The Hollings Center

The Hollings Center promotes dialogue between the United States and Turkey, the nations of the Middle East, North Africa, and Southwest Asia, and other countries with predominantly Muslim populations in order to open channels of communication, deepen cross-cultural understanding, expand people-to-people contacts, and generate new thinking on important international issues.

The Center convenes conferences, typically in Istanbul, involving opinion leaders and experts in a variety of fields, and provides small grants and fellowships to selected program participants for collaborative projects that build on conference recommendations.

The Center was established as an NGO through legislation enacted in 2004 and 2005 by the U.S. Congress, particularly through the efforts of Senator Ernest F. Hollings; its official name is the International Center for Middle Eastern-Western Dialogue.