Category: Announcements

Application deadlines: Laureates (February 28, 2015). Evaluators (January 31, 2015)

CODESRIA is a Pan-African membership research organization established in 1973 with the broad goal of promoting the work of African and Diaspora social scientists. The Comparative Research Network Competition is a long-standing tool that CODESRIA uses to encourage the development and consolidation of a comparative analytic perspective in the work of African social science researchers. The goal of the program is to contribute to the establishment of a strong corpus of comparative studies produced by African and Diaspora scholars that is theoretically innovative while being grounded in sound empirical research. The competition seeks to support work employing temporal and spatial frames of analysis and units of analysis that range from the regional and sub-regional to the national and local. The CODESRIA CRN Program encourages intra-African comparative work that explores and exploits the variegated nature of social realities on the continent as well as studies that put the continent in conversation with other areas of world with particular emphasis on the Global South.
Priority research themes for the constitution of CRNs for 2014 include the following:

1. Higher education, ICT and internationalization: the changing landscape of higher education and research; neo-liberalism, its evolution and African responses to it;
2. Climate change, resources and development: the new scramble for African resources; agrarian transformation and agricultural development; value addition, industrial and service sector development;
3. Health and welfare: public health systems, epidemic control, social security systems, and safety nets;
4. Politics and governance: Human rights; citizenship; social movements and evolving modes of civic engagement; peace, security and the rule of law;
5. Gender, youth, culture and transformative social policy: new frontiers of activism; self-actualization in changing global contexts; the construction of more inclusive political systems; changing modes of being; changing modes of re-presentation;
6. Regional and continental integration, mobility and the African Diaspora: evolving modes of engagement; the Diaspora and fashioning of the Africa to come; movement in the era of border fences; reconciling upward integration and grassroots empowerment;
7. Knowing and engaging the rest of the world: African encounters with globalization; the study of other regions of the world; South-South relations; the emerging powers; and the comparative study of historical experiences of development and governance;
8. Thinking about the future: prospective studies; planning; and ways of dealing with uncertainty in Africa.

Call for Applications: Laureates

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) invites proposals from researchers based in African universities and research centers for the constitution of Comparative Research Networks (CRNs) to undertake studies on the themes listed above. Applicants are advised to clearly highlight the comparative character of their work in all sections of their proposals with particular emphasis on how their study designs, research methods and research activities enable them address the comparative questions posed. The independent selection committee will eliminate proposals that do not do so sufficiently.
CRNs should have between three and five members. It is advantageous to ensure that proposed networks are multidisciplinary in composition, sensitive to gender issues, and accommodative of younger scholars.

Interested researchers should submit application packages containing the following required materials. Please note that applications that lack any of these elements will be discarded.

• A proposal with the following sections: an introduction; statement and contextualization of question; brief review of literature and/or competing hypotheses; study design and research methodology; theoretical and practical significance of the study; any progress made so far on the subject of the proposal; and a brief summary of budget and research plan. Proposals must be submitted as Word documents and should be 10 pages long (font type: Times New Roman; font size: 12; line spacing: double). Brief budgets, which should be incorporated into proposals, should take into consideration the fact that CRNs have a strict 15-month lifespan. This means that the demonstration of significant prior research in the chosen area of work that will facilitate the fast completion of the project will be an added advantage. Although grants awarded for CRNs vary from group to group, applicants should note for indicative purposes that recent grants ranged between USD 15,000 and USD 35,000. No specific format is required for the presentation of budgets but the Council covers the following costs:

• • Field work undertaken by the members of the network
  • Books purchased for the work of the CRN
  • Honorariums paid to members of the CRN for work undertaken
  • A review workshop to evaluate progress made by members
  • Final workshop

 A cover letter listing network members and coordinator(s) and their email addresses and phone numbers
 CVs of all network members that contain full contact details including email and phone numbers
 A completed version of the identification sheet attached to this call

The deadline for submission of applications for the 2015 CRN Competition is February 28, 2015. Notification of the result of the selection process will be done by March 31, 2015. CODESRIA will organize a methodology workshop for selected CRNs members in the final week of April 2015.
When sending your email kindly use the subject line ‘CRN 2015r’ to ensure your application does not get lost. All applications should be sent by email to Comparative Research Networks, CODESRIA at crn@codesria.sn.

Call for Applications: Evaluators

CODESRIA invites highly qualified African and Diaspora researchers with significant experience in the conduct of comparative research and/or teaching of comparative research methodology to apply for the position of evaluator for the 2015 CRN grant competition. Evaluators perform the primary function of reading, commenting on and ranking CRN proposals.

CODESRIA offers a modest honorarium for the work of evaluators and often invites some evaluators, under separate contracts, to also serve as resource persons during workshops for CRN members.
Applicants should send the following documents to CODESRIA

• A one-page cover letter
• A CV with full contact details including email and phone numbers that highlights the applicant’s experience in the area of comparative research and comparative research methodology
• A completed version of the identification sheet attached to this call

The deadline for submission of applications is January 31, 2015. Notification of the result of the selection process will be done by February 28, 2015. When sending your email kindly use the subject line ‘CRN 2015 evaluator’ to ensure your application does not get lost. All applications should be sent by email to Comparative Research Networks, CODESRIA at crn@codesria.sn.

Call for Application 2015

Appel à candidature RRC 2015

CRN Identification Form

RRC fiche d’identification

Deadline: 30th May 2015

AFRICAN DIASPORA SUPPORT TO AFRICAN UNIVERSITIES PROGRAMME

Under its newly launched African Diaspora Support to African Universities, the Council for the Development of Social Science research in Africa (CODESRIA) is pleased to invite interested scholars universities to submit proposals for joint research projects.

The Programme seeks to mobilize the African academic diaspora to support the teaching of higher education, the humanities and social sciences in African universities and to strengthen the linkages between African academics in the diaspora and African universities. It seeks to mobilize African academics in the diaspora to contribute to the strengthening of African universities, the nurturing of new generations of scholars in Africa in a culture of excellence, and the revitalization of the social sciences, higher education studies, and the humanities. The specific objectives of the programme include the strengthening of PhD programs and the curricula in the social sciences, higher education, and the humanities; contribute to the filling of gaps and dealing with shortages in teaching; PhD supervision and mentoring of young social science scholars in Africa, more generally; as well as in strengthening the relationships and linkages between African academics in the diaspora and the institutions where they are based with African universities.

The Programme derives from CODESRIA’s mandate as the leading pan African social science council of the continent and its responsibility to help address the problem of the shortage of qualified academic staff in many African universities both for teaching and for PhD supervision, particularly with the creation of hundreds of new public and private universities. The consequences of these shortages include the lack of capacity in most of the social science and humanities departments and schools in African universities to organize quality postgraduate programs and conduct research. In some instances, capacity for postgraduate supervision does not exist, and doctoral and masters students take longer to complete their programs due to a lack or shortage of qualified supervisors and mentors.

On the other hand, the existence of a large African academic diaspora has been documented in numerous studies. Many of these scholars are willing to lend a hand in the revitalization of universities in their home countries or elsewhere in Africa. Other highly qualified academics are circulating outside the universities, within Africa itself, and it would be important to have an initiative that taps into the knowledge and skills they have. Therefore, one effective way to address the shortage of qualified senior academic staff and PhD supervision capacity in African universities is to mobilize the academic diaspora to support universities in Africa. The initiative will do this through the following strategies:

• Organizing the joint supervision of masters’ and doctoral students in the SSH;
• Facilitating the review and further development of curricula in the SSH;
• Organizing the sharing of course outlines and relevant literature, and the introduction of new teaching methods
• Enabling diaspora academics to take up short-term teaching engagements at African universities, as part of their sabbaticals;
• Establishing a College of Mentors of early career academics in African universities, including through joint research and publications
• Enabling diaspora academics and senior African scholars to serve as external examiners in each other’s university departments
• Enabling diaspora academics to serve as directors and resource persons in the various research and training networks that CODESRIA will undertake as part of the proposed initiative.
• Organizing experience-sharing / training workshops for PhD advisors, as well as summer schools for advanced doctoral and post-doctoral students and early career academics.
• Launching a scholar exchange program through which CODESRIA will facilitate the hosting of visiting African professors and guest researchers by diaspora academics, and the hosting of diaspora academics by African universities

The programme is organized around the following activities:

• Visiting Professorships: diaspora academics will visit African universities for durations varying from 15 days of stay to 3 months; the African universities hosting them provide accommodation, or help them rent apartments at reasonable rates.
• Curriculum review and development
• Sharing course modules and relevant literature
• Mentoring and co-supervision of doctoral students (a College of Mentors)
• Summer Institutes
• Advanced workshops for PhD advisors based at African universities
• Join Research Projects on the African diaspora and diaspora linkages (including scoping studies, and a review of current policies and frameworks for the governance and management of the linkages between African institutions and the diaspora)
• Publications

This particular call targets African scholars in the Diaspora and researchers based at African universities, with a view to creating joint research networks around joint research projects on the kinds of challenges facing African universities that the Diaspora could help overcome; or to the kinds of linkages existing between the Diaspora and African universities; or on any of the issues on the CODESRIA research agenda in ways that would lead to the filling of knowledge gaps and enhance research capacity in African universities.

Each network should involve scholars based at African universities and scholars in the diaspora, cover two or more countries, and undertake research on contemporary issues/challenges that the SSH in African Universities ought to be addressing. Applicants should be those in the SSH disciplines, who have completed their PhD studies or are at the advanced stage of their PhDs. Proposals revolving around the following broad themes are encouraged.

• Challenges facing African universities that the Diaspora could help overcome;
• Linkages existing between the Diaspora and African universities;
• Diaspora engagements with African universities;
• Policies and Incentive structures for mobilizing the African diaspora to support African higher education and research;
• Strengthening PhD programs in Higher Education, the SSH in African Humanities;
• Governance : Political, economic, environmental, social etc ;
• Current trends in economic theorization and African development;
• Higher education transformations and research trends in the SSH;
• Gender and African Development in the 21st century;
• Law and order regimes; including Africa’s insertion into international law;
• Emerging issues in land use and distribution; including issues of Biotechnology, food production and hunger in Africa;
• Extraction industries and Africa’s sustainability;
• Digital age and cultural reproduction in Africa;
• Political transitions and the fate of the state in Africa;
• SSH and emerging forms of Social Policy regimes in Africa;
• Emergent religious movements and forms of religious fundamentalism;
• The youth in African politics, economics and development discourse.

The joint research networks of African and African diaspora scholars should cover at least one of the following countries: Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and South Africa. Proposals with a strong multidisciplinary orientation and gender and institutional diversity in terms of the composition of group members are highly encouraged.

Eligibility

Interested academics and researchers of the African diaspora and those based in universities located in any of the countries listed above are requested to send in their research proposals, focusing on specific issues revolving around the broad themes identified above.

Application Requirements

a) Research Proposal: Each proposal should be between 10 and 15 pages, clearly highlighting the issue(s) to be pursued. It should include: an introduction, problem statement, literature review, objectives of the study, research methodology and the results anticipated from the study.

b) Work Outline: A detailed outline and time frame should be provided for each of the proposed activities, bearing in mind that the duration of the grant is 18 months from the date the grant is awarded.

c) Budget: Applicants are required to provide a detailed budget – up to a maximum of USD35, 000 – which includes the fieldwork, travel and subsistence costs they expect to incur throughout the duration of the grant.

d) Reference Letters: Each proposal should be accompanied by reference letters for each of the network members from the dean of the candidate’s faculty, confirming his /her institutional affiliation and an attestation to the applicant/s capacity to undertake the work if awarded the grant.

e) Curriculum Vitae: Each proposal should be accompanied by detailed curriculum vitae, of the applicants showing clearly the candidate’s publications and research undertakings.

f) An identified coordinator of the network who will be responsible for the overall coordination of the work and account for the financial aspects of the network and the final scientific output.

g)Commitment Letter: A one-page letter is expected from the coordinator of the group, affirming his/her readiness to coordinate the work and submit a monograph-length scientific report of between 80,000 and 100,000 words on the outcome of the research carried out. The letter should also show the applicants’ commitment to carrying out all revisions arising from the peer review of their report in a timely manner, and an affirmation of their understanding that the final version of the report may be considered for publication in any of the CODESRIA publication vehicles.

Application Deadlines

Completed application documents should be received by 15th March 2015. All applications should be addressed to:

African Diaspora Support to African Universities
CODESRIA
Avenue Cheikh Anta diop X canal IV
Dakar, Senegal
Tel: +221338259822/23
Fax: +221338241289
Email: african.diaspora@codesria.sn

The Program is supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and by CODESRIA core funders. African universities that are interested in hosting African scholars in the diaspora, and in participating in the programme in other ways, and African scholars who are willing to contribute to the success of the initiative are invited to contact CODESRIA at the above address.