The theme of this year is: Bridging Gaps in the Mediterranean Research Space.

Recent pressures to expand higher education and the current economic crisis have also led to a significant decrease in the quality of education and research in universities, and there is an apparent lack of coordination between universities, colleges, and other technical training establishments. As a result, while the number of graduates from the different stages of education is increasing, they lack in most cases the core competences and relevant skills needed in a knowledge economy.

Promoting access by professionals and researchers from different areas of study to greater contact with other approaches implies the advancement of a deeper and more genuine examination of key questions articulating relations between Europe, the Maghreb and the Mashrek, such as political and economic rapprochement, international migrations, security matters, growing interculturalization, environmental problems the Arab Spring, and scientific exchange. All these questions make clear the growing interdependence of the three shores, and the multiplicity of factors involved in Mediterranean relations which cannot therefore be analyzed or studied in isolation, because the Mediterranean is a single whole, diverse but integral at all levels and in all areas of analysis. This will be the main theme of this year's Research Souk.