This is part of the MENA Politics Newsletter, Volume 3, Issue 1, Spring 2020.
Hello from APSA’s Department of International Programs. We hope you and your loved ones are staying well, safe and healthy wherever you are. Like many of you, the APSA staff is now working remotely and many of our plans and programming for the coming months have been significantly impacted by the rapid spread of coronavirus.
With the disruption in working, teaching, and research created by the pandemic, APSA has developed a COVID-19 resource page to provide updates and support to our members. We’ve also launched a beta version of APSA Educate, which is an online library for political science teaching and learning materials. All materials on Educate are open resources and available without charge. You can easily search for, submit, and save educational materials (such as course syllabi) to your personal library. Another useful resource is APSA Preprints – which is a free-to-access prepublication platform dedicated to early research outputs in political science and related disciplines. It offers rapid turnaround times and allows for quick dissemination of working papers. Especially given the rise in journal review times, preprints may be a good option for scholars looking to stake an early claim to their research, obtain a DOI, and solicit feedback from peers. For example, some scholars have already started posting research around COVID-19.
As for APSA’s MENA Programming, some projects are still going forward while others have been postponed. The 2020 APSA MENA Workshop on “Securitization and Insecurity in the Middle East and North Africa,” scheduled for June in Rabat, Morocco has been postponed indefinitely. We are in discussion with co-leaders, Samer Abboud (Villanova University, USA), Zaynab El Bernoussi (Al Akhawayn University, Morocco), Omar Dahi (Hampshire College, USA), and Salim Hmimnat (Mohamed V University, Morocco) about a virtual program this summer to offer research feedback and thematic discussions prior to an in-person workshop at some point in the future.
Congratulations to all who were accepted to present at the Junior Scholar Research Workshop this year’s APSA Annual Meeting, which is scheduled to take place from September 10-13 in San Francisco, CA. As part of our annual programming, we are collaborating with the MENA Politics section and POMEPS to offer travel grants for 5 early-career scholars to attend the MENA Research Development Group (RDG) on September 9, which features a full day of research feedback and professional development discussions.
APSA renewed its partnership with IQMR and ICPSR to support scholars based in Arab MENA countries to undertake rigorous training in qualitative and quantitative methods. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, IQMR decided to postpone this year’s activities and organize a double-sized program in 2021, while ICPSR decided to run its summer program virtually. We have notified the 8 scholars selected for these two programs that we will defer our support to next year if they remain interested.
The departmental collaboration initiative continues to attract interest from faculty members and departments at Arab Universities. APSA is working with Alexandria University, Egypt and University of Tunis El-Manar on tailored programs to local support graduate students and faculty members. We are also planning to convene a strategic planning workshop for faculty members from across the Arab world to share experiences and best practices on organizing projects within university departments.
Finally, the Arab Political Science Network (APSN) has postponed its annual Research Development Workshop scheduled for June in Beirut, Lebanon until further notice. However, APSN conference travel grants are still open until June 18, 2020 for workshops and conferences that will take place later in 2020 or early 2021. APSN is also expected to be present at the APSA Annual Meeting in September and at MESA in October.
If you are interested in the learning more or getting involved with the APSA MENA Project, please contact us at menaworkshops@apsanet.org.
Best to all in the coming months and stay well!
Ahmed Morsy and Andrew Stinson
APSA MENA Project
American Political Science Association