Established in 1982, the CEOHS has performed its important work in the total absence of any governmental regulatory body. The Centre's work is divided between four units:
The Environmental Health Unit has performed numerous studies on the problems of pesticide use, the West Bank being one of the heaviest users of pesticides in the world. Additional dangers are inherent in that around 40% of pesticides used are chemicals whose sale or use has been banned or severely restricted by governments and environmental protection bodies around the world.
The Occupational Health Unit has trained over 500 individuals working in the agricultural sector to date, in CEOHS's Safe Use of Pesticides course.
The Water and Waste Water Unit of the Centre has long been involved with local and international health organisations in long term surveys of the water quality in the West Bank network, as well as similar studies of all West Bank drinking water wells. The CE0HS regularly monitors the biological and chemical content from 170 sampling stations in the West Bank and has recently opened a satellite laboratory in Gaza.
The Pharmaceutical Unit was set up to address problems arising from the local production of drugs in the West Bank that, since 1967 and until the late 1980s, were not subject to any controls. Emulations of foreign drugs account for about half the market and there are five times the number of generic medicines available in the Occupied Territories and Autonomous Zones than the recommended number on the World Health Organisation's Essential Drugs List. Together with UNRWA, CEOHS has been testing random pharmaceutical samples to ensure that drugs meet rigid quality control samples.
CEOHS was recently accredited by the Palestinian Ministry of Health as an official pharmaceutical and chemical quality control laboratory for the PNA and plans to move more and more into food quality control work in the coming year.
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Centre Director: Dr. Ramzi Sansour
The Centre for Research and Documentation of Palestinian Society (CRPDS) was founded in 1977 to act as an incentive and focus for the study of Palestinian society and the Palestine Question, from a variety of perspectives.
The CRDPS is organised into three main functions: documentation, support of research, and publication. The documentation section gathers, classifies and indexes information on Palestinian society in historic Palestine. The institution supports academic research in general and on the West Bank and Gaza Strip in particular.
Since 1983, the CRPDS has focused on the use of oral history techniques which, along with other research sources, has been of crucial importance in documenting the Palestinian villages destroyed in the wake of the 1948 war. The CRDPS aquired an unrivalled reputation because of this work and has since established an Oral History National Archive project, to conserve the popular memory and legacy of Palestinian culture.
The CRPDS maintains a library containing over 3,500 books, journals and documents in English and Arabic and boasts one of the best collections on the Intifada. The Centre has additionally produced many publications, which are available on request.
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Centre Director: Dr. Saleh Abdul Jawad
Established in 1991, the Continuing Education Department (CED) at Birzeit is an extension unit serving the Palestinian community's needs for technical assistance and training. CED's primary objective is human resource development. Through its programmes CED seeks to strengthen and extend managerial, technical and service skills. Special emphasis is placed on providing training for women so that they may more effectively contribute to the modernisation and development of society.
The CED conducts courses in the fields of computers and computerisation, management, education, language training and specialised industrial skills for local industry.
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Department Director: Mrs. Haifa Baramki
Established as a formal university structure in 1982, after its founding in 1979, the Department of Public and Community Health (DPCH) embarked on conducting policy-orientated research in the area of public and community health. The department works with local and international health organizations, with a mandate to conduct research, train, and assist local institutions through feasibility studies, monitoring and evaluation.
The department pioneered the production of health education materials, written in simple Arabic, ceasing publication on an issue once local organisations covered it. The DPCH is divided into three units: The Clinical Social Unit, which focuses on issues such as women's health, disability, and urban health; the Environmental Health Unit, which focuses on water, waste water solid waste including medical waste management; and the Resource Centre Unit, which contains around 2,000 book and journal titles, and CD-ROM literature search systems.
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Department Director: Dr. Rita Giacaman
Established in 1991 and attached to the Faculty of Engineering, the Engineering Centre for Planning and Design (ECPD) oversees the execution of development projects and provides technical advice about regulations and standards to public and private institutions. The ECPD also provides Palestinian companies with technical supervision to assist contractors to ensure construction work meets standard specifications.
Centre Contact: Ms. Majda' Nashashibi
Established in 1977, the Human Rights Action Project (HRAP) has followed the case of every student and staff member detained by the Israeli military authorities, as well as cases of restriction orders, house raids, deportation, and denial of freedom of movement and travel as it relates to university and academic activities.
HRAP also documents violations against the university itself, including army raids, closures, and other restrictions. The project works with an attorney who is on retainer from the university to defend students and staff.
In 1994, HRAP recorded a near record number of detentions of students and staff, a trend that has continued into 1995 with an average of 15 students arrested each month. Detentions continue to be characterized by torture and maltreatment, arbitrary arrest and the use of administrative detention.
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Project Coordinator: Ms. Catherine Grosso
Established in 1995, the Law Centre aims to contribute to the rehabilitation of the Palestinian legal profession and to the preparatory effort for the Palestinian legal process, and developing an academic programme for the teaching of law.
The West Bank still follows elements of Jordanian law, Gaza following parts of the preexisting British Mandate legislation. On top of these, there are old, mostly land-orientated laws from the Ottoman Empire period; rulings from Islamic Shari'ah Courts; the demands of international human rights covenants; Israeli military orders; and legislation from the Palestinian National Council that applies to Palestinians both in the Diaspora and in Palestine.
Systematically addressing the various areas of law and compiling relevant texts, the centre aims to provide legal researchers and policy-makers with source material to make sense of the complex situation of law in the occupied territories and autonomous areas. The Law Centre is currently developing a library and associated computer-indexing centre, and is additionally preparing a masters programme in law for the coming academic year.
Check out the Law Centre Homepage
Centre Director: Dr. Camile Mansour
Established in 1976, the Literacy and Adult Education Programme holds regular training courses for teachers and develops educational materials and techniques for the literacy programme in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The programme also provides agricultural extension and family life development education, and conducts social and educational studies to related to the general problem of illiteracy.
Programme Director Ms. Hiyam Abu Ghazali
The Mediterranean Studies Unit promotes interdisciplinary, comparative and case studies of the lands and societies of the Mediterranean basin, with particular reference to Palestine's role . University departments and external scholars are involved in its activities which include documentation, teaching and academic publications.
Unit Director: Dr. Roger Heacock
Established in 1987, the Palestinian Institute of Archaeology (PIA) developed from the Department of Archaeology, founded in 1977. The first Palestinian institution to offer an integrated BA programme to train students in the discipline of archaeology, around half of Palestinian archaeologists in the field are graduates of the institute.
The PIA has conducted excavations at Tel Taannek and Tel Jenin, as well as surveys in the areas of Jenin and Birzeit, and organises frequent field trips to significant archeological sites in Jordan and elsewhere.
The PIA conducts analysis of material remains in its laboratory, and has a substantive reference collections of pottery, plant, sediment and bone. The Institute also maintains a library which currently comprises of 800 volumes.
Institute Director: Dr. Khaled Nashef
Established in 1994, the Women's Studies Programme (WSP) came at a critical time, as Palestinian women and Palestinian society as a whole, seek to address a complex range of social, economic and political issues.
The WSP's work is divided into three areas:
As an academic unit, the WSP is part of the Faculty of Arts at Birzeit University, offering a minor in Women's Studies. The interdisciplinary core curriculum is comprised of eleven courses, including Women in Arab Society, Women and Development, Gender and Discourse, and The History of Women's Movements.
As a research centre, the WSP aims to facilitate research on Palestinian women, both through instituting its own research projects, and by collecting archival materials and offering services to other researchers. In September 1994, the programme launched Palestinian Women in Society, an extensive collaborative research project which aims to produce a gender-informed assessment of the existing state of research in education, social entitlements, economy, and culture and society.
As a community outreach centre, the WSP, in conjunction with the expanding network of Palestinian women's institutions, aims to develop avenues to empower Palestinian women through research, contributing to public and institutional policy, and through providing training in selected key institutions and locales.
Programme Director: Dr. Eileen Kuttab