The Board of Directors of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies met during the first Annual Conference for the Social Sciences and Humanities and elected as its new chairman Dr. Mahmoud Abdulfadeel from Egypt. Attending the meeting were three returning members of the Board: Dr. Azmi Bishara (former Chairman), Dr. Farida Banani, and Dr. Abdulfadeel himself. They were joined by three new members of the Board: Dr. Ali Abdel Gadir Ali (Deputy Director of the Arab Planning Institute in Kuwait), Dr. Rafia Ghabbash (UAE University Professor and Chief of the Network for Arab Women in Science and Technology), and former Lebanese cabinet minister Dr. Tarek Mitri (presently at the American University of Beirut and the Issam Fares Institute). Dr. Abdulfadeel, elected by consensus by the other members of the Board, is notable for his extensive contributions to the economic scholarship surrounding Egypt.