--- title: "Iraq — research institutions, scientists and papers" description: "Iraq: 1 institutions with papers in our library in 1 agglomerations, 1 people with a page, 2 works, 2 citations." canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/countries/iraq/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/countries/iraq/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [countries](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/countries/) / Iraq # Iraq Country 1 institution in 1 agglomeration · [all countries](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/countries/) [**1** institution with a page](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/countries/iraq/#institutions) · [**1** agglomeration](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/countries/iraq/#agglomerations) · [**1** person with a page](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/countries/iraq/#authors) · [**2** works in our library](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/countries/iraq/#works) · [**2** citations of their works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/countries/iraq/#works) ## About ### Profile Iraq appears on this site through a small body of research, all of it from a university in the northern city of [Erbil](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/agglomerations/erbil/). That institution is the [University of Kurdistan Hewler](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-of-kurdistan-hewler/). Among the works here, the country's output centres on language technology for East Syriac, a script and dialect of the Aramaic tradition. The work falls within [Linguistics & languages](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/linguistics/). It combines the study of a historical writing system with computational methods: handwriting recognition on one side and machine translation on the other. This is a narrow view of the country's science. It covers only the institutions, people and papers that the library currently holds. Readers can follow the [list of all countries](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/countries/) for comparison, or browse the country's [institutions](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/countries/iraq/institutions/) and [agglomerations](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/countries/iraq/agglomerations/) as the collection grows. What the site shows for Iraq is a focused research line rather than a broad national portfolio. The rest of this overview stays within that line. ### History Iraq's history on this site is short and recent. The earliest paper dates from 2024. It is a study that builds a dataset and a recognition system for handwritten East Syriac. A second paper, dated 2026, moves from reading the script to translating the language. It sets up a statistical system that translates between English and East Syriac. The two years show a clear sequence. The first step was to digitise handwritten material and create resources that computers can learn from. The second was to connect the language with English through translation. Both papers come from the same university in Erbil, and both include the same senior co-author. That suggests a single, continuing project on computational tools for Syriac rather than separate efforts. The site holds no earlier work from Iraq, so nothing can be said about research there before 2024. ### Research profile The topics attached to Iraq's works in our library are [Hebrew & Aramaic](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/hebrew-aramaic/), [Semitic languages](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/semitic-languages/) and [machine translation](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/machine-translation/). Both papers sit under the first two topics, and the 2026 study adds the third. Together they describe a programme in natural language processing for a language community with few digital resources. The first strand is optical character recognition for handwriting. The 2024 study assembles a collection of handwritten East Syriac sentences called KHAMIS. Each sentence is stored as a line image together with a ground-truth text file, so a model can learn to match pen strokes to the correct characters. Datasets of this kind form the base for any recognition system, because supervised learning needs paired examples of images and their transcriptions. For a script in which older material often survives only in handwritten form, such a resource is a precondition for searching and studying those texts by computer. The second strand is translation. The 2026 study builds what its authors describe as a first phrase-based statistical machine translation system between English and East Syriac. It relies on established open toolkits. Moses serves as the translation framework, GIZA++ aligns words across the paired texts, and KenLM supplies the language model. A statistical approach of this type learns from aligned sentence pairs rather than from hand-written grammar rules. It is often chosen where parallel text is limited, and it gives a reference point against which later systems can be measured. Taken together, the two strands cover two basic needs for bringing a historical and liturgical language into digital use: reading what is written, and making it understandable to readers of another language. ### Leading scientists The person with an author page tied to Iraq on this site is [Hossein Hassani](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/hossein-hassani/) of the University of Kurdistan Hewler. Hassani is a co-author on both papers. That places the researcher at the centre of the country's work as shown here, spanning the handwriting recognition study and the translation study. Hassani's work here deals with building language resources and computational systems for East Syriac. It moves from creating datasets to designing a full translation pipeline. Two other researchers appear as co-authors without pages of their own. Ameer Majeed is the first author of the 2024 handwriting study, and Hadiana Sliwa is the first author of the 2026 translation study. In each case Hassani is the other author, which points to a pattern of research led by a first author and carried out with Hassani's involvement at the same university. ### Landmark works The most cited of Iraq's works in our library is [Ancient but Digitized: Developing Handwritten Optical Character Recognition for East Syriac Script Through Creating KHAMIS Dataset](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/majeed-2024-ancient-but-digitized-developing-handwritten/), by Ameer Majeed and Hossein Hassani, from 2024. Its main contribution is the KHAMIS collection: handwritten East Syriac sentences stored as line images paired with their correct text. On that basis the paper works towards recognising the script automatically. It draws on a solid list of prior references, and another paper held in the library cites it. That citation shows that the dataset or its methods have been picked up by later research within the collection. The second paper is [Machine Translation between English and Syriac (East Syriac Dialect) using Statistical Machine Learning](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/sliwa-2026-machine-translation-between-english-syriac/), by Hadiana Sliwa and Hossein Hassani, from 2026. It sets up a phrase-based statistical translation system in both directions between English and East Syriac, using Moses, GIZA++ and KenLM. The authors present it as a first system of its kind for this language pair. It rests on a wider set of references than the earlier paper. Because it is recent, it has not yet gathered citations within the library. ### Labs and units The only institution in Iraq on this site is the University of Kurdistan Hewler, a university in Erbil. Both of the country's papers come from it, and so does the person with an author page. The library does not separate departments or research groups within the university for these works. The subject matter, which joins computing and linguistics, suggests a home where language technology is studied. Beyond the university's name, its city and the fields of its papers, though, no internal structure appears here. ### Collaborations The papers in our library show collaboration within the University of Kurdistan Hewler rather than across institutions or countries. Each study pairs Hossein Hassani with a different first author: Ameer Majeed for the handwriting work and Hadiana Sliwa for the translation work. No partner universities, companies or foreign institutions appear among the works here. In Erbil itself, the collection shows no links between academia and industry. Any wider network that the research may have is not visible on this site. ### Timeline That year set the groundwork: a dataset of handwritten East Syriac lines with matching text, and a recognition effort built on it. That paper later became the most cited of the country's works here. In 2026 the same line of research turned to translation. A phrase-based statistical system linking English and East Syriac was built with standard open toolkits. The topics of the country's work widened from the study of Semitic and Aramaic languages to machine translation, while the institution and the senior co-author stayed the same. Across this span, Iraq's presence on the site has a single thread: computational tools for an ancient script and its living dialect, developed in Erbil. ## Where ## Agglomerations (1) 1. [**Erbil**1 institution*2 citations*](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/agglomerations/erbil/) ## Institutions (1) ### 🎓 Universities (1) **[University of Kurdistan Hewler](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-of-kurdistan-hewler/)**University · [Erbil](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/agglomerations/erbil/), Iraq*2 works · 2 citations* ## People (1) Authors with a page confirmed at its institutions, the most cited first. [🧑‍🔬**Hossein Hassani** University of Kurdistan Hewler 2 papers here · 2 citations](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/hossein-hassani/) ## Works in our library (2) Works of its institutions, the most cited first. 1. [**Ancient but Digitized: Developing Handwritten Optical Character Recognition for East Syriac Script Through Creating KHAMIS Dataset**Ameer Majeed, Hossein Hassani*2024 · 2 citations*](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/majeed-2024-ancient-but-digitized-developing-handwritten/) 2. [**Machine Translation between English and Syriac (East Syriac Dialect) using Statistical Machine Learning**Hadiana Sliwa, Hossein Hassani*2026*](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/sliwa-2026-machine-translation-between-english-syriac/) ## Concepts, shelves and topics Of its works in our library: the number of works on each and its rating among them. 📚 Shelves 2[Aramaic · 2 works · 0.7](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arc/) · [Linguistics & languages · 2 works · 0.7](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/linguistics/) 🧭 Topics 3[Hebrew & Aramaic · 2 works · 0.7](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/hebrew-aramaic/) · [Semitic languages · 2 works · 0.7](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/semitic-languages/) · [Machine translation · 1 work · 0.0](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/machine-translation/) ## Works by year ### 2020s [**2026** 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/sliwa-2026-machine-translation-between-english-syriac/) · [**2024** 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/majeed-2024-ancient-but-digitized-developing-handwritten/) - [← back to](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/countries/) — countries