Supporting Emerging Experts and Dialogue
SEED is PRISME’s platform for mentoring and supporting the next generation of critical security thinkers. It was created to address a persistent gap: early-career scholars often struggle to find spaces where they can experiment, reflect, and be heard. SEED brings together several complementary programs designed to help emerging researchers develop their ideas, refine their public voice, and connect with others working on inclusive approaches to security in and with the Middle East and North Africa.
Through writing, research, and peer exchange, SEED invests in people – offering them not just visibility, but meaningful opportunities to build relationships and shape the regional and global security conversations they will inherit
SEED Blog
The SEED blog offers early-career scholars an opportunity to publish short, public-facing essays that reflect on inclusive security, regional agency, or the impacts of militarization. Posts often respond to PRISME’s SALAM workshops or explore related themes. Each SEED contributor receives editorial guidance from the PRISME team – from proposal to final publication – and benefits from feedback that sharpens their framing and style. Published pieces are featured on the PRISME website and shared across our regional and international networks.
RIVIERA Residency
RIVIERA (Rising Innovative Voices for International Engagement and Research Advancement) is PRISME’s hybrid residency program. Three early-career researchers – one each from the MENA region, Europe, and North America – are selected for a year-long experience of research development, mentorship, and community engagement.
Participants meet regularly with mentors, take part in PRISME workshops, and develop a publishable research paper aligned with the initiative’s mission. The residency culminates in an in-person retreat in Nice, France, just before the DAMES Forum, where residents share their work and join the broader PRISME network in collective reflection.
OASIS Writing Sessions
OASIS, short for Organized Academic Scholarship and Innovation Sessions, is PRISME’s informal writing community, created to combat researcher isolation and foster sustainable writing practices. Each session features two focused Pomodoro-style writing bursts, followed by open time for peer discussion, goal-setting, and resource exchange.
OASIS welcomes all SEED contributors, PRISME collaborators, and invited guests working on relevant topics. It’s a space to think, write, and connect.
Get involved
We welcome proposals and applications from undergraduate and graduate students, recent graduates, and early-career researchers whose work explores security in the MENA region from inclusive, critical, or imaginative perspectives.
To propose a blog contribution, please send a short abstract (around 250 words) outlining your central question or argument, along with a brief writing sample. For inquiries about the RIVIERA residency or the OASIS writing sessions, feel free to reach out.
