Dear Friends,
Welcome to our Autumn Newsletter and thank you for taking to the time to read The MENASP Network’s news. With COVID-19 still deeply affecting families and friends on a personal level as well as economies, social policies and national cohesion, the ongoing work of practitioners, researchers and policy makers to find solutions that strengthen security and social welfare is essential. The MENASP Network is one of many networks working towards this goal and for those that are new, we welcome your involvement in the Network. It is our aim to be a network that does not only generate knowledge and run key events but a platform for all members to exchange their knowledge, host their events and present relevant news. Each newsletter captures news from within the network and we encourage you to keep sharing your updates and publications.
These last three months have seen several exciting firsts for the MENASP Network. We started a webinar series in September with a range of speakers across social policy and conflict prevention focused mainly on the MENA region as well as comparative studies. I would highly recommend joining these webinars live where possible to take part in the Question and Answer or watch them later and enjoying the fascinating presentations from our speakers so far. We also launched the first call for the MENASP-CP GCRF Research Fund, which closes on 30th November. An excellent opportunity for those wanting to undertake primary research projects or apply their research to policy and awareness raising interventions. We have been encouraged by the high interest and engagement of potential applicants and the collaborations forming through this funding opportunity as well as the key learnings we are finding as we implement this first call. Please read the supporting resources, FAQs and relevant documents found here before applying.
In this issue we are highlighting these opportunities mentioned above, a Special Issue you are invited to submit abstracts to led by Tina Jaskolski, Sophie Plagerson and Rana Jawad, a reflection workshops in Jordan by Dr Katharina Lenner and Dr Maria Cubel Sanchez (Univ. of Bath), Dr Ayat Nashwan (Yarmouk University, and the opportunity to join our Early Career Researcher team, among other key items and new publications.
Thank you to all those that are involved, especially Islam who produces the newsletter each quarter.
Thank you to you all for your contributions, please do keep sharing ways for other members to join your activities and keep us updated on your news.
All the best,
Olivia
Network Manager