Hazem Ben-Gacem Oxford-Tunisia Exchange Programme

On 4 March 2024, Hazem Ben-Gacem, a member of the Middle East Centre Advisory Board, and Centre Director Eugene Rogan met with the Minister of Higher Education in Tunis for the signing of an agreement establishing the Hazem Ben-Gacem Oxford Tunisia Exchange Programme.

The Programme is the brainchild of Mr Ben-Gacem, who wanted to promote meaningful academic exchange between his native Tunisia and Oxford.  An alumnus of Harvard, Mr Ben-Gacem has funded scholarships for Tunisians to study at Harvard and has underwritten a Harvard Centre in Tunis.  Now connected to Oxford through the College and Middle East Centre, Mr Ben-Gacem makes possible an unprecedented level of exchange between Oxford and North African universities through his generous support.

Before launching the initiative, the Middle East Centre convened a committee of Oxford academics with research ties to Tunisia.  Chaired by Eugene Rogan, the committee brought together Professor Michael Willis, the King Muhammad VI Fellow in Moroccan and Mediterranean Studies and a Fellow of St Antony’s; Professor Mohamed-Salah Omri of St John’s College, himself a Tunisian and one of the leading scholars of modern Arabic literature; and Dr Anne Wolf, a fellow of All Souls College and leading scholar of the politics of Tunisia.

Rogan, Willis and Omri travelled to Tunisia in 2023 to consult with scholars in six of Tunisia’s 13 public universities. They reported their findings to Mr Ben-Gacem and proposed a framework for both Tunisian scholars to come to Oxford, and for Oxford students and faculty to engage with Tunisian universities and research facilities. They then shared the plan with the Tunisian Ministry of Higher Education to ensure it enjoyed official approval.  The British ambassador to Tunisia, H.E. Helen Winterton, gave her full support to the initiative, stewarding the Programme to the successful signing in March.

The Programme will run for an initial three-year period.  In the first year (2024-2025), the Programme provides for three doctoral candidates registered in Tunisian universities to spend one term each in Oxford.  The visiting studentships were advertised across Tunisia in the spring of 2024 and attracted a field of 69 candidates in the humanities and social sciences.  From a long list of 12, six candidates were shortlisted and interviewed.  The inaugural Hazem Ben-Gacem Visiting Doctoral Students selected from this pool have been named:

Michaelmas Term 2024: Ms Oumaima Bouaziz (Ecole Supérieur des Sciences et Technologies du Design, Manouba University), for her thesis ‘Designing Sacredness: Study of Contemporary Mosques in Tunisia’

Hilary Term 2025: Ms Donia Kaffel (Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences of Sfax), for her thesis ‘Linking Adverbials in Tunisian Academic Writing: A Corpus-Based Study of Cohesion and Conjunction Across Genres and Disciplines’

Trinity Term 2025: Mr Ayoub Majri (Institut Supérieur de Gestion, University of Tunis), for his thesis ‘Fragmented Journeys Undertaken by Sub-Saharan Migrants in Tunisia’

Each scholar will be housed in St Antony’s student accommodation and has been assigned a mentor from the relevant faculty.  The mentor will hold weekly meetings with the students, introduce them to other faculty and research students to allow the Tunisian students to develop their academic networks.  In this way, we hope that their ten-week stays will provide each doctoral candidate with significant opportunities to develop their work.

In the second year, the Programme will expand to provide visiting fellowships for three faculty members as well as three doctoral students from Tunisian universities to come to Oxford each year.

The Programme also provides funding for Oxford students and researchers to work in Tunisia.  One of the key requests of our colleagues in Tunisian universities was to have a balanced exchange, and for them to host Oxford scholars on their campuses.  Towards this end, the Programme provides a fund of £5,000 to support language training for Oxford students in Tunisia, and a separate fund of £20,000 to provide seed funds for research and exchange opportunities for Oxford faculty and scholars to engage with universities and research institutes in Tunisia.

In the summer of 2024 two scholarships of £1,000 were awarded to MPhil students to pursue language training in Tunisia in summer 2024: Ms Chiraz Hassoumi and Mr Jared Martin.

The Oxford committee will issue an invitation for proposals for research funds for the 2024-25 academic year.  They hope in this way to encourage research workshops and field work projects enabling Oxford scholars to engage with their colleagues in Tunisian universities.

As a global college dedicated to exchange with the regions we study, St Antony’s has responded to Mr Ben-Gacem’s incredible support with real enthusiasm.  We wish to record the active support of the Acting Warden Nandini Gooptu, the Bursar Tanya Baldwin, the Director of Development Wouter te Kloeze, and the Accountant Billy Garnett, who gave generously of their time and experience to ensure the Programme got off to a successful start.

Professor Eugene Rogan, Director, The Middle East Centre