A word from the director

The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (MoHESR) has launched, from 2016 (the year of the quality assurance), a policy which emphasizes the need to strengthen training, research and governance capacities of higher education establishments. This approach thus meets the requirements of a knowledge-based society that is becoming more and more vital, as well as the aspirations of the various stakeholders of the academic community of practice through the continuous improvement of the actions undertaken and the practices implemented for decades. Our commitment as Director of this noble research institution the “CRASC” is (Centre for Research in Social and Cultural Anthropology), aims to keep up with the challenges that our institution seeks to overcome while strengthening the 'good practices'  that  were  developed  over  the  years  and  which  are  worthy  of  being

Image

reproduced and generalized. We are keen to fulfil the needs and demands of the national development while working to promote social and human sciences.

Our project is essentially based on the National Quality Assurance Repository in Higher Education (RNAQES). In terms of quality of services, this translates into necessity of follow-up, quality of performances, improvement of the decision-making circuit, reduction of file-processing-time, evaluation of the results obtained in relation to the objectives set, requirement of transparency and accountability, the ultimate objective of this approach being to achieve a predefined level of quality (commitment to the results on the services provided). The Centre, in its managerial approaches and mechanisms, must therefore best reach the quality requirements and the missions assigned to it by MoHESR. Our primary concern is therefore the governance of the Centre, an essential parameter in a quality approach we wish to highlight. In the same vein, we believe that accountability, empowerment (criterion of quality and good governance) and involvement/participation of all stakeholders will help achieve the efficiency and effectiveness of the administrative practices, and the improvement of research conditions. The researcher, whether permanent or associate, is in our view an essential element of the research institution.

In terms of research itself, we are aiming at strengthening research steering and monitoring structures to best meet the priorities of the Centre and its units in Oran, Constantine and Blida. By developing a strategy of privileged partnerships in terms of research at the regional and international levels, we plan to set in motion a policy of motivation of its teachers-researchers. This is why, the visibility of research needs an aggressive policy of dissemination of its scientific production. Furthermore, it is a question of ensuring scientific monitoring in the field of research, of creating a space for exchanges with higher education establishments whose challenge is to make the actions of the Centre audible and understandable.

A larger part will be devoted to multi and transdisciplinarity to avoid too reductive a compartmentalization of research in social and cultural anthropology, which is in fact a real catalyst in this field.

Through the mobilization and the involvement of its researchers, as much as that of its support staff, the Centre is keen to acquire the means capable of helping to increase the visibility of this research institution that has managed to pass the course of the pandemic episode without major dysfunctions. Moreover, a new direction is possible to face the most pressing themes for the development of our country: Digitalization, Artificial Intelligence, Knowledge-based Society and Communication in an environment that devotes more and more space to hybridity.

Oran on Mai 15th, 2022

Prof. Ammar MANAA

Director of CRASC