About the Transregional Institute

The Institute for the Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia was established in 1994 with the generous support of HH Prince Moulay Hicham Benabdallah ('85) of Morocco. The Institute's mission is to encourage and enhance the comparative study of issues key to the Middle East-North Africa-Central Asia region. Within this geographical setting, the Institute focuses research on development, economic, social and political issues, democratization, human rights and the cultural dialogue and confrontation between the area we have defined and Europe and the United States. The Institute also seeks to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and the dissemination of information about this region to the academic and wider community.

The principal activities of the Institute include:

• Annually selecting a visiting professor or lecturer to spend one year in the Institute. The holder of this endowed chair is a distinguished academic or someone active and well-known in relevant public life, whose research, teaching, and professional activities directly relate to the particular theme the Institute chooses as it focus for the year.
• Annually selecting one or more visiting fellows or visiting research fellows to spend a semester or year in the Institute. Fellows are generally younger scholars who show great promise in research and publication in areas of study related to the interests of the Institute.
• Presenting an annual series of public lectures and other events organized around a theme chosen each year.
• Organizing conferences that bring together scholars, journalists and public figures from the Middle East-North Africa-Central Asia region, the United States and the rest of the world.
• Publishing, on an occasional basis, articles and monographs resulting from our lecture series, conferences and other events.
• Assisting through sponsorship scholars and other organizations that are contributing to the study of the region.
  

The Director of the Institute is Bernard Haykel, Professor of Near Eastern Studies.