On 9 November, 2021, the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) signed a Partnership Agreement with the Centre of Excellence in Gender Studies (CEGS) at Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) Islamabad.
The University’s Vice-Chancellor Professor Muhammad Ali signed on behalf of QAU, while Dr. Karin Astrid Siegmann represented ISS.
The two organizations see the Partnership Agreement as a springboard to foster interdisciplinary academic collaboration across the global South and North to better deal with the social, political and economic challenges of and opportunities for gender justice.
Envisaged areas of collaboration include joint PhD training and supervision, joint research proposal development, collaboration in teaching through student exchanges, as well as collaboration in capacity development through faculty exchange and joint tailor-made training programmes.
Ongoing collaboration
Informally, the collaboration started some years ago. For instance, in 2018, CEGS Assistant Professor, Dr Saad Ali Khan visited ISS under a 6 months International Research Fellowship funded by the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan, working on his PhD thesis on 'Female spiritual authority and guidance: contemporary Sufi women in Pakistan' in collaboration with Dr Nahda Shehada.
ISS Associate Professor Dr Karin Astrid Siegmann is currently spending a research sabbatical at CEGS while working on an edited volume on 'Gender at work in Pakistan'.
