The initiative started through an informal partnership involving the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) in New York, the Regional Office of the Population Council in Cairo, the Regional Bureau of Arab States at UNDP, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada . The four institutions jointly convened a regional workshop in Beirut on 11-12 April 2006 to review the state of social science institutions and capacities in the Middle East. Participants discussed the challenges facing the social sciences in the region and recommended a follow-up meeting based on further research to explore options for addressing these needs. IDRC supported additional research on the topic during the latter part of 2006. (Click here for agenda, list of participants and meeting summary report)

The results of the research supported by IDRC were presented at a second regional meeting held in Dubai on 26-27 November 2006. At this time, the four original partners were joined by the Dubai School of Government and the Regional Office of the Ford Foundation in Cairo as co-conveners. The meeting was attended by representatives from the six collaborating institutions and around 30 participants from other research institutions. The participants reviewed several diagnostic studies prepared for the meeting which laid out the shortcomings of the social sciences in the Arab region and underscored the need for a regional institution to support individual social scientists and social science institutions throughout the Arab world. As a result, they unanimously endorsed the proposal to establish a new institute provisionally titled the Arab Social Science Research Council. (This was subsequently changed to the Arab Council for the Social Sciences at the following meeting in Cairo.) (Click here for agenda, list of participants, and summary report.)

Constituting themselves as the “founding members of the proposed institution, the participants at the Dubai meeting elected a Steering Committee to oversee plans to establish the Council with the explicit request that the Committee report back to the founding members within two years. The Steering Committee had its first meeting in Dubai immediately after the regional workshop and agreed to meet again in early 2007.

The next meeting took place in Cairo on 19 February 2007 where the Steering Committee discussed the objectives, functions and nature of the proposed entity and created three Task Forces to investigate the legal, organizational and financial requirements for creating an Arab Council for the Social Sciences (ACSS). (Click here for agenda and list of participants.)

Following the Cairo meeting, a funding proposal was drafted and submitted to IDRC and the Ford Foundation. The Dubai School of Government took on the responsibility to receive the funding and serve as the administrator of the new planning project. Once funding was secured by the fall of 2007, several new studies were commissioned to generate various options for the Steering Committee’s consideration and a temporary website housed at the DSG was designed and populated.

The Steering Committee next met in Amman on 1-2 March 2008 to examine the legal and institutional studies prepared by consultants and to review the project’s financial requirements. (Click here for agenda and list of participants.)

As part of its efforts to reach out and begin building up a constituency, the Committee also held a meeting with a group of social scientists at Jordanian research institutions and universities. (Click here for list of participants and public presentation.) In Amman, the Committee reached consensus about the main elements of the proposed Council but decided to commission additional research on several pending issues relating to the legal identity of the new institute, its location, governance structure and funding strategy. The Committee agreed that these would be discussed at its next meeting. Recalling its responsibility to report back to the initiative’s “founding members” within two years, the Committee also decided to hold a general meeting later in the year to present plans for the creation of the ACSS and to transfer the leadership of the initiative to a new, duly-constituted body.

At its final meeting in Tunis on 8-9 July 2008, hosted by Center for Arab Women’s Training and Research “CAWTAR”, the Steering Committee reviewed a range of legal studies commissioned, including the draft charter for the ACSS. After reaching consensus on the outstanding issues from earlier meetings including the ACSS’s mission, objectives, charter, membership, structure, work program, main activities, venue, and budget, the Committee decided to proceed with plans for a General Assembly to be held in Cairo on 17-18 December 2008 in order to establish the Council and turn over the direction of the new institution to a duly-elected Board of Trustees. It was also decided, based upon the legal studies, that the most felicitous location for the headquarters of the Council would be in Beirut, Lebanon. A time-line and division of labor was developed and members took upon themselves various tasks such as the preparation of background concept papers for potential working groups, establishing a list of nominees for the board and the formulation of a mission statement and a final revision of the charter for submission to the general assembly.(Click here for agenda and list of participants.)

Following the meeting, a consultation meeting was held with a group of social scientists from Tunis, Morocco, Algeria and Libya as part of the on-going efforts to build up a constituency and disseminate information on the project (Click here for list of participants.)

The two-day meeting was held in Cairo on 17-18 December 2008 and was attended by forty nine participants in addition to seven of the nine members of the steering committee, consultants and representatives of Mohamed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum Foundation (MBRF), IDRC and the Ford Foundation (click here for agenda, list of participants and opening presentation). The participants included those who had attended consultation meetings over the past two years as well as new participants invited for their standing in the social sciences and for disciplinary and geographical representation. The participants thus constituted a provisional General Assembly to launch the ACSS, ratify the mission statement and charter and elect a Board of Trustees. Extensive discussions took place around the charter, and especially the issue of the election of the Board of Trustees, until agreement was reached through consensus or voting by a show of hands. The Charter and Mission Statement were ratified in the final session of the meeting. Since then and in accordance with Lebanese law, the Charter was shortened, and by-laws developed by the ACSS lawyers in Lebanon.

Among the important changes that the General Assembly made to the proposals put forward by the Steering Committee was the decision that all 13 members of the Board of Trustees would be elected, that the board would not include any co-opted members, nor would donors serve on the Board in ex-officio capacity. It was however approved that for the sake of continuity, the first Board of Trustees would include members of the current Steering Committee who would serve for two years only (Ahmed Galal, Eileen Kuttab, Karim Makdisi, Seteney Shami.) Nominations were called and seconded from the floor (leading to a list of 15 nominees) and voting took place by secret ballot and overseen by an election committee organized from the participants. (Click here for elections committee report)

The substantive part of the meeting focused on potential topics around which working groups could be formed to initiate the work of the ACSS. The following preliminary background papers were presented and discussed: Ragui Assaad on Gender and Economic Opportunities (discussant: Rahma Bourqia); Bassma Kodmani on Peace, Conflict and Security (presented and discussed by Mustapha Kamil al-Sayyed); Mona Abaza on Politics of Culture (discussant: Abdulkarim Barghouti); Ruba Salih on Migration (discussant: Driss Maghraoui) and Mounia Bennani-Chraibi on Youth (presented by Iman Farag; discussant: Hania Sholkamy). To varying degrees the authors succeeded in presenting a state of the art review of the topics under consideration. The presenters also mapped the Arab scholarly scene with regard to the theme that they addressed and elaborated areas of future research on the topic.

At the end of the second day, after the announcement of the election results, and the ratification of the mission statement and charter, the General Assembly was adjourned. The new Board of Trustees held its first meeting immediately, joined in the first half hour by members of the outgoing Steering Committee who presented some advice and guidance based on the work of the past two years. The Board agreed that Seteney Shami would serve as interim Chair, reviewed the immediate next steps required and divided into various task forces. It was agreed that it would be advisable to hold a first full board meeting as soon as late February/early March.

As a first step, the Board of Trustees concluded an agreement with the Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND) based in Beirut, which provided an excellent base for the ACSS to consolidate itself. Not only did ANND provide space, facilities, financial services and specialized staff that helps the ACSS finalize its operational mechanisms and operations, but the collaboration also, from the beginning, established a link between the social science promotion undertaken by the ACSS with the efforts of ANND to enhance civil society, public debate and transparency in governance.

In January 2010, the Board of Trustees asked Seteney Shami to act as Founding Director of the ACSS, and thus to resign from the Board. Dr. Rahma Bourqia was selected to Chair the Board.

The ACSS registration process was met with some delay but on October 6, 2010, a formal decree (marsoum) was issued by the Lebanese Council of Ministers establishing the ACSS as a regional non-profit organization based in Beirut. The board drafted a press release to thank the Lebanese government and ministry of interior for issuing the decree. The registration process was ably navigated by Messrs. Mohamed Farid Matar of the Levant Law Practice in Beirut. The decree was followed by a statement (ifada) issued by the Ministry of Interior in 9 March 2011.

Due to the unexpected delays in legal registration as well as acquiring adequate funding, the Board of Trustees had to extend the mandate of the members originally serving on the Steering Committee. After two rounds of advertising and interviews, the Board of Trustees selected Dr. Seteney Shami as Director General of the ACSS starting in April 2012.

In March 2013, the first conference of the ACSS was held, together with a General Assembly meeting in which 6 continuing members of the Board of Trustees were endorsed and six new members were elected. The ACSS also moved into its own offices in the same month and set up its own financial and administrative structure, with gratitude to ANND for hosting the new organization for a number of years.

Since then, the ACSS has been rapidly growing in staff and programs. In 2021, the ACSS established its first branch office in Amman, Jordan. The branch has a bank account with the Arab Bank, a virtual office space and a professional license. The office has also recruited an auditing and a legal firm.