Federal government funds Arab-German research cooperation with 15 million euros until 2025
Press release from 01/30/2020
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 15 million euros over the next five years. The project, headed by Verena Lepper, curator at the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection of the National Museums in Berlin, is based at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW) and has been supporting excellent young Arab and German academics who are realising interdisciplinary research projects and initiatives at the interface between science and society since 2013.
Since 2013, the 50 AGYA members and 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 associated with scientific institutions in Algeria, Egypt, Germany, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. In 2018, an AGYA regional office was opened at the Egyptian Academy of Scientific Research & Technology in Cairo. Parliamentary State Secretary Thomas Rachel at the BMBF praised "the multilateral strategic science and research dialogue through which AGYA builds sustainable bridges between the various disciplines and countries. In view of the current social debates, which are increasingly characterised by demarcation, it is essential to promote and publicise strongly international projects such as AGYA."
With the new funding, AGYA can now realise extensive multi-year research projects. The joint interdisciplinary work on Arab-German cross-cutting topics from all scientific fields now raises the academy's research achievements to a new level. In addition, AGYA will significantly strengthen the mobility of its members through research stays of up to three months at Arab and German academic institutions.
"This joint academy is making a decisive contribution to the development of self-sustaining knowledge societies in the Arab world. As a result, AGYA has developed into an outstanding role model for partnership-based research cooperation that should be transferred to other regions. Our Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection once again underlines its importance for dialogue with the Arab world," says SPK President and AGYA Advisory Board member Hermann Parzinger.
The President of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 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-political instrument that can often open up paths 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 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.