Call for Applications: Advanced Senior Research Fellowship (Africa)

The aim of the Fellowship is to create conditions of comparatively limited dis- ruption for scholars to produce high-quality, properly conceptualized and empirically rich manuscripts for consideration for publication by CODESRIA. Alternatively, scholars who qualify for this support could propose alternative outputs that demonstrate a capacity for train- ing younger academics, developing innovative curriculum material for teaching, production of audio-visual material that demonstrate a high level of innovations that is equivalent of a standard knowledge product.

This Fellowship will be marked by reinforced support for re- searchers and their better integration into the Council’s work. As has been the tradition in the MRI, this Fellowship encourages scholars to explore diverse, innovative, and alternative ways to present their work beyond the traditional book format.

Successful applications will strive to reorient thinking and enhance our understanding of the interactions of African agency and its influences across historical experiences. They will also seek to spur new ideas that advance or challenge conventional wisdom and established knowledge on African phenomena. In sum, the ASRF aims to support projects that can contribute to the advancement of a body of research or innovative ideas, showcase new methodologies or analytical tools, or test bold theories.

The fellowship is intended for accomplished African scholars at the senior level who have established themselves as leaders in their respective fields, showcasing a proven track record of significant professional achievements. They are seeking to support bold, innovative, ambitious, and forward-looking projects.

Scholars are expected to produce a book or equivalent that will make ground-breaking contributions to their field. It is expected that researchers applying for this grant will be at an advanced stage of data analysis so that the grant can directly support the completion of a manuscript or related knowledge output.

Thematic Priorities

• All applications must engage with CODESRIA’s 2023-2027 thematic priorities and cross-cutting issues:
  • Higher education dynamics in Africa
    • Role of higher education in economic and political transformation in Africa; the transformation of the African higher education landscape; higher education reform and innovations; higher education governance and leadership; academic freedom and popular struggles; Diaspora engagements with African universities; valorization of Indigenous Knowledge Systems; outmigration and education; education funding; higher education and Agenda 2063; massification, privatization and liberalization of higher education, universities and their changing associational life.
  • The State and Democratisation in Africa
    • Trends and Prospects Reconnection with CODESRIA’s work on democratization and related themes; link between power, peace, and security; institutional variations, histories and contexts; debates and critiques of procedural democracy; challenges of the liberal democratic model; substantive democracy and its operationalization; typology for comparative studies on the state and democratization; state, politics, and citizenship.
  • Transformations in African Economies
    • Economic policy-making in Africa; dependency and structural transformation; export economies and industrialization; informalization of economies; histories and evolution of labor unionization; public private partnership; 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.
  • Ecologies and Society in Africa
    • Interactions between people and ecological systems; land, food sovereignty and poverty in the developing world; histories and trajectories of environmental interactions; complex interactions of the urban and the rural; mineral extraction and the transformation of habitats; structural transformations in agriculture and industrialization; conservancy practices, commodification and impact on societies.
  • Cross-cutting themes
    • Applications should indicate the ways in which the 4 cross-cutting themes that guide CODESRIA’s 2023-2027, namely:
      • History, Memory and Archive
      • Gender
      • Generations
      • Rurality and Urbanity inform their project

Duration

• All grants are individual and will have duration of 16-months.

Eligibility Criteria

• The Council especially encourages applications from African female scholars. While priority will be given to Africa based scholars, they will consider a limited number of applications from scholars in the Diaspora.
• They are seeking to support bold, innovative, ambitious, and forward-looking projects.

Criteria

• Propose research on key aspects of African social realities that fall under CODESRIA’s priority themes as outlined in the CODESRIA 2023-2027 Strategic Plan;
• Be grounded in a thorough exploration of the continent’s societies, peoples, institutions, and contexts while paying attention to issues of diversity, including gender;
• Be theoretically ambitious with a clear goal of providing innovative ways of making sense of African social phenomena and Africa’s place in the world;
• Engage constructively and rigorously with African futures;
• Explore multiple spatial, temporal and sectoral configurations where relevant to the process of meaning-making;
• Demonstrate familiarity with the knowledge already produced by CODESRIA on the subject researched;
• Be guided by clear questions, a sound methodology and conceptual framing;
• Applicants must have received their PhDs at least 15 years prior to the application deadline.

For more information, visit CODESRIA.