Access to digital education and research is crucial for the implementation of
several Sustainable Development Goals, such as SDG4 (Quality Education) and
SDG9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure). It narrows the gap in education
and research quality between the Global North and the Global South. New information and communication technologies allow delivering modern digital methods with new emerging forms of learning, teaching and technology transfer. The questions of access to information and knowledge are particularly relevant in fragile and conflict-affected contexts and need to be dealt with in a contextsensitive way.

The Cluster of Cooperation “Digital Education And Research for
MENA - DEAR MENA” therefore aims at contributing to a research and education
network between Institutions of Higher Education in Switzerland and the
MENA region. The network hub will be based in Lebanon (at the Saint Joseph
University of Beirut) and functions as a regional hub on:

A) Focus on digital education & partnerships;

B) Focus on engineering education; and

C) Focus on peacebuilding, gender & diversity.