As the world is becoming increasingly aware of the concept of the global village, ethnic and racial affiliations have taken root, in an unconscious movement, mainly for fear of disappearing or losing identity as defined by geography, history, human and social factors, and culture. Accordingly, and with the rapid breakdown of barriers and obstacles hindering the unlimited communication network, minorities in the Middle East are imposing a cognitive model of functional differentiation in which scholars, researchers and specialists strive to explore, to record and to teach.

USEK is a Middle Eastern university recognized on national, regional and international levels and is based on a special Syriac oriental heritage. While this has never hindered its relations and contacts with the other national heritages in the Middle East, the University remains the first and only institution in Lebanon to have established a center dealing with the religious, cultural and cognitive history of minorities in the Middle East and seeking to impart this knowledge to a wider audience.