Professor Robert Mason is an Associate Professor at the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. He also serves as an Associate with NATO Watch and as a Non-Resident Fellow with the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. His previous appointments include Senior Non-Resident Fellow with the Gulf Research Center and Director of the Middle East Studies Center at the American University in Cairo.

Professor Mason’s research focuses on the politics, international relations, and foreign policies of the Middle East, with particular emphasis on the Gulf states. His work also extends to scholarship on teaching and learning, urban development and sustainability. He has provided research and policy advice for institutions such as the Istituto per gli Studi di Politica Internazionale (ISPI), the Middle East Council, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Dutch Ministry of Defence, the Delegation of the European Union to Egypt, and the Government of South Korea.

He has been awarded fellowships from the University of Oxford, the London School of Economics, the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, and the United Nations University. Professor Mason was elected to the Executive Board of the International Studies Association (ISA) Foreign Policy Analysis Section (2020–2022), co-convened the British International Studies Association (BISA) Foreign Policy Working Group (2022–2023), and served on the committee managing the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES) Fund for Higher Education in Gaza (2024–2025). In 2025-2026 he is also an APSA Mentor for early career academics.  

A Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and the Royal Society of Arts, Professor Mason has completed leadership and human resources courses with Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and the University of California.

He received a faculty research award in 2018 and has leveraged European Commission funding to support diverse teaching, research, and outreach initiatives, including work on Euro-Mediterranean relations. He also secured ERASMUS+ funding for student and faculty mobility and Euromesco funding for an inter-mural student conference.

Professor Mason has served as an external PhD examiner in the United Kingdom and is an Associate Editor of the Journal of World Affairs. He is the founding editor of the Gulf in International Affairs series at Lexington Books and the Peace Politics in the Middle East series at Liverpool University Press. He regularly reviews for academic journals, university presses, and research funding bodies, including as a member of the ESRC Peer Review College.