About
We offer mentoring in science communication to researchers and make academic knowledge about Islam and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region accessible to a wider public.
Vision
The blog of the Swiss Society Middle East and Islamic Cultures (SGMOIK) was launched in 2020 by journalist Monika Bolliger and anthropologist Emanuel Schaeublin. Its aim is to highlight the diversity and richness of academic research conducted in Switzerland on the Middle East and on Islam. Researchers are supported by experienced journalists in turning their research findings into texts that are accessible and engaging for a broad audience. There is strong demand for this kind of journalistic mentoring, as this type of writing is rarely taught in academia.
Selected texts are also published in collaboration with online platforms such as Geschichte der Gegenwart, Orient XXI und Gender Campus. Once a year, the texts are published in the journal Almanach, accompanied by an editorial. Each article is assigned a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which helps ensure its long-term accessibility and discoverability through search engines.
Since its beginnings, the project has been supported by the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences (SAGW), the Universities of Basel, Bern, Zurich and Fribourg, as well as the Arditi Foundation. This funding is necessary to remunerate the journalists involved in the mentoring programme; the work of the editorial committee is carried out entirely on a voluntary basis.
Submit a text proposal
The SGMOIK blog is open to all researchers from Master’s level onwards who are affiliated with a Swiss university or higher education institution, or who are working on a topic related to Switzerland. Articles should be based on recent or ongoing research on Islam and/or the MENA region. In their final form, articles should be between 1,500 and 2,000 words long.
Please send us a working title and a short summary (150–300 words) addressing the following points:
- What is the topic of the article?
- What is its main argument or what are its main ideas?
- What study or research do the findings draw on?
- When do you expect to be able to submit a first draft? (Please note that texts should not yet have been written before the mentoring begins, so that their development can be fully supported as part of the mentoring programme.)
The SGMOIK editorial committee reviews the proposals and agrees on a publication schedule in consultation with the mentors and authors.
Propose a text
Would you like to suggest a text? Please get in touch with us