Günter Meyer

Günter Meyer (born 25 August 1946) is a German Geographer and Orientalist. He is director of the Center for Research on the Arab World (CERAW) at the University of Mainz. Meyer focuses mainly on the Political Geography of the Arab World, and the economic as well as urban development in the Middle East, especially in Egypt, Syria, Yemen and the UAE, but also in Germany. He became known to a wider German-speaking audience through interviews on the Iraq War, the Syrian Civil War and on the Libyan Civil War 2011 and 2014.

Meyer studied Geography and English Literature from 1968 to 1973 at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg and the New University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. Back in Erlangen, he took his state exams for higher secundary education in 1973, completed his doctorate in Geography in 1976 and qualified as a university lecturer in 1983 with his post-doctoral thesis and other writings in social geographic studies on developments in rural and nomadic areas. He was appointed Professor in Erlangen. In 1993 he changed to the University of Mainz.

Since the mid-1990s he started an intense networking activity organizing the cooperation of Institutes of Oriental studies and orientalists on a national, European and global level.

He headed the first World Congress on Studies of the Middle East in 2002 (WOCMES) in Mainz. The congress attracted about 2.100 scientists from 68 countries, and 126 journalists from all parts of the world.

In 2010 the executive board of WOCMES appointed Meyer again for president. In 2014 he was reelected unanimously for a fourth term of office.

In 2014 he was awarded the Jere L. Bacharach Service Award by the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA).Meyer was the first European honoured with this award. The award certificate mentioned Meyer's tireless efforts to improve communication and interaction between previously separated, different areas of European scholarship: "This award honors his vision and skill in establishing new institutional networks to the benefit of scholars around the world."

As the chairman of the World Congress of Middle Eastern Studies, Meyer was also in charge of the world congresses in Amman/Jordan, in Barcelona and in Ankara in August 2014.

• Guest professor and member of the board of trustees of Sharjah University, UAE.
• President of the Zentrums für Forschung zur Arabischen Welt (ZEFAW)
• Chairman of the Deutsche Arbeitsgemeinschaft Vorderer Orient für gegenwartsbezogene Forschung und Dokumentation (DAVO)
• President of the European Association for Middle Eastern Studies (EURAMES)
• President of the International Association for Middle Eastern Studies (IAMES)
• Chairman of the International Advisory Council of the World Congress of Middle Eastern Studies (WOCMES)
• Member of the board of the "Parliament of Cultures"
• Chairman of the Geographie für Alle e.V. (Geography for all association)
• Speaker of the Interdisziplinärer Arbeitskreis Dritte Welt (interdisciplinary 3rd world workshop)
• Chairman of the Alumni-Vereinigung Geographie der Universität Mainz (association of Geography students)

• 2002: Verdienstorden des Landes Rheinland-Pfalz for his commitment as a president of the first world congress for studies of the Middle East in Mainz.
• 2014: Jere L. Bacharach Service Award for the interlinking of international orientalist research. The award is regarded as the most prestigious distinction in Oriental Studies

• https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-12/jgum-gmr121514.php

Günter Meyer ist father of German cabaret artist Inka Meyer.

• staff at Mainz University: [1]
• Asia Times Online-Interview in Englisch on Syrien 2012: [2]
• Interview with FAZ on Syria and Russia 2015: FAZ
• Interview on Syria 2016: youtube.com