CODESRIA

Application deadline: February 27, 2026

Founded in 1973, the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) promotes research by African and Diaspora scholars in the Social Sciences and Humanities with the view to better understanding social phenomena in Africa. This commitment is rooted in the belief that a sound knowledge base about the continent is invaluable to collective efforts to foster opportunity and equity, rights, and well-being in the continent.

In 2017, CODESRIA introduced the Meaning-Making Research Initiative (MRI) as its principal tool for research support, amalgamating the National Working Groups, Multinational Working Groups, Comparative Research Network, Transnational Working Groups and Postdoctoral Grants. The MRI is designed to facilitate research that contributes to agendas for imagining, planning, and creating African futures. A key objective of the MRI is to in-crease the visibility of the research supported by the Council.

The adoption of MRI marked a renewed commitment to the task of interpretation and ex-planation that saw CODESRIA produce ground-breaking work on thematic issues such as democratization and economic reform in Africa. MRI strongly encourages scholars to build upon the close observation of African social realities, addressing key challenges in Africa through thorough analysis and understanding. The initiative is marked by reinforced support for researchers and their better integration into the Council’s work. MRI encourages scholars to explore diverse, innovative, and alternative ways to present their work beyond the traditional book, journal article or policy brief formats.

Special call for Female Scholars

Since the early 1990s, CODESRIA has been dedicated to promoting intellectual contributions from female scholars on various themes. This reflects a recognition of the need for epistemological diversity, aimed at interrogating prevailing theoretical and conceptual assumptions.
On the other hand, the discussion on the involvement and contributions of women has long occupied a significant place in the African intellectual discourse. Indeed, the Council has prioritized the long-term objective of expanding the participation of female scholars in the work and governance of CODESRIA, in part, to address the persistent marginalized position of women within the African academic and research landscape. In this regard, the Council has made significant progress in enhancing the participation of female scholars in its activities and operations in line with the priorities outlined in its successive Strategic Plans. This commit-ment is further evidenced by the integration of gender as a crosscutting issue in the thematic priorities of the Council and the launching of gendered approaches to the initiatives it sup-ports including the Gender Institute and other initiatives specifically targeting women.

This special MRI call is part of a broader set of measures designed to build upon past achievements and significantly increase the involvement of female scholars in the activities of CODESRIA during the 2023-2027 strategic cycle. It targets proposals that advance innovative conceptual and methodological approaches capable of fostering diverse and inclusive perspectives on the continent’s historical and social experiences. The grant spans a total duration of 16 months.

SELECTION CRITERIA
Projects funded under this initiative, should:

• Address key aspects of African societies aligned with CODESRIA’s strategic priorities listed below in this call or in the Strategic Plan.
• Demonstrate theoretical ambition and originality, offering new analytical perspectives or methodological approaches.
• Address challenges of shaping African futures with attention to issues of diversity, perspectives on the national question, and rural–urban contexts.
• Show familiarity with existing knowledge produced within the community of knowledge organized around CODESRIA.
• Explore diverse spatial, temporal and sectoral configurations where relevant to the pro-cess of meaning-making.
• The group coordinator should hold a PhD at the time of application submission.

Note: CODESRIA maintains a zero-tolerance policy regarding plagiarism. Please ensure that the project you submit is entirely your own work.

The call invites applications from groups only. No individual awards will be granted. Projects should: 1) be headed by female scholars; and 2) have only women as members. Only in exceptional cases —particularly where a specific academic profile is essential to the research work— will the Council admit a group composed by predominantly of female applicants with a few male members. Group members may come from a single country or multiple countries. We particularly encourage applications from groups with members representing different countries. Each group should consist of 3 to 5 members and adhere to CODESRIA’s core principles of linguistic, and interdisciplinary diversity. All group members will be required to contribute meaningfully to the project’s work. The Council will offer a research grant of up to USD 25,000 for each successful project.

THEMATIC PRIORITIES
All applications must align with CODESRIA’s 2023-2027 thematic priorities and cross-cutting issues. Please note that, while Higher Education Dynamics in Africa is among the Council’s thematic priorities, it has been excluded from the MRI scheme, as the Council offers dedicated research grants specifically for higher education. The following are the thematic priorities and cross-cutting issues:

1) The State and Democratisation in Africa: Trends and Prospects
This thematic priority signals the desire of the Council to reconnect with CODESRIA’s historic work on democratization processes in Africa; aiming to assess democratic transitions in Africa, in order to probe the origins, context and evolution of the transitions, examine their status, question the depth of the impact of democracy on the people and on the nature of the state, and analyse prospects for democratic consolidation in Africa. Applications can also focus on the state in Africa to illuminate the context of the evolution of politics, the deployment and use of power, the resulting impact on citizens and the implications for citizenship. Applicants are encouraged to assess the current state of democracy in Africa, generating in the process a typology that might be useful for comparative work on the state and democratisation, but bearing in mind that such comparative work necessarily requires a study of the trends in global democracy processes.

2) Transformations in African Economies
This thematic priority focuses on theoretical frameworks that inform discussions on economic policy-making; the current tensions in economic development driven by orthodoxy as opposed to heterodox approaches; how these approaches refract issues of economic policy-making in Africa; discussions of dependency and structural transformation; export economies and industrialization; the issue of informalization of economies; histories and evolution of labor unionization; public-private partnership; challenges and impact of multilateral governance; the idea of planning in current economic thinking; heterodox traditions and welfare policy; alternative economic theories; reinventing economic systems; structural and institutional challenges of development; interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary conversations on economic policy; policy sovereignty for Africa, among other themes.

3) Ecologies and Society in Africa
This theme focuses on the interaction of human populations with the environment in Africa, the forms it takes, its histories and trajectories, and its impact on a broad set of sectors, including the continent’s burgeoning economies and their new capacity, whether its positive effects or negative consequences, to turn ecological inheritance (or environmental resources) into commercial products and assets. The emphasis is on interactions between people and ecological systems; targeting on land and agrarian questions, food sovereignty and poverty in the developing world; histories and trajectories of environmental interactions; the urban and the rural nexus and their complex interactions; mineral extraction and the transformation of habitats; structural transformations in agriculture and industrialization; conservancy practices, commodification and impact on societies.

Cross-cutting themes:

(1) History, Memory and Archive
(2) Gender
(3) Generations
(4) Rurality and Urbanity.

HOW TO APPLY
Interested applicants should submit application packages containing the following required materials:
a) Applicants are required to develop a brief, to the point proposal that provides:

i. an introduction that outlines the overarching theme and objectives;
ii. a clear statement of the key research question(s);
iii. concise review of the relevant literature, that highlights the proposal’s expected contribution to existing debates;
iv. explains the theoretical significance of the study, including its anticipated contribution to knowledge production outlines
v. the research methodology to show how data or evidence will generate and analyzed;
vi. a research plan outlining key activities and timelines.
vii. Budget: a concise and realistic budget that reflects the strict 16-month duration of the grant. Click on this link to access and complete the budget template: MRI Budget Template Group

b) Annotated plan of deliverables: One-page annotated plan for two scholarly articles and two policy briefs/blog posts.
c) A letter of institutional support from a dean or any other official of the university above the dean in university hierarchy.
d) The CV of the scholar(s) applying, including full contact details.

Applicants are reminded that proposals must be submitted in Word documents and should not exceed 10 pages including bibliography (Times New Roman, font size 12, double-spaced).

Please note that applications that lack any of these elements will not be considered.

The deadline for submission of applications is 27th February 2026, through the CODESRIA online submission system using the following link https://codesria.org/application-form-meaning-making-research-initiatives-mri-2026/

NB:

• Previous recipients of an MRI grant are ineligible and should refrain from submitting a new application.
• Applicants may submit only one application across all three categories. Multiple submissions are not permitted.
• In accordance with CODESRIA’s guidelines, this grant scheme is open exclusively to African scholars, primarily those residing on the continent, while allowing a limited number of applicants from the Diaspora.
• Applications from consultants or consulting firms are not eligible.