Sinem Tas. Photo: Agata Garpenlind The fight against COVID-19 continues. In Lund, researchers have been awarded a large Vinnova grant to identify a compound that could be used to prevent viral infection, and thus save lives. The project is a co-operation between preclinical, clinical researchers and a company, an efficient way for creating synergies in research. Project Manager for the study is re

https://www.stemcellcenter.lu.se/article/new-interdisciplinary-co-op-between-researchers-healthcare-and-industry-formed-fight-virus - 2025-08-23

We are very happy to announce that Emma Hammarlund and the Evolution of Stemness Control and Multicellularity research group have joined Lund Stem Cell Center! Emma and her team aim to understand how the rise of animals on Earth relates to the evolution of stemness control, an event we know very little about. Why animals evolved on the Earth remains poorly understood. As does what drove unicellula

https://www.stemcellcenter.lu.se/article/emma-hammarlund-joins-lund-stem-cell-center - 2025-08-23

Source: Kazemzadeh et al. 2021 The research group behind this article in the journal Earth´s future: Ronny Berndtsson, Hossein Hashemi, Sadegh Jamali, Cintia B. Uvo, George J. Huffman, Majid Kazemzadeh Ordinary linear regression models have been widely used for trend analysis in many related studies. This procedure implicitly assumes that precipitation changes linearly, which may not always be the

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/new-open-access-research-cmes-linear-and-nonlinear-trend-analyzes-global-satellite-based - 2025-08-23

Research group: Hossein Hashemi, Majid Kazemzadeh, Ali Salajegheh, Arash Malekian, Abdolmajid Liaghat  Soil moisture, vegetation cover, and land surface temperature are vital variables in water-energy balance, eco-hydrological processes, and water resources management, which can be influenced by watershed management activities. This research focused on the spatial and temporal variability of soil

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/new-cmes-water-research-soil-moisture-change-analysis-under-watershed-management-practice-using-situ - 2025-08-23

Photo by Jesper Ericsson on Unsplash Accelerated by changes in the geography and capitalist social relations of production, the influx of labor migrants, refugees and asylum seekers has transformed the demography of cities in the global North. In the Swedish context, as the demography of the cities is altering, neoliberal urban planning and regeneration policies have emerged in the wake of socio-s

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/negotiating-invisibility-street-making-margins-malmo-laleh-foroughanfar - 2025-08-23

Photo: Maria Malmström Maria F Malmström is taking part of the conference: "Gender and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa: A Decade after the Arab Uprisings" Virtual Workshop Series (University of Gothenburg). The title of her talk is "Navigating the Ocean of Suspicion: Affective Politics and Ambivalent Cairene Masculinities". The workshop will be held on May 6, 7, 20, and 21 at 15:00 –

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/navigating-ocean-suspicion-affective-politics-and-ambivalent-cairene-masculinities - 2025-08-23

The Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies supports research with high scientific potential through the Strategic Research Area (SRA): Middle East in the Contemporary World (MECW). Research initiation CMES offers seed money for research initiation and preparation of applications for national and international research calls. Field work and conference/workshop participation CMES offers travel g

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/cmes-travel-grant-and-research-initiation-now-open-applications - 2025-08-23

New calls for research funding, and scientific advisory board in the making! While we are still waiting for warmer spring weather to arrive there are some encouraging signs that we are now moving towards brighter times. The surrounding of CMES is distinguished by beautiful Magnolia trees in full blossom and the vaccination program against Covid-19 seems finally to be progressing in Skåne. CMES con

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/middle-east-forum-newsletter-20-april-2021 - 2025-08-23

Thursday 20 May Morten is giving a CMES Research Seminar on the topic: What is so Sectarian about Sectarian Politics? Identity Politics and Authoritarianism in a New Middle East. 1.    How has sectarian politics been debated before, during and after the Arab Revolts? The public debate on sectarianism easily leaves the impression that this is a very recent issue emerging in the wake of the Arab rev

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/three-questions-morten-valbjorn - 2025-08-23

Both sides in the Israel-Palestine conflict see the other party as an enemy, which confirms the threat. It is necessary to put the civilians and their suffering in focus, says Lisa Strömbom. Photo: Shutterstock Strong external pressure is needed to stop the violence between Israel and Hamas, which  has harvested immense humanitarian suffering on both sides. And it must happen quickly, according to

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/israel-palestine-conflict-external-pressure-needed-bring-parties-negotiating-table - 2025-08-23

Photo: Jonathan Meyer on Unsplash External research grant from the Australian Research Council (ARC). This project aims to interrogate existing boundaries to women’s participation in peace processes and identifies reasons for the failure of peace making to address the gendered foundations and impacts of conflict. The interdisciplinary research team consists of Karin Aggestam and Linda Eitrem Holmg

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/new-research-project-gendering-peacemaking-middle-east - 2025-08-23

Photo: Isiah Gibson on Unsplash A major global challenge during the coming decades is working towards sustainability. However, integrative methods for joint social, ethical, human, and engineering approaches in SDG implementations are to a great extent still lacking. Access to safe water is a key element in many of the SDGs. Hydrosolidarity principles are important on a national and international

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/new-pufendorf-research-theme-hydrosolidarity-20 - 2025-08-23

Photo: Maria Malmström Several researchers at the Center for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies were doing field work during the Arab Spring. It has left deep traces in them - but also resulted in new research projects. The Arab Spring is a term describing the uprisings that started in several countries in North Africa and the Middle East in 2011. The first one took place in Tunisia and was then foll

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/arab-spring-ten-years-after - 2025-08-23

#21 May, 2021 Message from the director   Summer greetings from the team at the Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies Finally, warm sunny weather has arrived and slowly but surely Sweden is opening up again since the vaccination program is now in full swing. At CMES, we are able to enjoy outdoor “Corona-safe” meetings in the beautiful garden and we feel confident of moving towards brighter ti

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/middle-east-forum-newsletter - 2025-08-23

Photo: Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash One important step in binary modeling of environmental problems is the generation of absence-datasets that are traditionally generated by random sampling and can undermine the quality of outputs.   To solve this problem, this study by Seyed Amir Naghibi, Hossein Hashemi and Biswajeet Pradhand, develops the Absence Point Generation (APG) toolbox which is a Python-ba

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/apg-novel-python-based-arcgis-toolbox-generate-absence-datasets-geospatial-studies - 2025-08-23

Photo: Daniel Olah on Unsplash A new study by Ivan Radelyuk, Mehran Naseri Rad, Hossein Hashemi, Magnus Persson, Ronny Berndtsson, Madeniyet Yelubay and Kamshat Tussupova. A common problem when studying groundwater contamination in low-income countries is that data required for a detailed risk assessment are limited. This study presents a method for assessment of the potential impact of groundwate

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/assessing-data-scarce-contaminated-groundwater-sites-surrounding-petrochemical-industries - 2025-08-23

Published Open Access in the journal Human Ecology. The article is authored by Pinar Dinc, Lina Eklundh, Aiman Shahpurwala, Ali Mansourian, August Aturinde and Petter Pilesjö Environmental destruction has long been used as a military strategy in times of conflict. A long-term example of environmental destruction in a conflict zone can be found in Dersim/Tunceli province, located in Eastern Turkey.

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/fighting-insurgency-ruining-environment-dersim-province-turkey - 2025-08-23

Anti-Black Racism is still very present in Yemen, with a discriminatory caste system that is based on skin colour. Nevertheless, there are initiatives and solutions being put forward to combat this and ways in which awareness is being raised. This paper seeks to explore the dynamics of anti-Black racism in Yemen and how resistance against this is expressed, as well as the obstacles activists face

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/anti-black-racism-yemen-manifestations-and-responses - 2025-08-23

Ronny Berndtsson has co-authored two chapters on water security and comprehensive integrated water management. Water security by Baghban, S., O. Bozorg-Haddad, and R. Berndtsson (2021) in Water Resources: Future Perspectives, Challenges, Concepts and Necessities, Edited by Omid Bozorg-Haddad, IWA Publishing. Read more about the contribution here Comprehensive integrated water management by Rezaee,

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/new-publications-water-security-and-integrated-water-management - 2025-08-23

Photo: Pixabay The Middle East, which is experiencing severe environmental challenges such as dust-storms, is most vulnerable to climate and human-induced environmental changes. The goals of this interdisciplinary project are to identify the climate- and human-induced sources of dust and to determine and explain the factors affecting the dust-source areas such as climate variation, land-use change

https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/new-mecw-project-ai-and-dust-storm-control-middle-east - 2025-08-23