Building a Digital Home for the Arab Scientific Renaissance

Arab Global Scholars grew out of a vision articulated by Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Qatar Foundation, to spark a modern renaissance of Arab science and research by reconnecting scholars and intellectuals with roots in the Arab world to their region.

At the inaugural symposium in 2006, there was hope that Qatar could invest its natural resources to create scientific wealth, a knowledge-based economy and a research base, alongside a real concern that the initiative could fade away and return to being only a dream. That gathering launched Qatar Foundation's Arab Expatriate Scientists Network, with Doha as its central hub.

A steering committee formed from the group in 2008 identified three priority areas: Life Sciences, Energy and Environment, and Information and Communications Technology. These priorities directly shaped the creation of Qatar Biomedical Research Institute, Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute and Qatar Computing Research Institute.

The network later evolved into Arab Global Scholars, an innovation-focused community connecting Arab scholars with universities, research centers, government and industry collaborators. HBKU has continued to spearhead its growth.

The founding challenge was not simply financial or human resources. It was whether the initiative could become serious and credible enough to turn a dispersed diaspora of Arab scientists into durable research institutions and a lasting movement.

As the Arab Expatriate Scientists Network evolved, HBKU needed to give a historically important but informally run scholarly community a coherent identity, communications strategy and launch-ready public presence.

The work had to respect the initiative's history while making participation relevant to scholars, universities, research institutes, government and industry across different countries and disciplines.

The opportunity was not to reverse the diaspora by asking Arab scholars to return permanently.

It was to turn brain drain into brain circulation: creating a credible identity and platform through which scholars could contribute expertise, partnerships and projects to the region from wherever they were based.

The brand therefore had to do more than announce a network. It had to turn a historic, periodically convened community into an ongoing invitation to participate.

I led the brand identity, communications strategy and launch preparation for the Arab Global Scholars platform.

The response translated the history and ambition of the Arab Expatriate Scientists Network into a contemporary public proposition: a connected community through which Arab scholars could contribute knowledge, form partnerships and engage with institutions across the region without geography becoming the barrier.

The identity and communications system positioned Arab Global Scholars as both the continuation of a serious institutional legacy and an open platform for future collaboration.