In 2025,
Qatar Foundation’s Doha Debates strengthened its role as a global platform
for truth-seeking dialogue, bringing students and leading thinkers together to
explore ideas shaping today’s most urgent questions––from freedom and justice
to identity and belonging. Its reach continued to grow, surpassing 13.8
million video views and engaging nearly seven million followers
across social platforms, including more than one million YouTube subscribers.

A major
milestone came with season four of The Negotiators, which earned
international recognition, winning the Folio Award for Historical Reporting
and the Shorty Award for News & Politics Podcast.

Alongside
its live programming, Doha Debates released a new season of its flagship
debates online, reaching global audiences with Majlis-style conversations on
freedom, justice, identity and belonging.

Throughout
the year, Doha Debates convened a series of international town halls that
brought students into direct conversation with leading global thinkers. A
sold-out event at the Bradford Literature Festival explored national identity
and belonging, moderated by Malika Bilal and featuring Dr. Wael B. Hallaq,
Dr. Shashi Tharoor and Dr. David Engels. The dialogue then expanded to
Latin America with the organization’s first regional town hall in Buenos Aires,
presented in partnership with Years of Culture, where students from
Qatar, Argentina, and Chile debated the future of cities, alongside Guadalupe
Granero Realini, Akel Ismail Kahera and Nicholas Boys Smith.

Doha
Debates later returned to Doha, convening students with Dr. Omar Suleiman,
Dr. Gregg Caruso and Professor Jeremy Koons to examine how science, faith
and philosophy shape justice and moral responsibility. The year concluded at
the Doha Forum with a live episode of The Negotiators, in
partnership with Foreign Policy and the International Peace Institute,
featuring Prince Zeid bin Ra’ad bin Zeid Al Hussein and Dr. Robert Malley,
offering rare public insight into diplomacy and peacebuilding.

Youth
engagement remained central throughout the year. Through town halls, Community
of Practice training initiatives and the Doha Debates Ambassador Program,
more than 400 young people from over 80 nations participated annually in
dialogue-driven leadership development. Participation has grown from 30
participants in the program’s first year to a capacity of up to 200
ambassadors.

In 2026,
Doha Debates builds on this momentum with a new Doha Debates Podcast
season, opening with “Has disagreement become disinformation?” featuring
Glenn Greenwald, Renée DiResta and Siva Vaidhyanathan, alongside
town halls, another flagship show season, and the continuing season of The
Negotiators.