nahrein Network fosters the sustainable development of antiquity, cultural heritage and the humanities in Iraq and its neighbours. It aims to support interdisciplinary research to enable universities, museums, and community groups to better serve local, post-conflict needs.
Aims
To better understand the current situation
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- They aim to develop a fuller historical understanding of the current exclusion of local experts and audiences from the production and consumption of knowledge about Middle Eastern antiquity. To do this they will:
- Conduct focus groups to scope current interests and expertise, obstacles and opportunities for work on history, culture and heritage in Middle Eastern universities, museums and archives, NGOs and community groups.
- Carry out and fund historical research on the current deracination of ancient Middle Eastern history and archaeology, through archival research and oral histories of the politics of the region’s past. they will cover Ottoman times, through the Mandate era, independence, Baathism, to the present, and focus especially on the exclusions of women and minority social groups.
- They aim to develop a fuller historical understanding of the current exclusion of local experts and audiences from the production and consumption of knowledge about Middle Eastern antiquity. To do this they will:
To raise the profile of local expertise
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- They aim to facilitate Middle Eastern humanities academics in re-engaging with regional and global academic communities, as producers of research for international consumption. To do this they will:
- Develop training programmes, bespoke visiting scholarships, and peer-mentoring groups on relevant research methodology, grant writing and academic leadership. They will offer particular support for participation and leadership from women, minorities, and Early Career Researchers.
- Offer funding opportunities for the current generation of Middle Eastern humanities academics to undertake collaborative, transregional research projects, with support to disseminate their methods, findings and outputs.
- Trial new university-level pedagogies of Mesopotamian history in Arabic and other local languages, in order to produce the next generation of local researchers on local Middle Eastern antiquity. In this way they will widen access to the core research skills of post-excavation identification, decipherment and analysis of archaeological finds, through ancient languages and scripts, images, and objects.
- They aim to facilitate Middle Eastern humanities academics in re-engaging with regional and global academic communities, as producers of research for international consumption. To do this they will:
To improve the job prospects of the region’s youth
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- They aim to improve employability and leadership potential for humanities graduates from Middle Eastern universities, by:
- Initiating dialogue between teachers, students, ministries and employers to identify the most needed and valued humanities-based skills and attributes in the region’s modernising economy.
- Funding research projects to develop locally effective university-level teaching of transferable humanities skills.
- Contributing to UNESCO Iraq’s advisory work on humanities curriculum reform in schools for the Iraqi Ministry of Education, helping to better prepare school leavers for university.
- They aim to improve employability and leadership potential for humanities graduates from Middle Eastern universities, by:
- To help heritage organisations better serve local needs
- They aim to enable Middle Eastern museums, archives, cultural heritage sites to contribute to local tourism and knowledge economies. To do this they will:
- Bring together ancient historians, educators, cultural heritage professionals, local NGOs and community groups to better understand needs and interests, obstacles and opportunities.
- Carrying out and funding research to develop re-usable, adaptable case studies in public education, whether in museums, on UNESCO World Heritage sites, or other cultural centres, whether for use on location and/or in print, broadcast, and online media.
- Working with UNESCO Iraq to advocate for the social and economic importance of cultural institutions in local and regional development.
- They aim to enable Middle Eastern museums, archives, cultural heritage sites to contribute to local tourism and knowledge economies. To do this they will:
To help post-conflict healing and reconciliation
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- They aim to promote ancient Middle Eastern history as a ‘safe’ space for public debate around sensitive social, and political matters of current concern. To do this they will:
- Fund research projects on themes of common interest to antiquity and modernity, such as: exile, diaspora and return; cultural memory and forgetting; local, national, and regional identities and interactions; living in the landscape; legal systems and personal rights.
- Use these findings to help the UN Assistance Mission to Iraq (UNAMI), local NGOs and community groups use antiquity as a channel for public discussion of issues around post-conflict reconciliation and change.
- They aim to promote ancient Middle Eastern history as a ‘safe’ space for public debate around sensitive social, and political matters of current concern. To do this they will:
Eligibility Criteria
- Applicants may apply to the scheme if they are a resident of Iraq, Iran, Lebanon or Turkey.
- Iraqi, Iranian, Lebanese and Turkish scholars to engage in the sustainable development of cultural heritage.
- If applicants have previously had a BISI Iraqi Visiting Scholarship, or a Nahrein-BISI Visiting Iraqi Scholarship, they will not normally be eligible to apply.
How to Apply
Applicants can apply via given website.
For more information, please visit https://ahrc.ukri.org/funding/apply-for-funding/archived-opportunities/nahrein-network-visiting-scholars-programme1/