The ACRPS Adjudication Committee for the Arab Prize in the Social Sciences and Humanities has announced the selected themes for 2015-2016, which will address: “Freedom in Contemporary Arab Thought,” and “The Arab City and the Challenges of Urbanization”. The announcement was made on the occasion of the ACRPS Fourth Annual Conference on the Social Sciences and the Humanities. The prize, with a total value of $220,000 distributed over various categories, aims to foster Arab scholarship, and is awarded to researchers with unpublished research in thematic areas determined each year by the Committee, as well as research published in Arabic and other languages by Arab scholars in peer-reviewed journals.
The award ceremony for the 2014-2015 winners was inaugurated in March at the Fourth Annual Conference on the Social Sciences and the Humanities, held jointly this year by the ACRPS and the Muhammad V University in Morocco. During the ceremony, President of the University Said Emzazi emphasized the importance of promoting scientific research and innovation in the Arab world, and pointed to the need of enriching the historical contribution of Arab intellectuals to progress and development in the region, particularly in view of the current turmoil faced by several Arab countries.
Prize Winners for 2014-2015
This year, the prize committee decided to withhold the first prize in the first thematic subject; the second prize for $15,000 was awarded to Tunisian Dr. Ali Saleh Mawla for his study “Is there a Need today for an Intellectual Huawei: A Study in the Decline of Traditional Roles and a Look at Alternatives”. Third prize, worth $10,000 was awarded to both Moroccan scholars Dr. Ibrahim al-Qadri Boutchich and Dr.Hassan Tariq, for their respective studies: “Questioning the Revival of Intellectuals’ Roles of in Light of the Transformations of the Arab Spring: Networking and Grassroots Communication as a Strategic Choice” and “The intellectual and the Revolution, the Ambiguous Debate: An Attempted Cultural Profile of the Experience of Revolution”.
In the second thematic subject the first prize of $25,000 was awarded to the jointly authored study by Palestinians Dr. Nidal al-Masri and Dr. Mohammad al-Agha, "A Proposed Framework for Applying Strategic Human Talent Management to Achieve Research Excellence in Palestinian Universities in Light of the Knowledge Society”. The committee awarded the second prize to Moroccan Dr. Mohamed Fawbar for his research on "Humanities Laboratories and the Establishment of Academic Community in Moroccan Universities, Between Opportunity and Constraint: Toward a Sociology of the Humanities”. Third prize was respectively awarded to Syrian Amer Duqqu, for his research on "The Relationship between Higher Education and Democracy in the Arab World As Seen in the Second Round of the Arab Barometer Survey”; and Palestinian Dr. Allam Hamdan for his study, "The Road towards World-Class Research Universities: A Holistic Study of Arab Universities".
A second category is awarded the Arab Prize for research published in Arabic and foreign journals. In the category of Arabic journals the first and third prize were withheld. The second prize, worth $10,000 was awarded to Moroccan Dr. Saeed Siddiqi for his study "Arab Universities and the Challenge of World Rankings: The Road to Excellence". In the category of research papers published in foreign journals Dr. Harith al-Dabbagh from Iraq won first prize of $15,000 for his research published in French entitled "Le Droit Comparé Comme Instrument de Modernisation: L'Exemple des Codifications Civiles des États Arabes du Moyen-Orient”. Egyptian Dr. Mustafa Makawi garnered second prize for his research paper published in English, “Responsible Slum Tourism: The Egyptian Experience”. Ms. Zainab al-Bernoussi from Morocco won the third prize of $5,000 for her paper published in English, “The Postcolonial Politics of Dignity: From the 1956 Suez Nationalization to the 2011 Revolution in Egypt”.
