Fobzu hosts PALS Workshop: Next Steps to Building Academic Links with Palestine

On February 21st, Fobzu hosted a follow-up event titled Next Steps to Building Academic Links with Palestine, bringing together UK-Palestine Academic Links (PALS)  Fellows from the 2023 and 2024 cohorts, Palestinian HESPAL scholars, and representatives  of the British Council Occupied Palestinian Territories. Fobzu PALS Fellowships are designed to address the urgent need to strengthen educational ties and promote mutual understanding between UK and Palestinian faculty. Originally envisioned as a programme spanning both the UK and Palestine, last year travel restrictions and safety concerns necessitated a shift to a UK-based programme, where visiting Palestinian academics have engaged with UK counterparts in person and online. This workshop provided a platform for participants to update each other on the progress of their collaborative projects and exchange ideas and experience related to building institutional partnerships with Palestinian universities. 

The panel discussion, chaired by Fobzu’s Director Omar Shweiki, was titled Partnerships & Collaborations with Palestinian Universities. Speakers included Rawan Sharaf, Head of the British Council Occupied Palestinian Territories’ HESPAL Programme, who outlined the initiative’s role in supporting Palestinian university faculty through scholarships designed to enhance institutional capacity. Dr. Tanzil Chowdhury, a PALS Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Public Law at Queen Mary University of London, provided an overview of the research partnership he and colleagues had established between the Institute of Law at Birzeit University and Queen Mary’s International State Crime Initiative and the Centre for Law and Society in a Global Context. Ahmed Nehad, Fobzu’s Programme Officer, introduced Fobzu’s newly published Partnerships with Palestine: An Introductory Guide to UK-Palestinian Higher Education Collaboration, which presents best practices and models for institutional engagement.