$2.15 Million Carnegie Corporation-funded Program Awards 33 Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships to Social Scientists
African scholars in the social sciences are
benefitting from an innovative competition that offers routes to Ph.D
completion around the themes of peace, security and development.
Thirty-three scholars nominated today will become Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa Fellows
and will receive the institutional and intellectual support needed to
develop, research or complete their doctoral dissertations. For a
complete list of nominated fellows and projects, click here.
By identifying and preparing promising early-career
African social scientists, the program run by the Social Science
Research Council (SSRC) and supported by a $2.15 grant from Carnegie
Corporation of New York, aims to contribute to Africa’s long-term
social, political and economic development by producing a new generation
of scholars equipped with the know-how and research skills to address
important policy issues on the continent at national, sub-regional and
regional levels.
The SSRC program is part of Carnegie Corporation's
efforts to accelerate the development and retention of the next
generation of academics. Since 2007 the U.S. foundation has spent more
than $90 million on initiatives to tackle Africa's critical shortage of
university researchers and teachers. The inaugural cohort of Next
Generation Social Sciences in Africa Fellows includes scholars working
on a range of issues from refugee camps in Ghana and conflicts over
natural resources in the Niger Delta to homelessness and insecurity in
South Africa, land use and conservation in Tanzania, and the
reintegration of former child combatants in Uganda.
The president of the SSRC, Craig Calhoun, has noted
that “nothing is more important to the future of Africa or the world
than educated leaders who understand pressing social issues. The next
generation of African social scientists will be key to peace, economic
development, and a just and prosperous future. We are honored to join
with our colleagues in CODESRIA, the African Union, and other
institutions to support African university teachers as they complete
advanced research and acquire state-of-the-art skills.” This emphasis
was reinforced by a recent World Bank publication that found that strong
tertiary education in African universities is important for longer-term
development goals and the vitality of societies in sub-Saharan Africa.
“The Fellowship program will cultivate social
scientists with a uniquely African perspective on peace, security and
development issues,” said Andrea Johnson, Program Officer, Higher
Education and Libraries in Africa at Carnegie Corporation. “Young men
and women selected for Ph.D completion address a critical need for a new
generation of intellectual leaders capable of analyzing the complex
dilemmas facing their countries and regions and developing responses
that are workable in often difficult settings.”
Johnson said that developing the next generation of
African academics will require continued investments in the career
advancement of emerging scholars and support for the intellectual
communities that nourish them.
Thomas Asher, director of the Next Generation Social
Sciences program, observed that while universities in North America and
Europe produce more individuals with doctoral degrees than the
university systems can absorb, that is not the case in Africa, where
fewer than half of all faculty members hold a PhD. And yet, he points
out, this shortage of highly trained faculty does not indicate an
absence of research capacity: “There are extraordinarily good
researchers, working out of an array of institutions, but these
individuals often are insufficiently aware of one another’s work. Our
goal is to cultivate individual careers while developing a network
linking the Fellows so that these researchers can efficiently share
their findings with one another and collaborate. Ultimately, this
network will be embedded within institutions in order to strengthen the
research capacity of African universities across the continent.”
A distinguished selection committee representing
leading social scientists in Africa and North America selected 33
nominees for the Fellowship: 7 faculty members were nominated for a
dissertation proposal development award, 14 for a dissertation research
award, and 12 for a dissertation completion award. These Nominees
represent 19 disciplines and come from a wide array of universities,
ranging from Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria to the University of
Western Cape in South Africa.
About the program
The Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa
Fellowship Program consists of three fellowship competitions related to
peace, security, and development: Support for the development of a
doctoral dissertation proposal; dissertation research; and a one-year leave from teaching responsibilities to complete a dissertation.
Applicants for any of the three distinct competitive
fellowship opportunities must be early-career social science faculty
who hold positions in an accredited college or university in Ghana,
Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania or Uganda.
More information about the Program is available at http://www.ssrc.org/programs/nextgenafrica/.
