Between 26 and 28 January, CBRL-Amman partnered with the British Academy to host one of its Knowledge Frontiers Symposium around the theme of ‘Belonging.’  

The symposium focused on facilitating the exchange of ideas across disciplinary and national boundaries, with the aim of forging participation and partnerships between researchers from the Levant and the UK.  

Over forty participants in total gathered from both regions over the course of three days, delving into various thematic dimensions of the symposium’s organizing theme. Sessions were facilitated by senior UK academics Eugene Rogan (Oxford) and Charles Trip (SOAS, Ret., now at the British Academy) together with Sarah Abababneh (from Amman University). 

Symposium sessions were also interspersed with networking opportunities for participants, while one day also featured a tour of Amman’s neighbourhoods and murals.  

Symposium participants became eligible to apply for BA seed funding aimed at fostering collaborative proposals between both regions. The symposium’s concluding hour served as a strict deadline for the seed funding proposal submission. Though winners have yet to be announced, the high number of proposals, together with the high quality, diversity and innovation of their subject matters, was seen as indicating the model’s success. The symposium was also seen as a great success for CBRL in terms of raising its profile and visibility to wide circles of early career scholars both regional and UK based.