The Boston Consortium for Arab Region Studies (BCARS), is an international network in which policy makers, practitioners, and scholars from the U.S., Europe, and Arab Region meet and work collaboratively to advance policy and research, strengthen scholarship in and on the Arab Region, and mentor the next generation of policy analysts and scholars, especially from the Arab Region. BCARS was founded in 2013 in response to the Arab Uprisings of 2010 and the resulting challenges facing the citizens and governments of the Arab Region. The Uprisings also have presented a crisis for policy makers and scholars alike, compounding the historical and ongoing struggle of the American public to understand Arab cultures, contributions to humanity, and American interests related to the Middle East as a whole. Our current areas of research and policy analysis explore the nexus of civil society, human rights, citizenship and migration across the Arab Region. We convene our research and policy workshops primarily in Boston, Cairo, and Beirut; we also work with local partners in Amman, Berlin, Istanbul, Thessaloniki, and Belgrade. BCARS was established with the support of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, America's oldest grant making foundation. Andrew Carnegie founded the Corporation in 1911 to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding.