Applications open for Individual Research Fellowships (Africa)

Deadline: 31 January 2025

The African Peacebuilding Network and Next Gen program of the Social Science Research Council is inviting applications from African researchers, policy analysts and practitioners working on conflict and peacebuilding issues at universities and research institutions or regional, governmental and nongovernmental agencies based in Africa.

Thematic Priorities

Prospective APN IRF applicants are encouraged to submit applications covering a range of issues related to peacebuilding, security and development in conflict-affected contexts, including, but not limited to, the following:
- Climate, Environment, and Resources:
  - Climate change, energy transitions, conflict, and peace
  - Human mobilities, insecurities, and peace
  - Hydropolitics, conflict, and peace
  - Natural resource conflict: community, national, and regional dimensions
- Justice, Peace, and Regional/International Stakeholders:
  - Peace education and African futures
  - Regional Economic Communities (RECs), regionalism, peace, and security
  - Transitional justice, reconciliation, and peace
  - UN-AU-EU-REC partnerships, peace operations, funding, security, and peacebuilding architectures
- Nationalism, Identity, Religion, and Culture:
  - Access to justice, diversity, and citizenship
  - Religion and peace
  - State-building, nation-building, identities and citizenship
  - Women, youth, and peacebuilding
- State and Non-state Stakeholders, Governance, and Conflict:
  - African Peacebuilding Interventions: military and non-military norms and practices
  - Dimensions of conflict and security: regional, trans-border, national, and interpersonal
  - Diseases, politics, and peace
  - Geopolitics and histories of conflict, conflict mediation, and peace
  - Political transitions, elections, governance, and development
  - Prevention of mass atrocities
  - Resilience, conflict prevention, and transformation
  - Small arms and light weapons (SALW), transnational crime, violent extremism, war, displacement, and migration
  - Social exclusion, economic marginalization, and the social dynamics of conflict and peace
  - Structural causes, drivers, types, actors, and trajectories of violent conflict
  - The economic and financial dimensions of peace support operations and post-conflict reconstruction
- Technology, Media, and Arts:
  - AI and the fourth industrial revolution: risks to and opportunities for peacebuilding
  - Cultures, media, and art(s) of peace
  - Digital media, technology, war and peace
  - Generative AI and the ethics of knowledge production and practice of peacebuilding
  - Social media, community, advocacy, and peacebuilding
  - Theater, music, and peace

Program Components

Through the APN IRF program, fellowship recipients can expect the following:
- Thought Leadership:
  - Commit to nine (9) months of field-based research, analysis, and writing from June 2025 to March 2026. Fellows produce research-based knowledge that is relevant to, and has a significant impact on, peacebuilding scholarship, policy, and practice on the continent while inserting evidence-based knowledge into regional and global debates and policies focusing on peacebuilding.
- Workshops:
  - Participate in two mandatory APN and Next Gen workshops occurring in July and January across different regions of Africa. These workshops will provide opportunities to refine recipients’ research designs, focus, and methods; present findings; explore ways to make their work more accessible through publications and other means to multiple peacebuilding constituencies; network and develop constructive working relationships with other fellows, senior academics, and practitioner facilitators.
- African Scholarship and Knowledge Production:
  - Contribute to the APN and Next Gen’s Working Paper and Policy Briefing Note series, as well as to the program’s digital forums and social media platforms (Kujenga Amani, Facebook, and X).
  - Contribute to international peer-reviewed journals, books, articles, essays, blogs, feature pieces, op-eds, and/or podcasts.
- Fostering Community, Professional Development and Networking:
  - Fellows are part of a network of highly visible and active African scholars and practitioners capable of projecting African perspectives and voices onto global discourses, knowledge and practices of peacebuilding.
  - Fellows will receive mentorship from highly experienced senior scholars in the field. There are opportunities for peer-to-peer learning and collaboration.
  - Gain new knowledge and skills to advance their careers as academics or practitioners in their chosen fields.

Funding Information

20 African Peacebuilding Network Individual Research Fellowships up to US$15,000 each.

Eligible Activities

Potential areas of funding include:
- Costs of travel and accommodation for field-based research
- Costs of equipment (within reason), tools, and resources for field-based research, literature review, and writing, including books and articles, project design, and development support
- Editorial and professional/institutional support for publications
- Conference costs and related travel for dissemination activities

Eligibility Criteria

All applicants must be African citizens currently residing in an African country.
Academics: Academic applicants must hold full-time faculty or research positions in African universities or research organizations.
Practitioners: Applicants who are policy analysts and practitioners must be based in Africa at a regional or sub-regional African institution, including government or non-governmental agencies, media, or civil society organizations.
Academic Qualifications:
- Academics: Academic applicants must hold a PhD at the time of application, obtained no earlier than January 2015. Applicants who have not been awarded their PhDs by June 2025 will not have their applications considered eligible.
- Practitioners: Practitioner and policy analyst applicants must have a master’s degree obtained before January 2020, with at least five years of proven full-time research and work experience in peacebuilding-related activities on the continent.
Location for the duration:
- Academics: Academic applicants must hold full-time faculty positions as a lecturer or researcher at a university or research organization in Africa.
- Policy Analysts and Practitioners: Applicants who are policy analysts and practitioners must be based in Africa at a regional or sub-regional institution, a government agency, or a nongovernmental, media, or civil society organization.

Application Requirements

Please review this list of requirements for your application, which must all be submitted through the Online Application Portal:
- Online Application Form
- Research Proposal with a complete bibliography
- Titles of potential publication(s)
- Curriculum Vitae (CV)
- Proposed Research Timeline
- Proposed Research Budget
- Two Reference Letters
- Language Evaluation(s) (if required)
- Your proposal should be comprehensive and written in clear, coherent, non-technical prose. It must be between seven (7) to eleven (11) pages (including the bibliography), double-spaced and in Times New Roman 11-point font, with one-inch margins, and collated as a single document.
- Proposals below the absolute minimum of seven (7) pages or the absolute maximum of eleven (11) pages will be deemed ineligible and removed without consideration.
- Your proposal and bibliography must be collated and submitted as a single PDF file.
- Please upload a recent, updated copy of your CV. Your CV should accurately reflect your skills and experience in a coherent and legible manner. All CVs must be submitted in English. There is no page limit.
- Application material must be submitted in English. In cases where academic degrees or reference letters are in a language other than English, a certified version of the translation must be uploaded with the degree or reference letter in a collated, single document.