Georgetown Helps Turn Qatar into a Research Hub

It’s been called one of the world’s first “multiversities” because of the confluence of six major undergraduate schools situationed on its sprawling 2,500-acre grounds. And for the students of Qatar Foundation’s Education City, there is no end to the choice of world class educational opportunities that will open the door to any number of careers.

And while graduate level courses and other academic and training opportunities have started making their way into campus offerings, for many Doha universities, an undergraduate education remains the primary focus. But for one institution, Georgetown University in Qatar, a significant shift has taken place. As the campus prepares to celebrate its ten year anniversary, one of the areas that has seen the most changes over the years is in research, both for students and faculty.

The institution already has a long and prestigious reputation for its research contributions from the main branch in Washington D.C. But the Doha branch is making waves as well, increasingly investing in developing a research infrastructure, and in the process becoming an internationally recognized research hub in a broad range of local and global topics.

Most recently, GU-Q’s role in two prominent international research conferences places this Education City institution at the forefront of Gulf studies: a workshop on Africa and the Gulf at the world’s premier annual research forum on the Gulf, in Cambridge; and a joint conference with Exeter University on the boom in cultural heritage activities in the Gulf. Both conferences pushed the boundaries of knowledge on important questions, and saw the upstart Doha branch campus taking on roles that have traditionally been played by seasoned institutions.

The first conference, the 5th Annual Gulf Research Meeting at Cambridge University held on August 25-27, saw seven GU-Q researchers participate across three 2-day workshops. Two of the workshops – one on Africa-Gulf relations and one on GCC-Iranian relations – were organized by GU-Q faculty. Georgetown is the only university from Qatar to have organized such workshops at this gathering of the world’s Gulf-centered research community for successive years, but the 2014 edition saw the largest cohort of GU-Q scholars so far. This knits the Doha-based research community together with the global community of scholars on the region, in an expanding exchange of ideas. Notably, the number of Qatar University scholars at the event has also crept up the past two years – on occasion indeed in collaboration with GU-Q.

“Georgetown has been making a significant contribution to building a genuine research culture in Qatar’, said GU-Q dean and conference participant Dr. Gerd Nonneman. “By organizing and participating in top-flight international conferences, we also ensure that we have an international presence. This really puts Qatar on the radar of the global research community, which is an achievement we are very proud of,” said GU-Q dean and conference participant Dr. Gerd Nonneman – himself a noted scholar of the Gulf and co-editor of the main scientific journal on the region, the Journal of Arabian Studies..

The 2014 Exeter-Georgetown Gulf Conference titled “The Heritage Boom in the Gulf: Critical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives”, was jointly organized by GU-Q and the University of Exeter’s Center for Gulf Studies, in September.

“This conference is one of a famous series of annual conferences on Gulf studies that has been held at Exeter over the past 30 years. This year is the first time we’ve co-organized it with them, and we intend to make this a new tradition, perhaps also bringing the event to Doha,” added the Dean.

Over 2 days, scholars from all over the world presented their research on issues relating to cultural heritage, or “turath”, a topic that has reached unprecedented visibility in the Gulf in recent years with the development of national museums and national archives, heritage villages, and many other cultural projects that invoke the political, social and economic role of memory and shared cultural heritage.

“It’s important for people working on cultural heritage projects in the Gulf to reflect on why they’re doing it, how they’re doing it, and who’s involved in identifying, preserving and reconstructing it,” said conference co-convener Dr. Gerd Nonneman. “In particular, people need to start thinking about what heritage means in the first place. These are important questions, and much of the research presented at the conference seeks to provide insights that can help future researchers and policy makers understand these complex heritage issues.”

Qatari national participation was actively sought and encouraged, and Qatar-related topics and themes were included. “A detailed presentation was given on the digital representation of Dhows from the Gulf that is going to go into Qatar’s National Museum,” says Dean Nonneman. “One of the findings presented at the conference was that while these digital constructions are wonderful for wider audiences, the preservation of the physical boats remains an unaddressed issue. Qatar’s wider experience in the heritage field was much discussed, too”

He adds: “GU-Q has already become a hub in the study of the Gulf. So it makes perfect sense for us to be visibly and substantively involved in running this renowned Gulf studies conference, and to continue pushing the boundaries of academic inquiry.”

Dean Nonneman stresses that these recent instances of global visibility did not come out of the blue: “Our globally recognized flagship, The Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS), has been a catalyst for cutting-edge research on regional and global issues almost since our inception in Doha, becoming a by-word for state-of-the art social science research on the Gulf and the Middle East. We’ve also had a recent expansion in our research faculty, with senior professors in history, politics, international relations, Arabic and economics, among others,  joining us from some of the world’s top institutions;  there’s been a rich program of conferences and seminars; and I’m particularly proud of a number of student research initiatives, including a series of QNRF-funded undergraduate research projects, an annual conference on Middle East Studies, the region’s only peer-reviewed student journal of Middle East studies.”

And to top it off, GU-Q was awarded three research grants by the Qatar National Research Fund during the 6th annual QNRF Forum held at the Qatar National Convention Centre recently. The awards add over $2.5 million in research money to the $6.2 million that the university had already been awarded by QNRF since the first competition in 2007.

For Qatar Foundation, which wants its multiversity’s research reach to develop as an important pillar of the National Vision, all this can only be a good thing.