Founder and current director of the French Centre for Research on Iraq (CFRI), Dr. Adel Bakawan is a sociologist who is particularly active in research institutions specialised in the Middle East. In addition to being the director of the research department of iReMMO and the Center for Sociology of Iraq at Soran University (Iraq), he is currently a research associate at the Turkey and Middle East Program of the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI) and at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (CAREP). In 2010, he defended his thesis on the Islamist movement in Iraqi Kurdistan and then became an associate researcher at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS). He is also a lecturer in sociology at the University of Evry since 2011. Remaining attached to his native land which he regularly visits, he pays particular attention to the country's issues in the field of humanities, social sciences and geopolitics. He specialises in Kurdish issues, Islamism, jihadism, terrorism, nationalism and the militarisation of the Middle East.
He publishes his research papers in journals such as Confluences Méditerranée, the journal Middle East or in the journal Politique étrangère of the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI). Having become a recognised expert on the Iraqi world, he is regularly solicited by French and foreign newspapers, television channels and radio stations.
Through his work, he strives to explain the chronic instability of his native country and the foreign influences that control it. He has published a few books among which Sociology of Social Movements in Kurdistan published by Gazalnous (Iraq) in 2015, Nationalism, Islamism and Terrorism published by Hamdi Editions (Iraq) in 2010 and Iraq from Faisal to Talabani published by Ranj in 2006. In 2019, he published: "L'impossible État irakien", "Les Kurdes à la recherche d'un État", published by L'Harmattan, then, in 2021, his book : "Iraq, a century of failure. From 1921 to the present day", published by Tallandier. He retraces the hundred years of political, territorial, social and religious construction and deconstruction that have left a disillusioned and abandoned generation.
In 2021, for the centenary of the birth of the Iraqi state, Adel Bakawan reaffirms his dedication to Iraqi research by creating the French Research Centre on Iraq. With the desire to provide objective knowledge on Iraq, he created the first French-speaking think tank specialised on this country. This unprecedented approach is based on the idea of providing the public, both professionals and specialists in Iraq, with a broad understanding of the different issues at stake in the Arab world and Iraq's place in it. Active in the field, he is invited to numerous conferences and seminars from Erbil to Baghdad via Paris or Sulaymaniyah (Meetings of the Arab World Institute and CAREP, conferences for Sciences Po Paris, Lille, Strasbourg, Grenoble and Bordeaux, debate at IFRI, Meri Forum, summer and winter school at iReMMO, etc.). On its initiative, the conference "Iraq, a tragic destiny", in Erbil, marks the first major international event of the CFRI, in September 2021. About fifteen specialists on Iraq, most of them French-speaking, are invited to attend. The conference is being held in partnership with the French Embassy in Iraq, the Kurdish-Iraqi TV station Rudaw and the magazine Confluences Méditerranée.
Guided by his academic spirit, Adel Bakawan envisions the CFRI as a driver of scientific literature on Iraq and a producer of data on the consequences of conflicts, attacks and revolts that are spreading across the territory. By creating a link between the Iraqi and French academic spheres and by providing objective knowledge and data to private and public organisations interested in Iraq, Adel Bakawan hopes to build bridges between France and Iraq, to allow these two very different worlds to understand each other and interact more easily.
