Entries open for Ivan Karp Doctoral Research Awards

The African Critical Inquiry Programme (ACIP) seeks to advance inquiry and debate about the roles and practice of public culture, public cultural institutions, and public scholarship in shaping identities and society in Africa.

The ACIP is committed to collaboration between scholars and the makers of culture/history, and to fostering inquiry into the politics of knowledge production, the relationships between the colonial/apartheid and the postcolonial/post apartheid, and the importance of critical pluralism as against nationalist discourse.

Focus Areas

• Awards are open to proposals working with a range of methodologies in the humanities and humanistic social sciences, including research in archives and collections, fieldwork, interviews, surveys, and quantitative data collection.

Funding Information

• Grant amounts vary depending on research plans, with a maximum award of ZAR 50,000.

Eligibility Criteria

• The Ivan Karp Doctoral Research Awards are open to African postgraduate students (regardless of citizenship) in the humanities and humanistic social sciences.
• Applicants must be currently registered in a Ph.D. programme in a South African university and be working on topics related to ACIP’s focus. Awards will support doctoral research projects focused on topics such as institutions of public culture, particular aspects of museums and exhibitions, forms and practices of public scholarship, culture and communication, and the theories, histories, and systems of thought that shape and illuminate public culture and public scholarship.
• Applicants must submit a dissertation proposal that has been approved by their institution to confirm the award; this must be completed before they begin ACIP-supported on-site research or by December 2025, whichever comes first.

Selection Criteria

• Applications will be reviewed by the ACIP Selection Committee, an interdisciplinary group of scholars and practitioners drawn from a range of universities and cultural institutions. Selection will be based on the merit and strength of the application.

Application Requirements

• Applicants are expected to write in clear, intelligible prose for a selection committee that is multi-disciplinary and cross-regional.
• Proposals should show thorough knowledge of the major concepts, theories, and methods in the applicant’s discipline and in other related fields and include a bibliography relevant to the research.
• Applicants should specify why an extended period of on-site research is essential to successfully complete the proposed doctoral dissertation.
• To apply, eligible applicants should submit the following as a single file attachment with documents in the order listed:
  • an abstract of the proposed research project (250 words maximum)
  • a research proposal no longer than 1800 words, double spaced, with 2.5 cm margins and font no smaller than 11 point. Applications that do not follow these format guidelines will not be considered.
  • a bibliography of up to two additional pages
  • a project budget listing project expenses to be supported. Your budget should justify both items listed and amounts requested (i.e. indicate what amounts are based on)
  • your curriculum vitae
  • current academic transcript and proof of registration at your current institution
  • two referee letters should be submitted directly to the Selection Committee by email.

For more information, visit Ivan Karp.