Career:

Dr. Al-Ansari was appointed as the Official Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the State of Qatar on 22 February 2022. His duties include conducting weekly media briefings for various local media outlets and news agencies accredited in Doha as well as interviews with local and international media outlets. 

Dr. Al-Ansari is actively engaged with various local, regional and international research centers and think tanks. He established and heads the Center for International Policy Research (CIPR), which works on political risk analysis, consulting for the government and commercial sectors, on conflicts, Track Two diplomacy, humanitarian and development issues, and management of events in the Arabian Gulf region and beyond.

Previously, Dr. Al-Ansari served as the Director of Policy at the Institute of Social and Economic Survey Research (SERI) at Qatar University (QU). During his work at the university, he also served as an assistant professor at QU’s Department of International Affairs. Al-Ansari started his career as a researcher in international relations at the office of the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2005. He also took various roles in multiple civil society institutions. He wrote regularly in Al Sharq and Al Arab national Newspaper between 2006 and 2022. He has appeared as a political commentator on many media outlets including Al Jazeera, BBC, Sky News, CNN,, Russia Today, Al Araby TV, and Qatar TV. 

Dr. Al-Ansari serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Center for Strategic Studies of the Qatar Armed Forces and the Advisory Board of the College Humanities and Social Sciences at Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU).

Experience:

Dr. Al-Ansari Specializes on GCC foreign and security policies, MENA regional issues, development/humanitarian aid, international security and conflict resolution. He is author of a book titled “Minority of Citizens: The Effects of religious, social and political values on trust in immigrants in Qatar” published in 2020. He also wrote on “The Unbridgeable Gulf: Applying Bennett’s Model of

Analysis to the 2017 Gulf Crisis” published in the Journal of Balkans and Near

Eastern Studies in 2021, “The New Gulf Order: Crisis, Mediation, and

Reconciliation” in Middle East Policy in 2021 and “Qatar’s Foreign Aid and Least Developed Countries” published in Alternatives: Global, Local, Political in 2022.

Education:

Dr. Al-Ansari received his bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Leeds University in the UK as well as a MA and PhD in Social Change from the Cathy Marsh Institute at the University of Manchester.