Deadline: 31 August 2017
The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is currently seeking applications for its Meaning-making Research Initiatives (MRI) to support research that contributes to agendas for imagining, planning and creating African futures. MRI replaces five tools that CODESRIA had deployed in previous years to support research. These were National Working Groups (NWG), Multinational Working Groups (MWG), Comparative Research Networks (CRN), Transnational Working Groups (TWG) and postdoctoral grants. One goal of this move is to increase the legibility and visibility of the research supported by the Council by collapsing previous tools into a single initiative and therefore reducing the number of tools deployed to support research.
The adoption of MRI marks a recommitment to the tasks of interpretation and explanation that saw CODESRIA produce ground-breaking work on thematic issues such as democratization and economic reform in Africa. MRI will more aggressively push scholars to build on the close observation of African social realities to grapple with the tasks of explanation, interpretation and efforts to come to terms with and surpass challenges in Africa. The initiative will be marked by reinforced support to researchers and their better integration into the Council’s work. It will also systematically give scholars more varied ways to present their work, including through books, journal articles and policy interventions.
Thematic Areas
All applications must engage with CODESRIA’s 2017-2021 thematic priorities and cross-cutting issues:
- Democratic processes, governance, citizenship and security in Africa: Security challenges and ways of grappling with them, transitional justice, democratization, citizenship and migration, the rule of law and human rights, governance processes and mechanisms at local, national and international levels, language, the changing boundaries and configurations of states and communities
- Ecologies, economies and societies in Africa: Land, natural resource management, climate change, demographic change, urbanization, food security and poverty in Africa and technological innovation as well as the interaction of human populations with the rest of the environment in Africa, the forms it takes, its histories and trajectories and its impact on a broad set of sectors including the continent’s burgeoning economies
- Higher education dynamics in a changing Africa: The role of higher education in economic and political transformation in Africa, the rapid transformation in the African higher education landscape, the reform of African higher education and innovations in higher education leadership
- Cross-cutting themes: Gender, generations, inequality, rurality and urbanity, memory and history, as well as futures and alternatives
Benefits
The Council offers up to USD 15,000 for initiatives of individuals and USD 35,000 for initiatives of groups.
Selection Criteria
- Projects funded under this initiative will meet many of the following criteria:
- Propose research on important aspects of African social realities that fall under CODESRIA’s priority themes as outlined in the CODESRIA Strategic Plan;
- Be guided by clear questions that explore puzzling aspects of the social realities of Africa and its position in the world;
- Be grounded in the thorough exploration of the continent’s social realities and history;
- Engage constructively and rigorously with African futures;
- Be theoretically ambitious with a clear goal of providing new and innovative ways of understanding and making sense of African social realities;
- Explore multiple spatial, temporal and sectoral settings where such an approach contributes to the process of meaning-making
- Demonstrate familiarity with knowledge already produced by CODESRIA
Individual and group initiatives: MRIs could be either individual initiatives, or the initiatives of groups of researchers. Groups may have researchers from one country or multiple countries and should have between 3 and 5 members. Groups should take into account CODESRIA’s core principles of gender, linguistic, intergenerational, interdisciplinary diversity. All members of a group should have a demonstrated ability to contribute meaningfully to the work of the group.
How to Apply
Interested applicants must submit all required documents in a prescribed format via email.
Eligible Countries: Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cabo Verde, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the, Cote d’Ivorie, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
For more information, please visit CODESRIA.
