This manuscript addresses a critical topic: navigating complexities of conducting clinical trials during a pandemic. Central to this discussion is engaging communities to ensure diverse participation. The manuscript elucidates deliberate strategies employed to recruit minority communities with poor social drivers of health for participation in COVID-19 trials. The paper adopts a descriptive approach, eschewing analysis of data-driven efficacy of these efforts, and instead provides a comprehensive account of strategies utilized. The Accelerate COVID-19 Treatment Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) public–private partnership launched early in the COVID-19 pandemic to develop clinical trials to advance SARS-CoV-2 treatments. In this paper, ACTIV investigators share challenges in conducting research during an evolving pandemic and approaches selected to engage communities when traditional strategies were infeasible. Lessons from this experience include importance of community representatives’ involvement early in study design and implementation and integration of well-developed public outreach and communication strategies with trial launch. Centralization and coordination of outreach will allow for efficient use of resources and the sharing of best practices. Insights gleaned from the ACTIV program, as outlined in this paper, shed light on effective strategies for involving communities in treatment trials amidst rapidly evolving public health emergencies. This underscores critical importance of community engagement initiatives well in advance of the pandemic.

The coastline of Cyrenaica, Libya, is rich in cultural heritage dating from prehistory to the modern periods. Despite the region's long-standing and strong connection to the sea, maritime archaeology remains a peripheral, but growing, branch of archaeology in Libya. This paper aims to provide an overview of the maritime projects that have been carried out in Cyrenaica in the past. Furthermore, it will highlight the main threats and damages that coastal heritage faces today and will provide some suggestions on how the discipline could develop in the future. The Cyrenaica Coastal Survey (CCS), a collaboration between the Maritime Endangered Archaeology (MarEA) project and the Department of Antiquities (DoA), Libya, will serve as a case study of an ongoing project that documents and assesses the condition of sites along the Cyrenaican coast between Tocra and Apollonia.

Increasing pressure – such as from conflict, climate change and urbanisation – on maritime cultural heritage in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) led to the establishment of the Maritime Endangered Archaeology (MarEA) Project in 2019. This five-year programme aims to assess rapidly and comprehensively the vulnerability of maritime and coastal heritage in the MENA region and assist in its management in the face of the aforementioned challenges. The two case studies discussed in this article highlight some of the main aspects of MarEA's current work in North Africa by focusing on two different aspects of the methodological approach used: first, the generalised but comprehensive damage and threat assessment, as applied to all sites, and demonstrated for the historic port of Suakin (Sudan); second, site-specific shoreline change assessment for the purpose of assessing the impact of coastal erosion, as demonstrated for the World Heritage Site of Sabratha (Libya).

The ‘Maritime Endangered Archaeology’ (MarEA) project is conducting remote, large-scale identification and assessment of vulnerable maritime heritage to assist in its management in the face of challenges such as climate change and rapid urbanisation.

Much extant research on monumental burial structures considers mausolea in isolation from one another, both spatially and temporally, separating them from the more extensive cemeteries that either pre-existed or were built up around them. This paper presents the preliminary results of an ongoing archive-based project studying Tripolitanian Roman-period funerary landscapes, specifically investigating the relations between mausolea and their adjacent cemeteries. These relations start to help us understand the patterns in the burial traditions of the region and demonstrate the importance of the ongoing interaction between the living and the monuments of the dead. Furthermore, this study demonstrates the importance of archival research, especially in areas that are inaccessible due to conflict.

Libya's archaeological heritage is under serious threat, not only because of recent conflict, but also due to other factors such as urban expansion, agricultural development, natural resource prospection, vandalism, looting and natural deterioration. The Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa Project (EAMENA) has developed a database and methodology using remote sensing and other techniques to rapidly document archaeological sites and any disturbances and threats to them in Libya and across the MENA region. This paper will demonstrate this methodology and highlight the various types of disturbances and threats affecting the archaeology of Libya, concentrating on four case studies in different areas of the country, including the coastal plain around Zliten, a section of the Wadi Sofeggin in the pre-desert, and the desert oases of Jufra and Murzuq.

This article provides an outline of the Libyan Antiquities at Risk (LAaR) project, which has developed a reference database and website recording Libyan antiquities that are under threat of being stolen and sold on the illegal art market. Since the Arab Spring in 2011 and the subsequent political instability, the number of antiquities that are trafficked out of Libya has risen sharply. The illustrated reference collection created by LAaR is mainly aimed at customs officials, international agencies, museum curators, the police and cultural heritage sector, to alert them about the likelihood of Libyan provenance of previously unrecorded material of similar appearance to known pieces, and thereby help to prevent the sale of Libyan antiquities on the illegal art market. LAaR is a collaboration between the Society for Libyan Studies and the University of Leicester.

The archive of the Society for Libyan Studies, housed at the University of Leicester, is home to a rich collection of excavation reports, notes, photographs, typescripts, maps, plans and letters by prominent scholars that worked in North Africa. Amongst the material are the records of Olwen Brogan, Charles Daniels, John Ward-Perkins, John Dore and the UNESCO Libyan Valleys Survey. The aim is to draw attention to the research potentials in the archive, and to encourage scholars to visit this important collection to engage with the material that is unpublished or merits re-interpretation. A future digital format for the archive is proposed, to make it accessible to a much wider academic audience worldwide.

Survey and excavation by the Burials and Identity team of the Desert Migrations Project (DMP) focused in 2011 on the so-called Royal Cemetery of the Garamantes close to the Jarma escarpment, a few km south of Old Jarma. This Late Garamantian cemetery contains two distinct zones (GSC030 and GSC031) of monumental rectangular stepped tombs, which were plaster-coated and fronted by massive offering tables and stelae. Previous dating evidence has suggested they span the fourth to sixth centuries AD. However, many questions remain about the cemetery and the overall recording of the monuments had hitherto been left incomplete. The 2011 work focused on the excavation of one of the larger monuments in GSC030 and several of the smaller tombs in the neighbouring GSC031, along with an overall survey of both cemetery areas and a detailed record of the stelae and offering tables still present in considerable numbers. In addition, the team made a survey along the escarpment between the Royal Cemetery and Zinkekrā, completing and uniting the various surveys carried out by the DMP around Zinkekrā, Watwāt and the Jarma Escarpment. A survey of foggaras and settlement in the ad-Dīsa embayment was also undertaken.