Category: Grants and Fellowships

Call for Proposals: African Fellowships for Research in Indigenous and Alternative Knowledges (AFRIAK)

Deadline: 15th May 2025

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is pleased to announce a call for proposals for a new research and fellowship programme, the African Fellowships for Research in Indigenous and Alternative Knowledges (AFRIAK). This programme is offered with the support of the Mastercard Foundation as part of the Foundation’s commitment to advance education and skills for young people in Africa, and in recognition of the contribution of the late Ghanaian intellectual, Dr Sulley Gariba in advocating for the place of African knowledge in Research and Evaluation.

This programme seeks to implement an innovative approach to training a new generation of young people to design research projects and produce knowledge as a partnership between academic mentors on the one hand and bearers of Indigenous knowledge on the other. This approach will privilege local, Indigenous, and endogenous knowledge as forms of knowledge or knowledge systems that are deeply embedded in communities and closely tied to their lived experiences. Although these forms of knowledge may be geographically proximate to the young people in Africa, they remain inaccessible to them partly because of the dominance of Western formats of learning in our school and University curriculum and partly owing to the gerontocratic nature of our communities, where such knowledge is preserved for a few, predominantly male knowledge-bearers. This approach is innovative because it redirects us to use what we have in our communities and invites us to appreciate the many ways in which what we have in our communities is used, preserved and disseminated.

At its core, AFRIAK is premised on the conviction that training a new cadre of young people with the skills to produce and apply knowledge derived from Indigenous and local realities will generate unique but useable data. This data, we believe, contains important knowledge that will support policy interventions aimed at creating fulfilling livelihoods for young people and Indigenous/local communities.

To be sure, the notion of ‘Indigenous’ is contested. Its colonial pedigree carries pejorative connotations. This research and fellowship programme seeks to critically examine and strip the term of the negative connotations, allowing for the full value of ‘what we have’ in our communities to be recognized and appreciated.

Previous research at CODESRIA, led by the Beninois philosopher, Paulin Hountondji, located the problematic use of the notion to its colonial heritage and persisting scientific dependence in Africa today.[1] In colonised societies, ‘Indigenous’ was contrasted with ‘exotic’, implying that the former was native, traditional, primitive and resistant to change. Indigenous knowledge (IK) was thus framed as vernacular, uncivilised, deprived and superstitious. Hountondji analysed these forms of knowledge, noting that the persistence of the pejorative connotations made sense only in contexts of persisting extraversion of knowledge in Africa.[2] He preferred the notion of ‘endogenous’ to ‘Indigenous’ arguing that this reframing would recentre Africa in knowledge production. This programme, while acknowledging these debates and the historical baggage many terms carry, uses the notion of ‘Indigenous knowledge’ to refer to what is organic to society, to borrow Gramsci’s concept of the organic intellectual. It underscores the idea of ‘using what we have’, while recognising that what we have in society is not static nor does it exist in splendid isolation; rather, it evolves through continuous interaction with other knowledge systems.[3]

The AFRIAK research and fellowship project will involve three related activities. These are:

  1. A research, training and mentorship fellowship programme for young people.
  2. Policy convenings.
  3. An alumni and community of practice in Indigenous and alternative knowledge network.

The three interrelated programme activities are designed to facilitate the attainment of the following outcomes:

  1. Create opportunities and spaces for young researchers to engage in multi-disciplinary knowledge production and apply it jointly with academics, activists, policy practitioners and IK-bearers and -keepers.
  2. Facilitate collaborative research that will minimize the isolation of Indigenous knowledge-bearers/keepers/scholars from other knowledge-bearers or -keepers and help eliminate asymmetries and silos within knowledge production systems.
  3. Expand opportunities to enhance the capacity of participants, especially the historically/culturally marginalized ones, to acquire and inquire into knowledges embedded in communities.
  4. Transform knowledge into action while enhancing its capacity to create dignified and fulfilling work opportunities for young people in several sectors including the creative sector; agriculture and agri-foods systems; digital systems, and other industries; in curriculum development, pedagogy, and learning; nutrition and climate health; in human, plant, and animal health, among other sectors with pressing needs and opportunities in Africa.
  5. Facilitate the emergence of a critical mass of young women researchers who will engage with and train future generations of IK research and practices, including embracing new technologies such as AI to mobilize and apply IK.

Overall, the project is expected to lead to the uptake and scaling of Indigenous and other forms of alternative knowledge as the basis for supporting dignified livelihood strategies for young people and communities, in key sectors including those highlighted above. Proposals submitted under this call should revolve around the following areas: –

  1. Indigenous knowledge and methods of knowing.
  2. Indigenous medical science and practices.
  3. Indigenous knowledge, the creative sector and systems of entrepreneurship
  4. Agriculture and agri-foods systems.
  5. Mobilizing digital systems for Indigenous knowledge in Africa.
  6. Indigenous pedagogies and curriculum development.
  7. Indigenous knowledge in social capital development
  8. Indigenous technologies and sustainable development
  9. Indigenous knowledge and climate change
  10. IK heritage in nutrition and climate health.
  11. Indigenous languages and science.
  12. Indigenous knowledge, Religion and spirituality science.
  13. Indigenous science and ecological sustainability

Target for this call

This call targets young people aged 24 and 35 years, engaged in research and knowledge production activities that draw, or aspire to draw, on Indigenous/local knowledge perspectives. The targeted youth should be based in formal research and knowledge institutions or Indigenous knowledge research centres in Africa. Practitioners with formal education qualifications, who are engaged in activities that draw on the application of Indigenous/local knowledge perspectives, are also encouraged to apply. Up to 70 per cent of the young people to be selected for the fellowship will be young women. Applicants should highlight their research area/theme of interest, aligning with CODESRIA’s priority areas identified above.

Structure and duration of fellowship

The fellowship includes induction, mid-term institute, fieldwork, dissemination activities, and post-fellowship activities, where alumni will contribute to a community of practice in Indigenous and other knowledge systems. Fellows will be grouped into teams of seven, accompanied by two bearers of Indigenous/local knowledge and an academic mentor. Conceptualization of the research, its execution, and dissemination approaches will be co-developed between the young fellows, academic mentors and bearers of indigenous knowledge. The duration of the fellowship, including fieldwork and dissemination, will be seven months. Throughout the fellowship, research teams will receive mentorship and support from intellectual hubs, which will be identified and constituted by CODESRIA to enhance scholarly and community engagement.

Application modalities

Individual and group applications are welcome

Individual applicants are required to submit the following: –

  • A one-page CV that indicates, among other details, date of birth and current occupation/engagement and institutional affiliation.
  • A two-page concept note that identifies a topic, explains how that theme is aligned with a priority area that CODESRIA has itemised; provides a justification for the choice of theme and how compelling it is; and summarises the key steps the individual aims to go through to achieve the outcomes from the research and fellowship process.
  • A one-page reference letter from two referees familiar with the work of the applicant.

Group applicants (maximum of 7 persons) are required to submit the following:

  • A one-page CV for each of the group members to be submitted as one consolidated document. Each CV should indicate, among other details, date of birth and current occupation/engagement and institutional affiliation. The Principal Investigator or Group Leader must be clearly identified at the top of the set of CVs.
  • A two-page concept note that identifies a topic, explains how that theme is aligned with a priority area that CODESRIA has itemised; provides a justification for the choice of theme and how compelling it is; and summarises the key steps the group aims to go through to achieve the outcomes from the research and fellowship process
  • Two letters of reference that specifically endorse the group, rather than individual members.

Applications should be submitted through the CODESRIA portal reserved for this fellowship, at https://submission.codesria.org/african-fellowships-for-research-in-indigenous-and-alternative-knowledges-afriak/

The deadline for applications is 15th May 2025.

 

[1] Paulin Hountondji, ‘Scientific Dependence in Africa Today’, in Research in African Literatures, Vol. 21, No. 3, 1990.

[2] Paulin Hountondji, ‘Recherche et extraversion: éléments pour une sociologie de la science dans les pays de la périphérie’, in Africa Development / Afrique et Développement, Vol. 15, No. 3/4, 1990.

[3] There are similar discussions along these lines led by Yuen Yuen Ang, the Alfred Chandler Chair Professor of Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University and author of the How China Escaped the Poverty Trap.

Information Session on MRI Grants

CODESRIA invites prospective applicants to an information session on MRI grants.

Date: 24 January 2025, from 11 : 00 to 12 : 00 GMT

Zoom Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84901810602?pwd=JOLbTmJjoHij8R4G8IeU1NbrbD3o9y.1

 

Le CODESRIA invite les personnes intéressées à une séance d’information sur les subventions MRI.

Date: 24 January 2025, from 11 : 00 to 12 : 00 GMT

Zoom Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84901810602?pwd=JOLbTmJjoHij8R4G8IeU1NbrbD3o9y.1

 

O CODESRIA convida potenciais candidatos para uma sessão informativa sobre as bolsas MRI.

Date: 24 January 2025, from 11 : 00 to 12 : 00 GMT

Zoom Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84901810602?pwd=JOLbTmJjoHij8R4G8IeU1NbrbD3o9y.1

Conference – Call for Papers: Academic Freedom in Africa: Revisiting the Kampala Declaration

Venue: University of Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

 Date: 29th April – 2nd May 2025

 Concept Note

In November 1990, CODESRIA organized a landmark conference in Kampala, Uganda where the Kampala Declaration on Intellectual Freedom and Social Responsibility was adopted. Coming just a few months after the  Dar es Salaam Declaration on Academic Freedom and Social Responsibility of Academics, the Kampala Declaration provides a broad pan-African framework for the protection of intellectual and academic freedom on the continent. The Dar es Salaam and Kampala declarations were historic responses to new trends in society in general but specifically in the higher education sector. The failure of “developmentalism”, the imposition of Structural Adjustment Programmes and the consequences thereof in the education sector in the 1980s, and the subsequent onset of neo-liberal practices in higher education promoted a de-professionalization of academic practices. This, in turn, catalysed the enactment of the declarations. Thirty-five years later, shifts have occurred in the intellectual realm globally.  In Africa, the shifts have been driven largely by a neo-liberal agenda that most significantly has reorganized the conditions of academic labour and significantly reshaped how academic and intellectual freedoms are understood and monitored. This has consequently attenuated the role of higher education in anchoring popular struggles for public benefit.

Many have recently identified a discernible decline in the protection of academic and intellectual freedoms across the continent. We are witnessing once again an unprecedented proliferation of new threats, and, in the space of higher education in particular, active subversion of academic freedom and institutional autonomy both by the state and by academics themselves. Most of these new threats emanate from the deepening of neoliberal cultures in society and the institutions, driven, in part, by a worsening economic crisis that has eroded the material conditions of intellectuals, including university workers and students. Furthermore, recent evidence shows a decline in the protection of academic and intellectual freedom in regions once known for upholding these principles, highlighting the urgent need for a renewed drive to safeguard these freedoms on the continent as part of our contribution to their global preservation.

In addition to this, higher education in Africa has transformed immensely since the 1990s. New private institutions, with new intellectual and academic cultures, have been established and grown in number. There have been reconfigurations in university governance structures and their relation to the state and society; major curriculum reform including shifts in the modes of delivery; evolving student and faculty demographics; an expanding influence of new technologies in university management; shifts in the associational life that affect various issues in the university including, most importantly, student welfare and organizing; expanding demands on university infrastructure that affect the learning environment while also intensifying gendered effects and affecting minority groups and persons living with disabilities; and the erosion of the resource base of the university in a neo-liberal context that treats education as a private investment only valuable if it yields returns. Equally significant is the trend towards internationalization in the African university, marked by the growing influence of external players within the academy and the seductive participation in various rankings that confer different forms of visibility and legitimacy to university managers but without necessarily deepening the intellectual cultures.

These developments, including those associated with a Covid-19 dynamic demand fresh review of higher education dynamics in Africa and a reinforcement of the guardrails for intellectual and academic freedom. Revisiting existing instruments for the protection of intellectual freedom, such as the Kampala Declaration, assessing their efficacy and establishing new mechanisms to monitor the status of these freedoms in Africa is important. Preliminary review of the Dar es Salaam and Kampala Declarations, for instance, concluded that there is a need to “re-popularise the two declarations as instruments of relevance to the contemporary struggles over academic freedom that affects the African intelligentsia today.” In this review, specific attention was paid to gaps that have emerged from weaknesses in the original draft of the Declarations as well as from more recent developments in the sector. These gaps call for a rethinking and revision of the Declarations, not only regarding the higher education sector but also in relation to how the state and economy function to frame and reframe the question of academic and intellectual freedom today.

The Council’s plans to convene a conference on academic and intellectual freedom in Africa in 2025, with the review of the Kampala Declaration as an entry point. The conference will seek to reconceptualise the idea of academic and intellectual freedom as a human right underpinned by social justice imperatives. It will mobilize thinking that situates academic and intellectual freedom within the broad societal context, emphasizing academia’s key role in achieving a transformative and developmental mandate. This commitment to a transformative agenda will reaffirm the dual mandate of the Declaration, which highlights both the rights and responsibilities of the intellectual. It is anticipated that the conference, along with its outcome documents and commitments, will create a platform for a continental framework that provides a shared set of values, guidelines, and priorities for achieving, securing, and preserving academic and intellectual freedom. This common framing is particularly important within the African continent, which has significantly lagged in achieving individual freedoms and institutional autonomy amid a global context of declining freedoms.

It is not lost on the Council that the conference is convened at a time when, globally, there is growing demand for decolonizing/decolonial knowledge; where the persisting tension between divergent notions of knowledge and knowing has encouraged interest in indigenous and endogenous knowledge; and where a shrinking resource base does not prioritize the link of research to development. Indeed, the knowledge production sector in Africa is grappling with issues of inclusivity and exclusion, significant questions about the place of indigenous science, of local knowledge workers and bearers whose interventions are excluded from the academy on technicalities, and who therefore cannot enjoy the intellectual freedom conferred only to those in the ivory tower. Are indigenous knowledge institutions spaces worthy of the protections of institutional autonomy? All these are important issues for the conference to reflect upon.

The conference aims bring to together key actors in the African higher education sector to reflect to reflect on a range of thematic issues linked to academic/intellectual freedom. It will also provide a platform for networking various actors and shape the Council’s perspectives in this area. The key themes include, but are not restricted to, the following:

  1. Academic or Intellectual freedom?
  2. Rethinking Academic Freedom in Africa in the context of multi-polarity
    1. Academic Freedom: then and now.
    2. Academic Freedom and University Governance.
      1. The role of students in university governance.
      2. The role of academic staff in university governance.
      3. The role of faculty in university governance.
    3. Academic Freedom: a decade after the African Higher Education Summit
    4. University autonomy and accountability
  3. The State and academic/intellectual freedoms
  4. Higher education and academic freedom
    1. The transformation imperative?
    2. Privatization of higher education
    3. The changing demographics and associational life in the university
    4. A civil society agenda for African higher education
    5. The student movement and academic freedom
  5. The University in a neo-liberal context
    1. The question of intellectual labour and staff unionization.
    2. The students as client/ commodification of education / knowledge
    3. The academy and Neo-managerialism,
    4. Institutional and academic integrity and the responsibility of the intellectual
    5. The African Government, STEM or SSH: A sterile debate?
  6. Intellectual and academic freedom in a new technological context
    1. AI and Intellectual responsibility
    2. ICT, curriculum reform and new modes of delivery
  7. Academic Freedom: The Diversity and Inclusion question
    1. Breaking the Glass Ceiling
    2. Gender and sexuality
    3. University and the disability question
    4. Socio-cultural, religious and ethnic considerations in academia
  8. Resourcing the African university
    1. Internal dynamics of resource allocation
    2. The donor/funder as a stakeholder?
    3. The cost-sharing imperative
    4. Intersecting Interests in financing higher education
  9. Intellectual freedom: a pan-African agenda?
    1. Mainstreaming African epistemologies, ontologies and methodologies.
    2. Dilemmas of publishing in Africa as issues of intellectual freedom
    3. The Academic, professional growth and publishing
    4. Intellectual freedom and universal struggles for social justice.
  10. Indigenous knowledge systems in a decolonial moment

CODESRIA invites applicants to submit papers on any of the above themes for consideration in the conference programme. The conference will take place from 29th April to 2nd May 2025 at the University of Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Persons interested in submitting complete papers to be presented at the conference are invited to submit them not later than 31th January 2025.

Authors of accepted papers will be notified by 28th February 2025. All submitted papers should be between 5000 – 7000 words in length (including the abstract and references), using CODESRIA’s author’s guide (CODESRIA Guide for Authors – CODESRIA).

Papers should be submitted through the CODESRIA website using the following link https://submission.codesria.org.

Papers submitted after the deadline or those that exceed the word limit will not be considered. The Council will fully support authors of invited papers with a return economy class ticket, accommodation and a modest per diem. Further details on this will be provided to successful applicants.

Inquiries can be sent to the CODESRIA Secretariat at tgf@codesria.org

6th CODESRIA-CASB SUMMER SCHOOL IN AFRICAN STUDIES AND AREA STUDIES IN AFRICA

CODESRIA is organising its 6th Summer School in collaboration with the Centre for African Studies at University of Basel. The meeting will be held in hotel Fleur de Lys, Point E, Dakar, from 26th to 30th August, 2024

Theme: Making knowledge policy-relevant: The SSH’s role in global sustainable development

Please see the CODESRIA-CASB Summer School Program

4th CODESRIA/CASB Summer School in African Studies and Area Studies in Africa

Theme: The Normative Order in African Studies
Venue: Dakar, Senegal
Date: 14-18 September 2020
Applications deadline: 17 July 2020

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) and The Centre for African Studies in Basel (CASB) call for applications for their 4th Summer School in African Studies and Area Studies in Africa. The Summer School is offered with the generous support of the Oumou Dilly Foundation (Switzerland) in cooperation with CODESRIA and aims at strengthening the links between the CODESRIA community of scholars and scholars from the African Studies community in Switzerland.

The overall objective of the Summer School is to stimulate and consolidate interdisciplinary approaches to research on Africa, but also on other regions of the world undertaken from within the African continent. It focuses on African Studies as an instance of area studies and seeks to identify themes that are theoretically, conceptually and methodologically relevant to the reflection on the intellectual challenge of Africa as an object of knowledge and its contribution to general scholarship while inquiring into the relevance of the findings to African approaches to other regions.

The goals of the Summer School are the following:

  • Give PhD students and emerging scholars the opportunity to engage critically with new theoretical, conceptual and methodological developments in African Studies and enhance the relevance of the methods to their work under the guidance of senior scholars.
  • Encourage PhD students and emerging scholars to reflect on the potential relevance of knowledge on Africa to the task of improving theoretical, conceptual and methodological tools both in the disciplines as well as in interdisciplinary work.
  • Foster among PhD students and emerging scholars a sense of belonging to a community of scholars in pursuit of knowledge and scholarship.
  • Stimulate emerging scholars to work towards carving a space for African Studies in the broader field of scholarship and, in this way, helping African Studies to claim a place right at the center of knowledge production.

Concept note

The Summer School addresses the issue of the Normative Order in African Studies. According to received wisdom, values would appear to play no role in science. At any rate, it is assumed that the role played by values should be a limited one. The epistemological background to this assumption is the perennial distinction between objectivity and neutrality. In this connection, it is argued that proper knowledge production is only possible if researchers and scholars prevent their values and interests from influencing their work. The best way to accomplish this consists in adhering to strict standards of objectivity making the validity of scientific claims a function of methodology and logic, rather than a function of the normative commitments of knowledge producers. Yet, it is fair to argue that debates in the methodology of the social sciences over the past two hundred years have revolved around these assumptions. Debates between opposing fields, i.e. those who claim that science should be value free and those who counter that science is never value free on account of how science has been deployed to pursue the interests of some over others have fired the imagination of those participating in the discussions.

African Studies is a field where this issue is of interest. The field came into being as part of the European colonial project. In this sense, knowledge production on and in Africa has always been tied to the political, economic and cultural interests of the nations funding it. Even presently, when African nations are independent, have their own researchers and seek to produce knowledge themselves and for themselves, it appears to be the case that values, and interests continue to play a role. The requirement, for example, that research is made relevant to policy in the context of development concerns seems to secure a place for the values and interests of dominant nations in that development is a concept conjuring up normative expectations concerning the right way to live. The grand narrative of the Enlightenment bearing on how reason could ensure progress and human improvement lurks beneath the call for policy relevance.

There is a sense in which calls for the decolonization of the African mind are reactions to how Africanist scholars perceive the role of values in science. When African scholars doubt whether scientific knowledge drawing from what they assume to be a “Western” epistemology is able to render African worlds intelligible, they may be expressing a discomfort with the extent to which the knowledge produced might be speaking to a normative order laid down by “European” values. While this may sound ideological, there possibly is a methodological argument behind it. Accounts of the world are as much about concrete phenomena as they are about unspoken aspects of those phenomena. The key finding, for example, that corruption undermines African development is an apt description and explanation of state fragility in Africa. At the same time, however, it suggests that – all things being equal (i.e. global structural conditions) and the history that constituted most African countries as developing nations – without corruption things might look different. Alas, it is clear that no comprehensive understanding of Africa’s development challenges is possible without taking history into account. The ceteris paribus clause does not hold much water, either. The methodological challenge here is that the conceptual categories through which we seek to retrieve the world direct our attention to the data lending them substance when the challenge in fact is to critically engage with the categories themselves.

Engaging with conceptual categories means to uncover their normative foundations. Science is a highly normative enterprise in that its ultimate goal, producing knowledge to render the world intelligible, constitutes a broad commitment to some notion of a better world. Part of the challenge of doing African Studies, therefore, should be a commitment to uncovering the values underlying science not to dispose of them, but to harness them to even better research. The title of the Summer School is cast purposefully in an ambiguous way. On the one hand, it speaks to the fundamental value of science and, on the other hand, to how interests come together to lend legitimacy and purpose to science.

Key questions

The basic goal of the Summer School is to address this ambivalence by inviting proposals which look into “the value(s) of science” from several angles:

  • Which values underlie development research in Africa and how do they affect methodological choices?
  • How do ethical commitments shape how researchers frame their research?
  • Is there a politics of Western epistemology and, if so, what would be a scientific African Studies’ approach to problematize it?
  • What is the precise methodological argument behind decolonial calls for delinking?
  • How do the values of science inform its value?
  • What role is played by ideological commitments in the validation of knowledge?
  • How do ideas of a better life or world inform research projects?

Application procedures

The Summer School is open for PhD students and emerging scholars enrolled and working at Higher Education institutions in any country. Applications from PhD students registered in African and Swiss universities and in the following disciplines are highly encouraged: Social Anthropology, Sociology, History, Religion, Philosophy, Gender studies and Political science. Travel, accommodation and meals during the Summer School will be provided for participants from African Institutions.

Those wishing to be considered for participation should submit a five-page concept paper which should highlight: (a) what they are working on (b) how their work relates to the theme of the Summer School;(c) their expectations from the Summer School should they be selected.
In addition, applications must be supported by an application letter, a CV, two letters of recommendation from the candidate’s institution of affiliation and a copy of the applicant’s passport.

Applicants are requested to use the following link https://codesria.org/submission/ to submit their proposals.

For specific questions, please contact:
CODESRIA
 SUMMER SCHOOL



Tel.: (221) 33 825 98 21/22/23

Email: submission@codesria.org
Website: https://codesria.org

Appel à candidatures

Call for Applications

CODESRIA African Academic Diaspora Support to African Universities Program: Call for African Academic Diaspora visiting Fellowships in the Humanities, Social Sciences and Higher Education Studies to African Universities.

Period of Visiting Professorship: June-December 2020
Application Deadline: 10th March 2020.

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) invites joint proposals from African academics in the Diaspora and in universities in Africa for visiting fellowships to African universities. This call targets African scholars in the Diaspora who are interested in being supported to spend some time in an African university to undertake specific academic activities aimed at strengthening teaching and research in the Social Sciences, Humanities and in Higher Education studies. The tenure of the visiting professorship will range from two (2) weeks to three (3) months. The specific duration for each fellowship awarded will be determined by an external selection committee based on the work schedule of academic activities to be submitted jointly by the diaspora academic and the African host institution as part of the application documents.

CODESRIA is implementing the African Academic Diaspora Support to African Universities program with support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY). The program seeks to mobilize the African academic diaspora to support African universities and to strengthen the linkages between African academics in the diaspora and their counterparts in African universities. The focus of the activities associated with the program is the strengthening of teaching and research capacities in the Social Sciences, Humanities and in Higher Education Studies in African universities. These activities reflect CODESRIA’s thematic priorities for research and training in the 2017-2021 program cycle. The specific activities that the diaspora academics would undertake in host African institutions will be agreed upon between the diaspora academics and the host institutions, and will revolve around the following:

  • Short-term teaching engagements at African universities;
  • Initiating research activities and collaborations;
  • Organizing joint supervision of masters’ and doctoral students;
  • Facilitating review and further development of curricula;
  • Sharing of course materials and the development of new programs;
  • Organizing workshops for PhD advisors, as well as summer schools for advanced doctoral and post-doctoral students and early career academics in African universities;
  • Undertake other activities that would potentially contribute to strengthening the relationships and linkages between African academics in the diaspora and African universities.

Applications procedure

African Academics from the Diaspora who wish to be supported as visiting fellows to African universities for periods ranging from 2 weeks to 3 months and the African universities requesting to host the diaspora academic should submit a joint application package, that should include the following documents:

  • a) A 5-page concept highlighting the activities to be undertaken during the period of the fellowship in the African university, and the gaps in the host institutions’ academic plan that the activities will contribute to addressing. The concept should also include the duration of the fellowship and the exact timing the fellowship will be taken up;
  • b) Supporting documents from the host African institution. The support from the host institution should indicate the centrality of the activities the diaspora academic will be engaged in the institution’s academic plan;
  • c) The host institution should also include as part of the supporting documents, a commitment to some form of support from the institution to the visiting scholar as a way of subsidizing the fellowship;
  • d) Budget- Applications for support should include a budget which links to the time that the visiting fellow will spend in the African institution. For planning purposes, interested fellows should note that CODESRIA will allocate USD 250 per day to successful applicants. This amount will cover the upkeep of the visiting fellow and is inclusive of the cost of a round-trip ticket from the fellows’ home institution to the host institution in Africa.

Expected outputs

At the end of the fellowship, diaspora academics and host institutions will be expected to provide the following:

  • a) A detailed Academic fellowship exit report that captures the diaspora academic’s observation of the higher education dynamics and enables a reflection of the fellow’s experience within the context of those dynamics.
  • b) Responses to an evaluation form to be sent by an external person evaluating the program on behalf of CODESRIA at the end of the fellowship.
  • c) A fellowship completion report from the host institution attesting to the activities undertaken by the diaspora academic and how the outputs/learning from the activities will be integrated into the institutions’ academic plan, going forward.

Eligibility

Those eligible for support under this program are African-born academics in the diaspora, especially in North America and Europe. African scholars based in countries other than their own within the African continent and interested in being supported as visiting fellows to institutions in other African universities (not in their home countries) are also encouraged to apply. Prospective visiting Diaspora academics should get in touch with the host university/department to agree on details of the relevant activities they will be engaged in during the tenure of their fellowship. This information should be included as part of the application documents to be submitted to CODESRIA. Host universities for the fellowships should be located in one of the following countries: Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and South Africa.

Application Deadlines

The Complete application package which should include the Concept from diaspora academic and supporting documents from the host institution in Africa should be submitted to CODESRIA via the online application system which can be accessed via the link https://codesria.org/submission
Complete application documents should be received by 10th of March 2020. Successful Fellows are expected to take up the fellows in the summer (June-December 2020).

Call for African Academic Diaspora visiting Fellowships in the Humanities, Social Sciences and Higher Education Studies to African Universities

Advanced Humanities Fellowships: Call for Proposals

Submission Deadline : 28th February 2020

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, CODESRIA, invites proposals from senior African academics in the humanities within Africa and in the diaspora for the award of Advanced Fellowships in the humanities. The overall focus of the fellowships will be to support senior academics in the humanities seeking to explore and map out new terrains in the study of the humanities in Africa. This could include a focus on issues of theory, methodology and conceptual framing or propose new ways of broadening the scope of the humanities in the continent beyond the traditional academic disciplines, to encompass emerging areas such as the digital and public humanities and show how the traditional humanities disciplines would accommodate or be accommodated by the emerging areas of study.

The output expected from each of the fellowships to be awarded is a monograph that will clearly chart new research directions in the study of the humanities in Africa and serve as a research guideline for early career researchers. The monograph will be expected to enrich the state of knowledge in the humanities in African universities, contribute to the reinforcement and promotion of a culture of quality scholarship in the humanities and expand research areas in order to enhance the level of knowledge on different aspects of the humanities both within and outside the universities. Senior scholars already doing work related to emerging areas in the humanities in Africa and in need of support to extend the level of their research in ways envisaged in this call are encouraged to apply. The fellowships will be non-residential and will be tenable for one year. The output to be submitted by scholars to be funded under this component of the grant will be a book monograph of 50,000 to 60,000 words, which will be published by CODESRIA.

Those submitting proposals should include the following:

  1. A recent CV highlighting the candidate’s strengths in the areas indicated in this call.
  2. A 5-10-page proposal synopsis indicating the specific theme/topic to be investigated, articulate a clear conceptual framing for the work to be undertaken and clearly linked to emerging areas in the humanities and a workplan, showing how the work will be undertaken within the duration of the fellowship. The duration for the fellowship will be a minimum of 8 months and a maximum of 12 months.
  3. A letter indicating institutional affiliation.

All application documents should be submitted electronically via the link
https://codesria.org/submission/

The Application documents should clearly indicate “CODESRIA Advanced Humanities Fellowships”

Bourses de recherche avancée en sciences humaines: Appel à propositions

Advanced Humanities Fellowships: Call for Proposals

2020 Humanities Institute: Call for Director, Resource Persons and Laureates

Theme: New Frontiers in Teaching and Research in the Humanities in Africa’s Universities

Application Deadlines:
Director: 15th February 2020
Resource Persons: 15th February 2020
Laureates: 1st March 2020

Date for the institute: 13th-24th April, 2020

Venue: Gaborone, Botswana

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, CODESRIA invites proposal submissions from African academics and researchers in the humanities to participate in the 2020 Session of its Humanities Institute. The theme selected for the Institute is “New Frontiers in Teaching and Research in the Humanities in Africa’s Universities”. This institute will jointly be convened by CODESRIA and the Academy for the Humanities in Africa, in Gaborone, Botswana.

Over the last two decades, teaching and research in the humanities in African universities has been on the decline, occasioned partly by external and national level policies advocating for more investments in STEM subjects. STEM subjects are presented as offering better choices for Africa’s development. While there seems to be emerging agreement across the world that the humanities are and should constitute an important component of a higher education sector in developing societies, universities in Africa continue to underfund the humanities. Consequently, the quality of teaching and research in the humanities has been undermined partly because the infrastructure for knowledge production in most institutions, including doctoral and post-doctoral programs, are near collapse. In addition, little has been done to revise content in the traditional humanities to accommodate emerging areas of study and/or disciplines. The overall impact has been the devaluation of the critical role of the humanities as an interrogative force for human values, principles, and history throughout most universities in the continent. There is therefore need for interventions to explore new theories and methods on which to ground relevant knowledge production in the humanities on the continent, and possibly suggest ways of broadening the scope of the humanities in the continent’s universities, beyond the traditional academic disciplines.

Two narratives frame the status of the humanities in African universities. The first is that African universities over-enroll students in the humanities and social sciences, and this accounts for the increasing levels of graduate unemployment and skill mismatch. The second is that humanities and social sciences curricular in African universities could only be relevant to the extent that the intellectual perspectives from the humanities and social sciences enrich study and knowledge production in the STEM and other professional fields that are perceived as more relevant to Africa’s development needs. Missing in these narratives are any attempts to explore how the humanities and social sciences would be enriched on their own. The emergence of new ways of studying and producing knowledge in the humanities, including new fields such as the digital humanities, environmental humanities, energy humanities, medical humanities and public humanities presents an opportunity for African academics to examine ways in which these new fields would be constituted to reinforce and enhance the relevance of the humanities as taught and researched in Africa.

The proposed Institute targets early career academics in the humanities from universities in the continent as an important intervention in this quest for renewal. Early Career Academics (ECA) are those academics teaching in African universities and who completed their PhD in the last five years. Ordinarily, applicants are individuals looking for possibilities of career and professional development as teachers, researchers and academics through support for research training and undertaking independent research and publication in quality journals. In conceptualizing proposals for consideration for the institute, candidates are encouraged to focus on exploring ways in which the new fields in would add new intellectual perspectives to the study of the humanities in African universities and the kind of institutional academic infrastructures required to support learning, teaching and research in the new fields. Through the humanities institute, CODESRIA seeks to induct the ECA to charting new research terrains and building a strong community of researchers in the humanities in Africa who are well-versed in addressing complex questions connected to that terrain. The CODESRIA institutes are a forum through which early and mid-career academics in African universities are convened to reflect on a common theme as a way of building the research skills of the academics. The overall objective for this Institute will be to have the ECA work together alongside more experienced colleagues in the field to develop their ideas on new frontiers for teaching, researching and writing in the arts and humanities in Africa.

Candidates submitting proposals for consideration as resource persons and laureates are thus encouraged to interrogate the emerging trends in teaching and researching the humanities in the continent, new areas of study and the required theories and frameworks that would be deployed to better engage with work in the humanities in the context of the new trends in knowledge.

Organization

The activities of all CODESRIA Institutes center on presentations by African researchers, Resource Persons from the continent and the Diaspora, and participants whose applications for participation as Laureates have been successful. The sessions are led by a scientific Director who, with the support of Resource Persons, ensures that the Laureates are exposed to a wide range of conceptual, theoretical and research issues. Each Laureate is required to prepare a research paper to be presented during the Institute. The revised version of the paper will undergo a peer review for publication by CODESRIA. The CODESRIA Documentation and Information Centre (CODICE) will provide participants with a comprehensive bibliography on the theme of the Institute. The Institute will be held in both English and French through simultaneous interpretation.

Eligibility and Selection

Director

The Director for the Institute should be a senior academic who is expected to provide intellectual leadership of the Institute. The Director should also have proven expertise and intellectual depth and originality of thinking on the theme of the Institute as evidenced from the record of research and publications. As part of the process, those wishing to be considered as Director should provide a 15-page proposal broadly reflecting on the theme of the institute and a course outline covering ten days and indicating the main topics to be covered with laureates during the institute.

Applicants for the position of Director should submit:

  • an application letter;
  • a proposal, not more than 15 pages in length, indicating the course outline and showing in what ways the course would be original and responsive to the needs of prospective laureates, specifically focusing on the issues to be covered from the point of view of concepts and methodology, a critical review of the literature, and the range of issues arising from the theme of the Institute;
  • a detailed and up-to-date curriculum vitae; and
  • three writing samples relevant to the theme.

The Director will (co) edit the revised versions of the papers presented by the Resource Persons and the Laureates with a view to submitting them to CODESRIA for publication.

Resource Persons

Lectures to be delivered at the Institute are intended to offer laureates an opportunity to advance their reflections on the theme of the institute and on their own research topics. Resource Persons are, therefore, senior scholars or scholars in their mid-career who have published extensively on the theme, and who have a significant contribution to make to the debates on it. They will be expected to produce lecture materials which serve as think pieces that stimulate laureates to engage in discussion and debate around the lectures and the general body of literature available on the theme.

One selected, resource persons must:

  • submit a copy of their lectures for reproduction and distribution to participants not later than one week before the date of the lecture;
  • deliver their lectures, participate in debates and comment on the research proposals of the laureates;
  • review and submit the revised version of their research papers for consideration for publication by CODESRIA not later than two months following their presentation.

Applications for the position of resource person should include:

  • an application letter;
  • two writing samples relevant to the theme of the session;
  • a curriculum vitae; and
  • a proposal, not more than five (5) pages in length, outlining the issues to be covered in their proposed lecture.

Laureates

Applicants should be African academics in the Humanities who have attained their doctoral degrees within the last five years and, with a proven capacity to carry out research on the theme of the Institute. Intellectuals active in Arts and Humanities work outside universities are also encouraged to apply. The number of places offered by CODESRIA for this session of the institute is limited to fifteen (15) fellowships.

Applications for Laureates should include:

  • an application letter;
  • a letter indicating institutional or organizational affiliation;
  • a curriculum vitae;
  • a research proposal, including a descriptive analysis of the work the applicant intends to undertake, an outline of the theoretical interest of the topic chosen by the applicant, and the relationship of the topic to the problematic and concerns of the theme of the 2020 Humanities Institute; and
  • two reference letters from scholars and/or researchers known for their competence and expertise in the candidate’s research area (geographic and disciplinary), including their names, addresses and telephone, e-mail, fax numbers.

An independent committee composed of outstanding scholars in the thematic area will select the candidates to be admitted to the Institute

All applications (for Director, Resource persons and laureates) should be submitted electronically via the link https://codesria.org/submission

Institut des sciences humaines 2020: Appels à candidatures de directeur, personnes-ressources et lauréats

2020 Humanities Institute: Call for Director, Resource Persons and Laureates

Support to Doctoral schools, Re-building scholarly infrastructures and academic communities in the Humanities in African Universities: Call for Proposals

Deadline for submission of proposals: 30th March 2020

With funding support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, CODESRIA, is pleased to announce a call for proposals to support Schools and Faculties of Social Sciences and Humanities and Doctoral Schools to organize interventions aimed at capacity building in the teaching and research of the Humanities in their Institutions. The initiative carries forward CODESRIA’s work in strengthening the institutional bases for knowledge production in the social sciences and humanities in African universities, and is linked to the Council’s 2017- 2021 Strategic Plan that focuses on ‘Reaching New Frontiers in Social Research and Knowledge Production for African Transformation and Development’.

This “call for proposals” is part of CODESRIA’s efforts to reposition and strengthen research and teaching of the humanities in African universities. The overall goal is to engender a generation of academics and knowledge that can enable the people of the continent critically (re) imagine and (re)create better, freer, more sustainable, and more inclusive communities. CODESRIA beliefs that focusing these efforts on doctoral schools and supporting efforts at rebuilding scholarly communities in the institutions through interventions such as convening academic seminars and workshops; writing and publications workshops and workshops that seek to induct doctoral supervisors in emerging disciplinary frameworks and methodologies, will potentially result in recreating the culture of academic excellence in the teaching and research in the humanities. The strategy here will be to support activities that contribute towards reviving infrastructures for teaching and researching the humanities, including support for faculty seminars and workshops and supporting faculty-based publication and dissemination outlets.

Established in 1973, CODESRIA is a Pan-African organization dedicated to development in Africa by promoting research on some of the most fundamental questions using the humanities and social sciences. CODESRIA seeks to magnify the voices of African and Diaspora scholars in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) on the most important questions in African life through support for research, training, publication, dissemination and advocacy. In doing this, CODESRIA seeks to act as a strategic partner for higher education institutions and research centers in Africa as well as policy actors and practitioners engaged in policy work that might benefit from sound knowledge. The HSS in higher education institutions in Africa have had a troubled past in finding anchorage within institutions. In the first and second decades that most universities in Africa were established, the disciplines sought for space both in terms of creating an indigenous African academic community and a relevant curriculum that articulated with the political and socio-economic development imperatives in the African continent. It did help the course of the SSH in the nascent institutions that in terms of their pedagogical and epistemological orientations, they provided platforms upon which the quest for political independence and national self-determination of African countries, and their subsequent search for development blueprints after independence, were based. The funding crisis that the institutions in the 1980s and the subsequent decline witnessed in the 1990s left the HSS in a precarious position. Currently, the HSS disciplines face underfunding. This is partly due to the widespread neo-liberal arguments that what Africa needs for development are the STEM disciplines. Institutions continue underfunding infrastructures in the HSS, students enrollments have dipped and infrastructures to produce the next generation of social scientists and humanities scholars are barely adequate.

Proposals to be supported under this call should be submitted by individual/groups of graduate/doctoral schools and/or HSS faculties and teaching departments.

Proposals should focus on one of the following activities:

  • Support for strengthening of the administrative aspects of graduate schools in the humanities including issues to do with curricular reform, doctoral student supervision practices and mentoring of faculty for graduate supervision;
  • Interventions to rebuild/recreate scholarly infrastructures and academic communities in the HSS through holding faculty seminars, strengthening faculty journals and conferences, systems to revitalise strong workshop and seminar cultures, etc.
  • Support for scholarly writing and academic publishing workshops in the Humanities, especially targeting doctoral students and early career academics.

Proposals submitted should include the following:

  1. A 10-page concept proposal outlining the activity to be supported, how it will be organized, if it will be jointly organized with doctoral schools/faculties from other institutions, the number of participants targeted and how it fits into the institution’s overall academic plan and CODESRIA’s strategy as outlined in this call. Also to be included are the overall outputs and outcomes expected from the activity. It will also be important to show how the institution intends to sustain such activities on an annual basis.
  2. A forwarding letter from a senior institutional administrator and another from the Dean of the school/faculty proposing to host the activity;
  3. A detailed budget indicating the amount of funding required for organizing the activity. An indication of any support from the institution to support the activity proposed will be an added advantage in terms of reviewing the overall suitability of the proposal for support.
  4. The duration of the activity (CODESRIA will support activities lasting from 5- 10 working days) and hosted within institutional environments.

Those to be supported under this call will be expected to submit to CODESRIA a publishable scientific report of the accomplishments and the next steps. Complete application documents should be posted to CODESRIA Submission System https://codesria.org/submission/

Soutien aux écoles doctorales, à la reconstruction d’infrastructures savantes et de communautés académiques en sciences humaines dans les universités africaines: Appel à propositions

Support to Doctoral schools, Re-building scholarly infrastructures and academic communities in the Humanities in African Universities: Call for Proposals

CODESRIA Doctoral Mentees Inducted at Nairobi Seminar by Maina Waruru

2019 College of Mentors Institute
Nairobi, Kenya
21 – 31 October 2019

“The Doctoral Mentorship Institute of the CODESRIA College of Mentors hosted the 2019 cohort of mentees to a seminar in Nairobi, Kenya, bringing together 42 doctoral students from universities in Africa from 21 to 31 October 2019.

The seminar drew a mix of fellows all doctoral candidates for an intense 10 days of participatory-based induction course, taking place at the Kenya School of Monetary Studies in Nairobi. Participants also attended the conference of the African Studies Association of Africa held at the United States International University.

According to Ibrahim Oanda Ogachi, the head of CODESRIA’s Training, Grants and Fellowships Programme, the event is meant to augment various efforts by CODESRIA to support doctoral education in the Social Sciences and Humanities in African Universities.
It also aims at providing participants with various “intellectual resources, including reading and commenting on their works”, besides exposing them to academic writing, public presentations, and publishing, Oanda noted.

The purpose is to complement work by their primary supervisors, the overall target being to ensure successful completion of doctoral studies by the fellows and subsequent transition into faculty members in various universities.

“It is important to note that the support provided during the seminar will not override the advice participants receive from their primary supervisors rather, and is expected of academic advising, this is a complementary process whereby participants’ interests and academic development will be emphasized” said Oanda.

Prof Joseph Mensah, York University, (Canada), Abdul Karim Bangura American University, (USA) and Dr Anthony Bizos of University of Pretoria, (South Africa) were facilita- tors of the seminar.

Under the College, the fellows will be mentored for a period of up to three years to ensure they complete their studies on time, said CODESRIA Executive Secretary, Godwin Murunga.

Both the students and their primary supervisors will be linked to the college appointed mentor, avoiding conflict in terms of the roles played by both the mentor and the supervisor.

He observed that in the first cohort enrolled in 2016, a total of 49 doctoral students were linked to the college’s mentors, and about 60% of them have successfully completed their doctoral studies, besides other accomplishments such as publishing and increased attendance in conferences.

Mentees in this year’s class are junior faculty members attached to different universities, with both male and female genders being represented.

Interestingly, in this year cohort, two of the mentees are PhD candidates in Health Sciences, underscoring the critical role of this programme in opening a conversation between social sciences and health and relates sciences.“

Séminaire d’initiation des doctorants du Programme de mentorat du CODESRIA Nairobi (Kenya) par Maina Waruru

CODESRIA Doctoral Mentees Inducted at Nairobi Seminar by Maina Waruru

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