Federal government funds Arab-German research cooperation with an additional 3.3 million euros
Press release from 11/13/2018
Verena Lepper from the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection of the National Museums in Berlin heads the Arab-German Young Academy of Sciences and Humanities (AGYA)
The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) will fund the Arab-German Young Academy of Sciences and Humanities (AGYA) with an additional 3.3 million euros until January 2020. The project, headed by curator Verena Lepper from the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection of the National Museums in Berlin, has been supporting excellent young Arab and German academics who successfully realise interdisciplinary research projects and initiatives at the interface between science and society since 2013.
Since 2016, the 60 AGYA members and 20 alumni have worked on more than 150 interdisciplinary projects in 60 cities and 30 countries. They have worked on topics such as resource scarcity, public health, migration, education and endangered cultural heritage. The researchers are linked to scientific institutions in 17 countries: Algeria, Egypt, Germany, Iraq, Yemen, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates. At the end of October, a new AGYA regional office was opened at the Egyptian Academy of Scientific Research & Technology in Cairo. The BMBF praises the "dynamic development and outstanding networking performance through research cooperation between AGYA members in Germany and the Arab world."
More about AGYA: www.agya.info.
With the new funding, various AGYA projects can now be realised at the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection, including the digitisation of Arabic papyri in the Berlin collection and the indexing of Coptic manuscripts in Egypt. There will also be a project on Arabic and German narrative tradition, which will lead to an exhibition in the Neues Museum (opening April 2019). Furthermore, an interdisciplinary project on archaeology in Sudan will be realised and important Egyptological literature will be translated into Arabic. The role of the humanities in the Arab world and Germany will also be analysed jointly. These projects are being carried out on an interdisciplinary basis in cooperation with AGYA partners in Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates and Tunisia.
"This joint academy is the right answer in our complicated world. I am glad that the BMBF recognises this and continues to support this important international and interdisciplinary research cooperation. Our Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection once again underlines its importance for the dialogue with the Arab world. For the SPK, it is a means of diplomacy in the field of science," says SPK President Hermann Parzinger.
In Germany, AGYA is based at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW). Its President Martin Grötschel, who is also Co-Chairman of the AGYA Advisory Board, sees AGYA "beyond the exciting projects and the scientific dynamics, also as an unusually important scientific policy instrument that can often open up avenues of communication that can hardly be reached in any other way. It has even managed to set up offices in Arab countries thanks to its excellent networking work." BBAW President Grötschel therefore welcomes the renewed generous support from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). AGYA can thus continue to make a significant contribution to internationalisation and bridge-building in science.