Regarding the Danish Institute in Damascus

Dear staff

This week I attended the annual meeting of the Danish Institute in Damascus, as SDU's representative on the board.

The annual meeting was held in Alexandria, Egypt, with a stop in Cairo. It has been a fantastic experience traveling with archaeologists and historians who possess extensive knowledge of Egypt's importance throughout the millennia.

I now know much more about the dramatic historical developments in the Middle East and the Mediterranean region.

During the annual meeting, we received the good news that several of the EU sanctions against Syria are being lifted in order to get the country's reconstruction underway.

This gives the board hope that the Danish Institute in Damascus can be reopened to Danish researchers and artists.

The institute has been closed for 12 years, but appears almost untouched. However, the building needs renovation before it can be used again.

I am traveling with Stefan Jänicke from IMADA, who gave a presentation at the annual meeting about the importance of digitization for physical libraries.

The meeting was held at the library in Alexandria, which was built 20 years ago by a Norwegian architectural firm. It therefore has a Nordic appearance, and is an impressive building on the waterfront in Alexandria.

Stefan works with the digitization of historical materials and sees a great future for increased access for researchers and other interested parties through digitization to historical materials. He predicts that physical libraries will undertake many other tasks than lending physical books.

The library in Alexandria is a role model here. In addition to one million physical books and 17 million digitized books, the library houses a museum, an art exhibition, a concert hall, several restaurants and even a supercomputer.

Stefan established many new contacts with participants from Denmark and Egypt - and ideas for new research projects were discussed extensively. The annual meeting thus has many functions in addition to disseminating research results and art.

Steffen Kjær from the Faculty of Engineering also participated in the annual meeting, as he has some ideas that the Experts in Teams course can be a contribution to education and development in Egypt and now also in Syria.

Steffen established several contacts with the Danish embassy and an Egyptian architect who is very interested in the project. The goal is to involve students and companies from both countries.

Egypt is a growing country with a population of 130 million and an increase of over one million citizens annually.

Everyone has probably heard that the traffic in Cairo is one of the more chaotic of the kind. It is also the same in Alexandria, a city with 7 or 10 million inhabitants depending on the official or unofficial count.

Air pollution is intense, similarly the Nile and the Mediterranean are overflowing with plastic. There are massive challenges in handling the strong growth and, not least, ensuring sustainable development for people and the environment.

The board will work to establish collaborations with Egyptian and Syrian researchers, not least to contribute to the sustainable development of the countries.

Here, the collaboration between the Danish institutes in the Mediterranean region – in Rome, Athens and Damascus (and the branch in Cairo) – is unique opportunities for researchers from all fields of study.

One of the common conclusions from the various presentations at the annual meeting is precisely the need for interdisciplinary collaborations – not only to understand the past but also to ensure a sustainable future.

Marianne Holmer, dean