Institute of Middle East, Central Asia and Caucasus Studies

MECACS was founded in 2003 to bring together scholars in the different Schools of the University with the aim of promoting cross-disciplinary education and research on the historical and contemporary Middle East, Central Asia and Caucasus. It is housed and managed in the School of International Relations and seeks to collaborate with staff and students working on the regions in the School of History, including those in the Institute for Iranian Studies, the School of Modern Languages (housing Arabic, Persian and Russian language teaching), the Schools of Economics and Divinity and the Departments of Social Anthropology and Film Studies. MECACS works closely with other Institutes and Centres including the Institute for Iranian Studies as well as other centres based in the School of International Relations. The Centre for Syrian Studies was founded in 2008 and is an autonomous part of the Institute. Since 2011, its research has focused on the conflict in Syria. Its non-partisan scholarly expertise on Syria has been enlisted by governments and international organizations including writing reports for the UN Secretariat, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Southwest Asia (ESCWA) and the World Bank.