The Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University and the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution are delighted to announce a joint outreach project, commencing this September in Washington, DC.
Funded by the Maxine and Ray Frankel Foundation in Los Angeles, the project will share the knowledge and expertise of our two centers’ researchers with current and next-generation members of the U.S. policy community. The project will comprise a regular series of focused events, allowing us to share our understanding of the deeper trends in the Middle East and our assessments of developments in the region with the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government, journalists, the public, and other opinion-makers.
Launching the project, Tamara Cofman Wittes, project co-director and Senior Fellow at Brookings’s Center for Middle East Policy, said: “We are delighted to combine our first class policy scholars with the rich, interdisciplinary expertise of the Crown Center’s researchers. Washington policymakers—especially next-generation leaders—are hungry for a deeper understanding of a region undergoing dramatic change, and this partnership will help us fill that need.” Prof. Shai Feldman, Director of the Crown Center added: “Our Center and Brookings’s Center for Middle East Policy are similar in size and in our balanced and dispassionate approaches to researching the Middle East. This partnership will provide us new avenues for sharing this approach and our analysis of the region with those affecting U.S. policy toward the Middle East.”
Since 2002, the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings has worked to chart the path to a Middle East at peace with itself and the world. Its scholars offer decades of experience in government and in the field. Through thoughtful in-depth research, expert exchanges, high-level events, peer-reviewed publications, media outreach and public engagement, the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings has solidified a reputation as the premiere independent policy research center working on the Middle East in Washington. Our scholars have produced a rich and diverse array of written products on such topics, including more than 33 monographs, 32 policy briefs and 16 books. Our experts bring keen insight and fresh perspectives to bear on the critical challenges facing the Middle East today, and on the choices facing American and regional decision makers.
Since its launching in 2005, the Crown Center has been committed to conducting balanced and dispassionate research of the modern Middle East that meets the highest academic standards. In addition, the Center seeks to help make decision- and opinion-makers better informed about the region. The scope of the Center’s research includes the 22 members of the Arab League as well as Turkey, Iran, and Israel. The Center’s approach is multi-disciplinary in its study of the politics, economics, history, security, sociology, and anthropology of the region’s states and societies. The Center’s flagship publication is the Middle East Brief series, which are concise analyses of contemporary developments and events in the Middle East. The Center’s core faculty also teach undergraduate- and graduate-level courses in numerous departments at Brandeis University.
For more information, please contact Suzanne Schaefer at the Brookings Institution ([email protected]) or Karen Spira at the Crown Center ([email protected]).