This intervention will describe an on-going collective project aimed at improving social science research on, and in, the Arab Middle East and North Africa. Born of the conviction that no single researcher or research team can ignore or transcend the incentives and hindrances their research environment imposes, this effort not only examines the particular context that shapes—and often distorts—decisions about research in the region but endeavors to propose responses that reflect the ethical responsibilities that researchers have to each other and to the broader academic communities of which they are a part. To that end, it has taken on: (a) identifying concrete impediments—institutional, economic, political, sociological—to the conduct of social science research in the region; (b) proposing strategies for addressing such impediments and promoting social science research there; (c) recommending mechanisms for greater co-operation among social science communities within and beyond the region; (d) developing specific guidelines for the ethical conduct of research, especially in and on communities under duress and in circumstances of disparate power relations; (e) fostering shared perceptions of the value of social science research and of the circumstances that advance it, within the region and beyond.