The Swedish Research Council has been commissioned by the Swedish government to give Swedish higher education institutions a long-term opportunity to attract leading international researchers to Sweden. Swedish higher education institutions can nominate candidates and apply for up to SEK 15 million/year for up to 10 years.
The University of Gothenburg has applied for and been granted SEK 131 million for a period of ten years by the Swedish Research Council for the recruitment of political scientist Ellen Lust, who will move her research to Sweden. The University of Gothenburg will contribute SEK 97 million.
‘Ellen Lust is an outstanding political scientist with broad competence within the social scientific field,’ says Pam Fredman, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Gothenburg. ‘The recruitment of her will significantly strengthen the University of Gothenburg and the Swedish research on the Middle East and Northern Africa.’
‘Ellen Lust is a scholar with broad knowledge about the political developments in the Arab world,’ says Sven Stafström, Acting Director General of the Swedish Research Council. ‘We are very pleased to be able to contribute to the recruitment of a scholar who will have a major impact on Swedish research within a research field that, similar to the political development, is characterized by a large number of interesting questions and problems.’
Ellen Lust’s research
‘The Arab uprisings of 2011 opened up new opportunities to study democratization, governance and local development in the Middle East and Northern Africa. My research seeks to understand political processes and citizens' engagement in the Arab world, considering this at national and local levels. I am particularly concerned with how the engagement, and the institutions that structure it, affect lives of everyday citizens," says Ellen Lust.
She has conducted extensive fieldwork and survey research in, among other countries, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria and Tunisia. Ellen Lust has led interdisciplinary research projects involving researchers from political science, sociology, economics and anthropology. Her research is regarded as pioneering. She is considered a world leading scholar of Middle East politics.
For more information, please contact:
- Sven Stafström, Acting Director General, Swedish Research Council, tel. +46 (0)8 546 44 161, sven.stafstrom@vr.se
- Pam Fredman, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Gothenburg, tel. +46 (0)76 618 6390, e-mail: ann-charlotte.schutzer@gu.se
- Ellen Lust, Professor at Yale University, tel. +1 203 745 7746, e-mail: ellen.lust@yale.edu