IICRR researcher Dr Paola Rivetti was selected for the award of the Irish Research Council’s (IRC) early career researcher at a ceremony in the Mansion House on 6th December. The early career researcher competition was open to all Irish Research Council awardees in both the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) and the Science Engineering and Technology (SET) categories who received their PhDs in the last eight years. So the competition for this award was very strong. This award builds on Dr Rivetti’s 2016 IRC New Horizon’s Research Project Starter grant.

Dr Rivetti’s research is focused on the government of polities and societies in the Middle East and North Africa, dissecting the dynamics of political change and regime stability in the region. She was an Irish Research Council Post-Doctoral Fellow between 2011 and 2013, and held teaching and research positions in various universities in Europe. She is a co-founder of the Lund University-based European Iran Research Group and currently is involved in an FP7 EU-funded project titled ‘Researching Arab Mediterranean Youth: Towards a New Social Contract’ (SAHWA) on Arab youth and the uprisings