Culture Resource (Al-Mawred Al-Thaqafy) and the University of Hassan II in Casablanca, Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Ben M’sik) are pleased to announce the launch of the Master’s program in Cultural Policy and Cultural Management, starting from the current academic year 2018-2019.
The program was founded by Culture Resource in partnership with the University of Hassan II in Morocco, and the University of Hildesheim in Germany, with its UNESCO Chair for Cultural Policy for the Arts in Development as a cooperating partner. The two-year program, one of its kind in the Arab region, is taught in both Arabic and English.
The Master’s Program currently has 10 students who hail from the Kingdom of Morocco, Egypt, Palestine, Yemen and Tunisia, and who are being supported by Culture Resource through partial scholarships. Over the course of the 2 years, over 30 professors and lecturers from the Arab world (particularly Morocco), Europe (specifically Germany and Serbia), Canada and other countries will be in charge of the program’s diverse set of courses.
Culture Resource plays a role in general coordination of the project such as coordinating with Arab students and the Steering Committee of the Master program, itself composed of three partners mentioned above.
The Challenges
The program being unique in the region, in terms of its composition and nature, brought forth numerous challenges considering the involvement of different official bodies. The academic adoption and finalization of the Master’s degree took nearly a year and a half to establish, only becoming official in January 2017. The process of accreditation of students from outside Morocco also took time in its course, coinciding with different procedures to each embassy.
It furthermore took over a year to complete all the students’ papers and to obtain the necessary visas, with an intensive communication line ongoing with the Arab embassies in Morocco and the Embassy of the Kingdom of Morocco throughout the Arab world, the Moroccan Agency for International Cooperation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Morocco and the Ministry of Higher Education in Morocco. We found immense support from the Moroccan institutions that believed in the Master Program, thus contributing to the development of special procedures to successfully carry out this extraordinary project.
Without the great efforts of our main partner, the University of Hassan II, specifically the Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Ben M’sik), and without the concerted efforts of the permanent partners of Culture Resource and the members of the general assembly and its network of cultural actors and artists in Morocco, this unique project would not have come to light.
We are proud of the launch of the program that we have been able to achieve after an intense process of creation and many years of delay, with a firm belief in our ability to transform ideas and dreams into reality, and the possibility of effective cooperation between both the public and civil sectors. We believe the process has indeed been challenging but productive, and the sustainable projects and Arab and international partnerships that have formed are the fruits that compensate for the different obstacles and challenges we have faced in this endeavor.
Designing the Program
It is worth mentioning that the Master’s Program was designed according to the recommendations of a feasibility study report for the establishment of an Arab Diploma in Cultural Policies and Cultural Management in the Arab Region, which was commissioned by Culture Resource through a research team of specialists in cultural management and cultural policies, that paid field visits to Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia from October 2013 to February 2014. The final report was prepared in the first week of May 2014, drawing conclusions and recommendations, most notably the urgent need to establish a diploma in cultural management and cultural policies in the Arab world, and the possibility of adopting a diploma through two universities, the first in one of the four Arab countries in question, and the second in Europe. The report concluded with the nomination of Hassan II University in Morocco to host the Master’s program.
The Master of Cultural Policy and Cultural Management has resulted from the accumulation of many experiences in cultural policy and cultural management as a result of the work of Culture Resource’s Program for Cultural Policies launched in 2009 and its Cultural Management Program, which began in 2004 with the support of a diverse list of partners.
The official launch ceremony will take place on February 18, 2019 at the Hassan II University, Faculty of Literature and Humanities – Ben Msik, in Casablanca, Morocco, and the first round of the Masters will end in July 2020.
