With all the recent unrest in Egypt, Think Tank Watch wanted to delve into the think tank scene in Egypt. Using the most recent University of Pennsylvania think tank rankings, here is what we found:
- Egypt has 34 think tanks, the second largest number in the Middle East behind Israel, which has 54.
- The highest ranked Egyptian think tank in terms of non-US think tanks is Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies (ACPSS), which is ranked #66.
- Interestingly, the same study ranks ACPSS as the 50th best think tank in the world. (Yes, we are just as puzzled as you are).
- ACPSS is ranked as the 5th best think tank in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
- Egypt has other think tanks on the "top think tanks in MENA" list, including: Egyptian Center for Economic Studies (#12 and #22; again we are puzzled), Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs (#23), Center of Arab Women for Training and Research (#24), Economic Research Forum (#30), Ibn Khaldoun Center for Development Studies (#32), The Information and Decision Support Center, or IDSC (#35), and the Institute for Future Studies (#37).
IDSC, the Egyptian Cabinet's think tank, appears to be pretty active in the Egyptian think tank scene. A couple years ago IDSC invited the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago to conduct a workshop on the management of think tanks and research projects. In 2008, the IDSC held an Egyptian-German think tank conference. In 2009, IDSC held a two-day international conference on the role of think tank in developing countries.
Here is an article titled on Egyptian think tank life after Mubarak.