One million pounds grant secured for Palestine-Israel research project

Professor Haim Yacobi (UCL) and his Co-Principal Investigator Professor Omar Dajani (University of the Pacific, US) have secured a £1 million “responsive mode” grant from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) for their timely research project: “The Shared Homeland Paradigm: Reimagining Space, Rights and Partnership in Palestine-Israel”.

This ambitious three-year project will be pursued in collaboration with A Land for All (ALFA), a political initiative advocating a vision of “two states, one homeland”, and one of the few popular movements in Palestine-Israel whose leadership and members are drawn from across both nations.

The project will help develop a new conceptual basis for configuring space and rights in Palestine-Israel and build practical scenarios that chart a path from the current “one-state reality” to a two-state confederation built upon the values of equality, mutual self-determination, liberty of movement, and genuine interethnic partnership.

Professor Yacobi and Professor Dajani said:

“At a time when despair about the possibility of a peaceful future in Palestine-Israel is fuelling the horrific violence on the ground, the project helps meet the urgent need for a fresh vision grounded in defensible values and elaborated through careful research and sober policy analysis. By joining together as scholars from disciplines (urban planning and law) and backgrounds (Israeli and Palestinian) that are not in conversation often enough, we also hope the project will model the spirit of partnership they envisage for Palestine-Israel”.