Cultural Exchange

The Institute works with cultural experts, community activists and rising young leaders to establish alternative channels for communication across national, regional and cultural divides. The Institute has a long track record of working to build relationships and understanding that policy approaches alone sometimes cannot achieve. It also has a tradition of incubating new and innovative projects which can become self-sustaining in the longer term.

Working in partnership with foundations, institutions and individuals, ISD has been able to create cultural exchange initiatives with clear, far-reaching impact. 

This area of work includes the following projects and initiatives:

Humanitas is a series of Visiting Professorships at Cambridge and Oxford intended to bring leading practitioners and scholars to both universities to address major themes in the arts, social sciences and humanities.

This programme cultivates the leaders of tomorrow; in its first phase the Programme focused on Europe’s neighbourhood including Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.

CEDAR is a pan European network of Muslim professionals working to generate a culture of success and leadership amongst Europe’s diverse  communities.

Phoenix explores the moral, philosophical and practical underpinnings for developing a more robust and confident centre ground capable of marginalising different ideological extremes.

This initiative examines the role the Arts, Museums and Libraries can play in bridging social and cultural divides in contemporary global society.

In November 2010 ISD and the Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation established the foundations for a new Chinese Contemporary Arts Prize. 

The International Prize for Arabic Fiction is one of the most prestigious prizes for Arabic literature. ISD developed the prize with the Booker Prize Foundation and the Emirates Foundation, and was instrumental in making it a sustainable, independent initiative.