Research & Research Grants Awarded
A Research Framework
Research offers the perfect vehicle for delivering the Syria Programme’s (SP) objectives in the form of action-learning opportunities, which facilitate professional connection and collaboration through the Cara Syria partnership model, as well as continued academic development and contribution, introducing broadly accepted international standards and good practice in research, by ‘doing’, as well as providing publication opportunities to enable Syrian colleagues to grow international academic publication portfolios.
Two Parallel Research Strands The SP encompasses two parallel research strands, both restricted to SP participants. The first Syrian Research Fellowship Scheme (SRFS) is competitive with research proposal calls approximately nine-monthly. The second Cara-commissioned Cross-cutting Research (CCR) focuses on Syrian HE and the emerging HE sector in the non-regime northwest, in particular. Since 2022, the Cara SP has been running a number of action-research studies focusing on enhancing the quality of HE provision, in line with internationally recognised norms.
Cara Partnering Model The Cara partnering model remains central to the SP, facilitating professional connection and collaboration, not just with colleagues from the wider regional and international academic communities but, as importantly, across Syrian colleagues, mitigating professional isolation, supporting the development of discipline clusters, and connections that build resilience and a resource on which to draw in the immediate and the longer-term, whatever the future holds.
SP ‘Peer Review College’ Research activities rely extensively on university discipline experts for their delivery, known collectively as the SP ‘Peer Review College’ whose members number over 400. Members of the SP Peer Review College volunteer to take on one or more of the following roles: study team mentor; independent expert reviewer whose initial evaluation of funding proposal submissions received, informs the final selection process; editor; academic writing workshop facilitators; and E-learn Soiree presenter.
“It definitely was such a privilege to spend time with all researchers and mentors to work on the same written piece at the same time in the same place.”
Dr Selin Tekin, SP Mentor
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Contact UsSyrian Research Fellowship Scheme
This competitive strand is restricted to Syria Programme participants, with approximately six- to nine-monthly calls for initial expressions of interest and outlines. The most recent, open to all disciplines, went out in April 2023, eliciting 22 expressions of interest. In keeping with the Cara partnering model, each eligible study team is partnered with two mentors to support the proposal development phase, establishing professional connections from the very outset.
More than 80 discrete pieces of research have been supported since the first Syria Programme SRFS grant call in 2018, in which over 100 Syrian colleagues have been involved, the majority focusing on the challenges facing Syria or Syrian communities in exile. All submissions are sent for initial review by independent experts in the topic area, with their feedback used to inform the final selection process.
Selection Criteria: i. Likely impact, including capacity-building impact; ii. Quality; Innovation/Originality; iii. Feasibility; iv. Team relevance/competence; v. Value for Money; and vi. Anticipated Dissemination Strategy.
Enhancing the Benefits of Feedback As part the SP’s capacity-building aims, feedback received from independent expert reviewers and the SP Grant Awards Committee is compiled and shared with team members regardless of whether they are awarded a grant. Team mentors are asked to review the feedback with their Syrian colleagues to ensure the points made are fully understood.
Cara-Commissioned Research
Cara-commissioned Research (CCR) facilitates research collaborations focusing on Syrian HE, and the emerging HE sector in the non-regime North West of Syria in particular. CCR topics are developed in consultation with, and implemented by, SP participants, supported by SP-recruited mentors from proposal development through to final publication.
- Phase 1 (2017-18), led by Professor Colleen McLaughlin, University of Cambridge Director of Education Innovation and leader of the Educational Reform and Innovation team and colleagues, collaborating with 19 SP participants, sought to capture the state of HE in Syria pre- and post-crisis. This research, co-funded by Cara and The British Council, delivered two reports published in 2019.
- Phase 2 (2019-20) led by Dr Juliet Millican, Institute of Development Studies Associate Researcher, working with five teams (29 Syrian colleagues) supported by SP-recruited mentors, focused on the role of the Syrian HE sector in addressing some of the societal challenges facing Syria: Cultural Heritage; Education; Energy; Society and Food/Livestock. Study outputs were published in 2020 in a special Syria Programme issue of Education and Conflict Review, Rebuilding Syrian Higher Education for a Stable Future.
- Phase 3 (2020-21) topics were identified over a two-day Cara Syria Programme Round Table (15-16 February 2020) held in Istanbul with the two rectors and vice-rectors of Al-Sham University and Free Aleppo University and a number of SP participants and UK faculty, to identify and prioritise the challenges facing the emerging HE sector in the non-regime North West of Syria. Five studies were taken forward: ‘Professional Standards Framework for HE teaching in Syrian Context’, ‘Record Systems to Facilitate Mobility and Transition’, ‘A&H Quality Control in Research and Teaching’, ‘Current Discipline-related Knowledge Gaps’, and ‘The Question of Gender in the Syrian Higher Education Context’, led again by Dr Juliet Millican and SP-recruited mentors, with final papers published in the International Journal of Educational Research Open (IJEDRO) in late 2021 and early 2022.
- Phase 4 (2022-ongoing) builds on the five Phase 3 studies, focusing in particular on the all-encompassing question of quality HE provision, central to which is a quality management and assurance model that places context at its heart – this last being all the more important given the fragile conflict-affected context in which Al Sham University operates. It takes the form of a series of action-research studies to evidence Al Sham compliance with internationally recognised quality standards such as the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in HE (ESG) in the absence of formal institutional accreditation. These studies also explore the role of the arts, humanities and social sciences in increasing discipline diversity, redressing the current gender imbalance amongst both staff and students, and enhancing the university’s engagement with, and response to, local community needs. Anticipated Outputs A number of publications are anticipated including one that captures a replicable model on which other HEIs in conflict or unstable environments will be able to draw.
Published Syria Programme Research
Syria Programme Overview Research
This UK/Syrian collaboration, co-funded by the University of Kent, aims to capture the evolution of the Syria Programme with two planned outputs: an academic ‘shorts’ publication and a Cara toolkit capturing activities and lessons from previous Cara country programmes on which to draw in the face of future comparable crises, including guidance for partner universities on how to engage with and support future country programmes.
Ongoing & New Research select a category
Levels of Acculturation among Syrian University Students in Türkiye
Dr Maher Jesry and Dr Saad Alyamam Wafai Baaj.
Read MoreThe Qubaysiyyat Movement: Female Leadership and Islamic Solidarity among Syrian Refugees
Dr Mona Suilmi, Laila Alrefaai and Narjis Kaddour.
Read MoreWomen in Contemporary Syria: Culture, Power and Politics
Heba Alhaji and Hamdan Alahmad Alokleh.
Read MoreGlobalizing Female Muslim Piety: Transnational Networks of the Qubaysiyyat
Dr Mona Suilmi.
Read MoreEnergy consumption and its effects on air pollution in Northern Syria
Dr Sohayb Abdulkarim, Dr Abeer Amin and Dr Ghada Safi.
Read MoreIdentifying challenges facing the integration of war-disabled people in Northwest Syria
Dr Fateh Shaban, Dr Mona Suilmi and Dr Imad Bark.
Read MoreRefugees’ remittances to precarious IDPs in North Syria, Al Raeai between 2017 and 2022
Dr Feras Shabou, Dr Samir Alabdullah and Ali Aljasem.
Read MoreStrategies for transforming war zones into magnets for a new population – An applied study on Northern Syria region
Dr Rafif Idlebi and Dr Hanadi Omaish.
Read MoreSyrian cultural heritage during conflict: From destruction to reconstruction and its impact on Syrian cultural identity. Case Study of Aleppo
Adnan Almohamed and Dr Mahmoud Zinalabadin.
Read MoreFeminist movements between cultural heritage and revolution: The case of Northwest Syria
Dr Ayman Alnabo and Hussein Houri.
Read MoreByzantine mosaics discovered in Idlib during the Syrian conflict
Dr Ayman Alnabo, Dr Amal Hussin and Adnan Almohamed.
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