Research fluency and delivery discipline, in the same person

Hagar Taha

I run Midan & Projects from Delft, working at the intersection of research and programme delivery in conflict-affected and fragile contexts across the MENA region.

Most recently, I supported the management of a €3M+ Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs-funded research programme in Libya at Leiden University's Van Vollenhoven Institute, coordinating a seven-partner international consortium from design through to close-out. That role covered everything a consortium lead is responsible for: partner coordination, donor narrative and financial reporting, risk management, and MEL design, in a context where fragile operating conditions make all of that harder to get right.

Before moving into programme management, my academic work took me through fieldwork across Sudan, Somaliland, and Egypt, culminating in a PhD in Political Science from SOAS, University of London. My research focused on community-based interventions as a mechanism for peace and stability in conflict-affected settings — work grounded in how institutions and communities actually function locally, not just in how a logframe says they should. I later returned to the same region as a practitioner rather than a researcher, which is what shapes how I approach programme design now.

In 2026 I completed the Executive Programme in Project Management at Maastricht School of Management, and registered Midan & Projects as an independent consultancy to bring that combination of regional depth and delivery discipline to organisations that need both.