For the fourth consecutive year, the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies has announced the winners of the Arab Prize in the Social Sciences and Humanities. An official presentation of the monetary prizes and the full citations behind the awards will be made during the Fourth Annual Conference of the Social Sciences and Humanities, scheduled for March 19-21 in Marrakech.

The ACRPS’s adjudication committee for the fourth Arab Prize for the Social Sciences and Humanities has selected this year’s prize winners in a meeting convened in Doha on January 30. The Arab Prize was established by the ACRPS with the aim of cultivating and supporting Arab scholars across the world, and to promote innovative research relevant to Arab development.

Papers submitted this year addressed two topics selected by the ACRPS: “The Role of Intellectuals in Historical Transformations” and “Universities and Scientific Research in the Arab world”.

This year, the prize committee decided to withhold the first prize in the first thematic subject; the second prize for 15,000 USD 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 USD 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”.

 Members of the Adjudication Committee deliberating this year's submissions.  

In the second thematic subject the first prize of 25,000 USD 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 USD 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 US Dollars 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. Zaynab El Bernoussi from Morocco won the third prize of 5,000 USD for her paper published in English, “The Postcolonial Politics of Dignity: From the 1956 Suez Nationalization to the 2011 Revolution in Egypt”.

Formal announcement of this year’s prize winners will be made by Dr. Wajih Kawtharani, chairman of the committee, at the closing ceremony of the upcoming Fourth Annual Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities held in Marrakech, Morocco, March 19-21, 2015.  Dr. Kawtharani will also announce next year’s thematic topics at the conference.