The Arab World in Transition

CASAW will continue to build on its established reputation as the UK's premier centre for Arab-world research and Arabic language training. It will do this by consolidating and expanding partnerships for knowledge exchange with a range of partners in the UK and in the Middle East, particularly through a range of institutional and student-led internships, and by continuing to support innovative research networks capable of generating groundbreaking research and achieving wide dissemination. Finally, it will consolidate an MSc in Advanced Arabic at the University of Edinburgh and develop a Persian language and cultural immersion programme at Manchester University that will represent key resources for advanced language and culture training. CASAW works closely with the other UK LBAS centres to sustain a vigorous programme of area studies training and dissemination events across the UK.

CASAW Phase II comprises a comprehensive programme of research networks, internships and language training networks, all developed with non-academic users as core beneficiaries. CASAW's planned collaborative activities and ongoing relationship with other LBAS centres also generate impact through, among other things, the sharing of best practice and engagement with a broader range of stakeholders. For the language training programme, beneficiaries will include UK, EU and international students and their future employers who need graduates with advanced Arabic, and now Persian, language skills and culture-sensitive presentational skills as well as in-depth knowledge of the Middle East/North Africa, its history, culture and present (and shifting) socio-political configurations. The training network's research focus on new methods of teaching Arabic, including teacher training and application of EIL methodologies tested through research to Arabic teaching, will benefit Arabic teachers and students world wide through the dissemination of text books and eLearning material as well as the annual Arabic teaching summer school in Edinburgh.

The internships will all be developed in close collaboration with the host organisations in the public or private sector in the UK and the Middle East and will feed directly into each organisation's business objectives and dissemination plans. Translation internships, for example--as we know from current placements with Arabia Books and Saqi Books--will benefit the publishers' capacity for translation and dissemination of Arabic imaginative writing. Whilst benefiting the individual organisations and theirstakeholders/audiences, the internships will also develop interns' experiences and skills, for their own benefit and that of future employers. Similarly, internships attached to research networks will provide students with networking, organisational and research management skills that will generate wide-ranging impact not only during their placements but throughout their future careers.

All proposed research networks are centred around topical and urgent themes which will engage policy makers, journalists and other professionals working in the region to improve understandings of the Arab region amongst key stakeholders as well as the wider public. Topics vary from analysing the contemporary Arab world, from cultural, religious and historical perspectives, to more historical concerns dealing with the 19th and 20th centuries, World War One, medieval Islam and early Islam. But in all cases their contemporary relevance is clear and the historical and contextual depth such projects bring will strengthen the relationship between knowledge production, policy-making and practice in understanding the political situation in the Arab world. A diverse range of research networks, further, will pursue creative and innovative strategies for dissemination. In addition to holding academic workshops, conferences and lecture series, networks will hold seminars for policy makers (e.g. FCO), conduct networking events, and organise collaborative events with partners in and outside of academia, in the UK and abroad. Outputs will range from scholarly articles, edited collections and monographs, to museum and online exhibitions and multi-media websites.