Published 7 April 2025 CMES Researcher Ronny Berndtsson has co-authored an article for PLOS One. "Enhancement of standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index predictions by machine learning based on regression and soft computing for Iran’s arid and hyper–arid region"IntroductionDrought is a climate risk that affects access to safe water, crop development, ecological stability, and food prod

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/improving-drought-forecasting-irans-arid-regions-using-machine-learning-and-soft-computing - 2025-04-17

Published 9 April 2025 CMES Researcher Lina Eklund and the collaboration Decentralised Damage Mapping Group have been granted a prestigious award by the European Space Agency. The European Space Agency's Earth Observation Excellence Award is presented annually to early-career researchers, in recognition of outstanding contributions to scientific advancement and innovation using Earth observation d

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/lina-eklund-wins-european-space-agencys-earth-observation-excellence-award - 2025-04-17

Published 11 April 2025 Professor Kristin Soraya Batmanghelichi (University of Oslo) visited CMES for a research seminar on Iran's mothers of "martyrs". What does mothering and grieving mean to those who mother not just on the margins but to those who are pressured, forced and/or assumed to speak and embrace the language of martyrdom in times of sorrow? On March 10, during a CMES Research Seminar,

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/cmes-research-seminar-irans-mothers-martyrs-public-dissent-times-sorrow - 2025-04-17

Published 16 April 2025 CMES researchers took part in a leadership program within Lund University’s Strategic Research Areas. CMES researchers Pinar Dinc and Hossein Hashemi, representing The Middle East in the Contemporary World (MECW), took part in the Strategic Research Area (SRA) Leadership Development program at Lund University during the 2024–2025 academic year.Running from August 2024 to Ma

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/cmes-researchers-participated-sra-leadership-development-program - 2025-04-17

Published 17 April 2025 Applications are now open for the CMES Travel Grant of Autumn 2025. Application deadline is 30 May 2025. The Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies (CMES) supports research with high scientific potential through the Strategic Research Area Middle East in the Contemporary World (MECW). CMES provides travel grants for conducting field work in the Middle East and conferenc

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/call-cmes-travel-grant-autumn-2025 - 2025-04-17

By maria [dot] lofstedt [at] cme [dot] lu [dot] se (Maria Löfstedt) - published 7 April 2020 Minorities in Yemen Yemen is home to religious and sectarian minorities who represent about 0.5% of the total population. In addition to Muslims, there is a minority of Jews, who’s presence has drastically shrunk over the years due to the multiple violations and displacement they were subjected to. Yemen a

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/book-minorities-yemen-reality-and-challenges - 2025-04-17

By maria [dot] lofstedt [at] cme [dot] lu [dot] se (Maria Löfstedt) - published 30 March 2020 Middle Eastern research news from Lund University. Words from the director: The covid-19 will transform the ways we work and socialize in a manner we can still not oversee. Already now most research and higher teaching are done by distance mode. Even so, many of the planned research activities and meeting

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/middle-east-forum-newsletter-9-march-2020 - 2025-04-17

By maria [dot] lofstedt [at] cme [dot] lu [dot] se (Maria Löfstedt) - published 31 March 2020 CyberOrient is devoted to research on the impact of cyberspace and its representation on the Middle East, North Africa and wider Islamic world in Asia. CyberOrient welcomes Anders Ackfeldt at Lund University in Sweden as a new Managing Editor along with Vit Sisler at Charles University. An expanded CyberO

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/cmes-anders-ackfeldt-new-editor-journal-cyberorient - 2025-04-17

By maria [dot] lofstedt [at] cme [dot] lu [dot] se (Maria Löfstedt) - published 30 March 2020 In January-February 2020, three researchers affiliated with CMES travelled to Khartoum, Sudan for the official kick-off seminar and workshop of a 3-year project that is funded by the Swedish Research Council (VR), FORMAS and SIDA and entitled: "Resilience in Urban Sudan (RUS): An Interdisciplinary Spatial

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/cmes-affiliated-researchers-launch-climate-research-project-sudan - 2025-04-17

By maria [dot] lofstedt [at] cme [dot] lu [dot] se (Maria Löfstedt) - published 25 March 2020 This book analyses the tensions that emerge within strong welfare states when faced with large migration flows. It also interrogates the phenomenon of the 2015 'refugee crisis' and its foreplay and aftermath in the context of Northern Europe and challenges the notion of crisis as a feature of contemporary

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/new-book-refugees-and-violence-welfare-bureaucracies-northern-europe-edited-cmes-dalia-abdelhady-and - 2025-04-17

By maria [dot] lofstedt [at] cme [dot] lu [dot] se (Maria Löfstedt) - published 10 March 2020 The rise of sectarianism in the Middle East and North Africa after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq has led to a new conceptual category – arguably as political as it is religious – which Rola El-Husseini has previously termed the ‘new Shi’a’. Rola El-Husseini In this formulation, groups not traditionally a

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/political-exigency-or-religious-affinity-sectarianism-contemporary-arab-world-new-article-cmes-rola - 2025-04-17

By maria [dot] lofstedt [at] cme [dot] lu [dot] se (Maria Löfstedt) - published 5 March 2020 This article compares the discourses of building nations and national identities fostered in the content of school textbooks in the Republic of Turkey—a modern, territorial nation‐state—and the Autonomous Administration of North and East of Syria (hereafter Rojava)—an alternative state system model establi

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/content-school-textbooks-nation-states-and-stateless-autonomies-comparison-turkey-and-autonomous - 2025-04-17

By maria [dot] lofstedt [at] cme [dot] lu [dot] se (Maria Löfstedt) - published 28 February 2020 Middle Eastern research news from Lund University Message from the director The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is an exceptionally dynamic area that has undergone great changes politically as well as economically during the latest decades. Middle East Forum Newsletter #8 February, 2020 The region

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/middle-east-forum-newsletter-8-february-2020 - 2025-04-17

By maria [dot] lofstedt [at] cme [dot] lu [dot] se (Maria Löfstedt) - published 15 June 2020 An innovative project has received support from the Swedish Institute under its “support for cooperation with academics from Turkey” scheme. “Turkey Beyond Borders: Critical Voices, New Perspectives” aims to foster collaboration between academics in Sweden and scholars from Turkey whose academic freedoms a

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/seminar-and-vodcast-series-draws-attention-infringements-academic-freedom-turkey-and-provides-forum - 2025-04-17

By maria [dot] lofstedt [at] cme [dot] lu [dot] se (Maria Löfstedt) - published 25 February 2020 New article by CMES researcher Orwa Ajjoub in The Conflict Archives - a platform created to showcase work focused on conflict, insurgency and politics across the globe including the Middle East, South Asia, Africa and Central America. The website is a collection of news, articles, insights and analyses

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/orwa-ajjoub-after-baghdadis-death-why-did-islamic-state-fighters-give-pledge-their-new-leader - 2025-04-17

By maria [dot] lofstedt [at] cme [dot] lu [dot] se (Maria Löfstedt) - published 25 February 2020 New article by CMES Mohammed Almahfali & James Root in The Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies - an independent think-tank that seeks to foster change through knowledge production with a focus on Yemen and the surrounding region. The Center’s publications and programs, offered in both Arabic and Englis

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/how-irans-islamic-revolution-does-and-does-not-influence-houthi-rule-northern-yemen - 2025-04-17

By maria [dot] lofstedt [at] cme [dot] lu [dot] se (Maria Löfstedt) - published 24 February 2020 Having just marked two months since its launch, #rethinkingPopulism has already published 9 articles and an interactive map tracing the topography of research on populism and gender. Continuing to pursue the project’s aim to contribute to a vigorous and constructive, yet widely accessible debate for a

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/research-populism-published-cartoons - 2025-04-17

By maria [dot] lofstedt [at] cme [dot] lu [dot] se (Maria Löfstedt) - published 24 February 2020 Maria Malmström (Lund) discussed her latest monograph The Streets are Talking to Me: Affective Fragments in Sisi’s Egypt with Professor Omar Dewachi (from Rutgers). Professor Maria Malmström is Associate Professor at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University. Professor Maria Malmström is

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/book-talk-graduate-center-city-university-new-york-maria-f-malmstrom - 2025-04-17

By maria [dot] lofstedt [at] cme [dot] lu [dot] se (Maria Löfstedt) - published 20 February 2020 18 March 2020, @ 15:00 CMES, Lund University, Finngatan 16 Please register here: maria.lofstedt@cme.lu.se Photo: Meriç Dağlı on Unsplash Speakers:Pınar Dinç, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University“Turkey's Unchanging Raison d'État? Narratives on Dersim 1938”Reyda Ergün, Faculty of Law, Kadi

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/panel-discussion-raison-detat-new-turkey-postponed - 2025-04-17

By maria [dot] lofstedt [at] cme [dot] lu [dot] se (Maria Löfstedt) - published 14 February 2020 CMES affiliated fellow, Joshka Wessels, talked about her book “Documenting Syria; Revolution, Filmmaking and Video Activism” recently published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury. Documenting Syria; Revolution, Filmmaking and Video Activism Syria is now one of the most important countries in the world for the int

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/documenting-syria-revolution-filmmaking-and-video-activism-full-house-seminar - 2025-04-17