Mada al-Carmel: The Arab Center for Applied Research is located in Haifa. Mada generates and provides information and analysis on the social and political life and history of Palestinians. While Mada has a particular interest in Palestinians within Israel’s 1948 boundaries, it is also heavily engaged with research on Israeli society and politics, particularly in regard to policies toward Palestinians and Palestine.

In its practice, Mada functions as a space for information exchange and knowledge production for Palestinian researchers within ’48. These researchers may otherwise struggle to immerse themselves in their chosen research tracts due to the constraints of the universities.

Mada publishes its scholarly outputs in a range of media, including two journals, Jadal and Makhar; monographs; reports; surveys; and associated ephemera in both print and online formats. The volatile dynamics of the contemporary global scholarly communications landscape potentially offer opportunities and threats from Mada to increase the traction of their research within the inter, multi and transdisciplinary nature of their audiences.

This was referred to in LAP’s 2015 meeting with Mada, and there were primary suggestions offered from the delegation regarding enhancing the profile of the organization as a scholarly publisher at conferences; taking advantage of alternative licensing options that may allow for greater use and reuse of the scholarship in the wider communities; and addressing academics, researchers, and faculty staff rather than librarians, as the uptake of the literature is largely mediated through the discourse of scholars.

Mada is also looking to describe, digitize, and make accessible archival sources and oral histories from Palestinians in ’48 and the West Bank as a digital archival collection.

Learn more about Mada al-Carmel on their website.