This special issue of the journal Studies in Technology Enhanced Learning is the
result of collaboration between the Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning, Lancaster University (UK) and the Centre for Research in Digital Education, the British University in Dubai (UAE). Both centres wish to recognise that ‘technology enhanced learning’ (TEL) is a deeply contextualised phenomenon: socio-culturally, historically and economically. This special issue therefore focusses very specifically on TEL in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), a region with a rich history of TEL initiatives and connections to the global economy yet with many contextual particularities.