MERC will attempt to train a new group of researchers, taking into consideration a number of factors:

a) Equitable distribution of training opportunities and seminars

MERC might occasionally opt for some measures of positive discrimination, giving priority to countries and groups who have been previously largely absent from MERC activities. MERC will look at the state of social science in each country and the history of establishing social science departments, their relative research outputs, and the research funding available to them. Our priorities include a more equitable distribution of individual and collaborative research opportunities, which we view as a major step toward reviving social science and training a new generation of researchers capable of operating in environments characterized by freedom of ideas, liberty of expression, and independence of initiative. We seek to provide researchers with free space to counterbalance the daunting pressures of institutional or university research practices and traditions.

To do this, MERC will pay special attention to:

- Researchers in settings without institutional or individual support for research;

- Women researchers;

- Researchers in marginal, provincial, and remote areas.

Researchers residing in the Arab countries and Turkey with at least an MA degree will be the target audience of the different components of MERC’s program. MERC will not only encourage comparative research but will also help applicants find appropriate co-investigators through its database. To do that, lists of specialists in different areas will be collated.

b) Training to fill the gap between education and research

Joint training activities will be organized with academic institutions in the region. MERC’s regular research-capacity training rounds will target PhDs and recent M.A. and new Ph.D. holders (less than five years). These sessions will be organized in cooperation with regional academic institutions and take place in different cities of the region depending on priorities.

Among proposed areas of training and workshops are:

- Research team management

- Writing grants for the social sciences

- Building databases; creating websites; social science software

- Social science research ethics

- Comparative, qualitative, and quantitative research methods

- Public opinion surveys

MERC encourages non-traditional training approaches to emphasize regional participation and the exchange of expertise and knowledge. Accumulating knowledge about training and remaining in contact with trainees is key to MERC’s activities. MERC will undertake regular evaluations of its training activities and will encourage trainees to remain in contact with each other.

c) Meetings between different generations and research groups

MERC seeks to overcome the generation gap among scholars by including both senior and junior researchers. We seek to establish a tradition of including senior scholars in planned activities and organizing annual seminars for renowned senior researchers from different regional and Western universities. This will give young researchers the opportunity to present work in progress or final research findings thereby benefit from the interaction with senior scholars.

Reducing the digital information and communications gap

MERC will launch an information system that will be the base for an extensive system of networking.

The system will serve as a tool for the distribution, coordination, and storing of social science data:

- a database on researchers and trainees, research organizations, research units, laboratories and other related institutions;

- a database documenting MERC research awards, including topics of research, information on researchers, their abstracts, and at a later stage, final reports;

- An interactive website to promote dialogue and exchange between regional researchers.

A MERC homepage posts news covering the activities of the program; the homepage is the basis for a planned electronic refereed e-journal and a Social Science Regional Citation Index (RSSCI) to be undertaken at a later stage within the first three-year phase.

e) Upgrading promising research capacities

MERC seeks to:

- Create synergy between training and individual and collaborative research

- Ensure that news about MERC activities reaches different groups of researchers. In addition to mailings to regional research institutions, university presidents and deans, MERC will attempt to target individual researchers.