Doha: Qatar University’s College of Arts & Sciences (CAS) recently launched three research centres that reflect several important themes contained in the human and social development pillars of Qatar National Vision 2030.
The centres for Sustainable Development, Humanities and Social Science Research, and Gulf Studies Research are the first in Qatar and designed to harness QU’s role as a leader in research in the region and expand CAS’ research capacity, capitalising on its interdisciplinary strengths.
Their establishment is in keeping with QU’s new five-year research agenda which will see interdisciplinary research projects centred on four areas of excellence: Energy, Environment and Resource Sustainability; Social Change and Identity; Population, Health and Wellness; and Information, Communication and Technologies.
In establishing the Centre for Sustainable Development, CAS leaders built on the research focus of its MSc and PhD degree programmes in environmental sciences which include water and food security, environmental preservation, and waste management; and its dedicated professorial Chair in Sustainable Development.
The Centre for Humanities and Social Science Research will highlight four key themes — multi-disciplinarity, collaboration, research excellence, and knowledge-sharing. It will bring together research conducted in CAS’ MA in Arabic language and MA in Gulf Studies, and its planned MA in Mass Communication, focusing in particular on Qatar, the Gulf, and the Arab world.
Research areas will include culture, heritage and identity; family and gender issues; social security and social justice; politics identity and reform; literature; language, communication, and social media; governance, planning and social policy; migration and labour policy; and international crimes.
The Centre for Gulf Studies Research will undertake inter-disciplinary Gulf-focused research in three main areas — energy and economics; social issues; and politics.
It will support CAS’ MA programme in Gulf Studies, which is currently the only such programme in the world.
Since its inception in 2012, the programme has grown in popularity and seen a number of high-level lectures and discussions featuring regional and international experts and observers on current and emerging issues in the Gulf and the Arab world.
The new centres will have a complementary relationship with existing QU research centres, other QU colleges and departments, and will engender synergistic collaborations with academic institutions in Qatar and beyond, national, regional and international organisations, and the wider Qatar community.
The Peninsula
