Serageldin signed an agreement with Staffan I. Lindberg and Abdalhadi Alijla from “Varieties of Democracy Institute” (V-Dem). Under this MoU, the Library of Alexandria will provide interns and staff necessary to complete reports, coding and data with supervision from the V-Dem team. With the joint collaboration of V-Dem, it will participate in the grant writing process necessary to secure international grants in order to fund research and publications on the MENA region and will also provide V-Dem Institute staff and affiliates with an office in the BA. V-Dem Institute will provide lecturers, trainers and teachers for some courses (workshops, summer schools, etc.) and also provide the Library with V-Dem data on the MENA region, and V-Dem analysis and conclusions for other regions.
V-Dem is a new approach to conceptualizing and measuring democracy. It is a collaboration among more than 50 scholars worldwide which is co-hosted by the Department of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden; and the Kellogg Institute at the University of Notre Dame, USA. Serageldin is a Member of the V-Dem International Advisory Board.