Metichiou, 59
Flat/ Office 202
1101 Nicosia
Cyprus
- Research
Social Science for change The Centre for Social Sciences Research and Action is a multidisciplinary space creating synergies and bridging between the scientific, practitioner, and policy spheres. The Centre for Social Sciences Research and Action aims to foster social change through innovative uses of social science, digital technologies, and publication and exchange of knowledge. We achieve our mission through transformative research and engagement, around the pillars of fellowships, the peer-reviewed journal Civil Society Review, engagement in multi-level fora, the Civil Society Incubator, and Daleel Madani the civil society network.
Social Science for change The Centre for Social Sciences Research and Action is a multidisciplinary space creating synergies and bridging between the scientific, practitioner, and policy spheres. The Centre for Social Sciences Research and Action aims to foster social change through innovative uses of social science, digital technologies, and publication and exchange of knowledge. We achieve our mission through transformative research and engagement, around the pillars of multi-disciplinary and contextualised research; tools for civil society actors, namely Daleel Madani the civil society network; and education for all, namely the Civil Society Incubator.
The centre conducts and facilitates original, interdisciplinary, and scientific research that is published in various formats (including a peer-reviewed journal “the Civil Society Review”, articles, policy briefs, mappings, and visuals). Research is developed and conducted by the centre’s hub of scholars, fellows, and network. It aims to publish grounded, contextualised, and transformative research, combining qualitative and quantitative methodologies. As an action-oriented research hub, the centre is committed to an open access policy, making all of the centre’s publications available to a wider public. This stems from the centre’s mission to foster social change and action through free access to information, innovative uses of social science, digital technologies, and publication and exchange of knowledge. The centre adopts a participatory, grounded methodology that aims at informing multi-level action through evidence-based and contextualised knowledge. The interdisciplinary dimension of the centre’s research allows it to draw from, and build synergies across disciplines, as well as across the scientific, the practitioner, and the policy fields. This strives to contribute to critical thinking and action, and informing public debate and public policy. The Centre for Social Sciences Research and Action strives to engage in multilevel fields and fora. Complementing the research publication geared towards the centre’s diverse audience, the centre engages these audiences and stakeholders in various research and action avenues, including knowledge sharing events, scientific seminars, fellowships and study weeks, as well as workshops, and incubation.
The Centre for Social Sciences Research and Action was founded in 2006 in Lebanon, under the name of Lebanon Support, in order to document and facilitate information sharing and management, as well as fostering cooperation and partnerships between the different civic and civil actors in Lebanon, in the aftermath of the Israeli July war. Registering officially in Lebanon in 2009, and as the centre’s work grew, Daleel Madani was launched as a separate online platform in 2011, in order to cater to more than 1 thousand civil society actors at the time. The Civil Society Knowledge Centre, the multidisciplinary research platform was launched in 2013, consolidating the position of the centre as a research hub, followed by the Civil Society Review, a peer-reviewed journal, in 2015. In 2016, the Civil Society Incubator was established, building on the informal support and coaching the centre had been providing over the years, and in an effort to democratise access to knowledge and tools. Through these programmes, the peer-reviewed journal, and fellowships, the centre strived towards producing transformative knowledge contributing to social change. The launching of Daleel Madani at a regional and global level as of 2019, complemented the regional focus initiated with the Civil Society Knowledge Centre, the Civil Society Review, and the centre’s fellowships. The name change in 2021 to Centre for Social Sciences Research and Action concretised this expansion of the centre, and better reflects its scope of work on a regional and global scale, towards “social science for change”.
We have met with several members of the network and have been impressed with the level of engagement and civic and collaborative spirit.