François Burgat is a political scientist and Arabist, Emeritus Senior Research Fellow at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) posted at IREMAM. A former head of the French Center for Archaeology and Social Sciences in Sanaa and the French Institute in the Near East in Damascus, he has also been the Principal Investigator of the European Research Council (ERC) Research Program “When Autoritarism Fails in the Arab World”.
Having lectured for a wide range of Academic institutions or think tanks such as the World Economic Forum, NATO, the European Union, etc., he has been a permanent resident in the Middle East for over 24 years. He has taught and researched at the University of Constantine, at the French CEDEJ in Cairo, as the director of the French Centre for Archaeology and Social Sciences in Sana’a, Yemen, and then as the director of the Institut Français du Proche Orient based in Damascus and then Beyrouth. He is also a European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) member.