Cambridge/Africa Collaborative Research Programme

With generous funding from the Ford Foundation, the Isaac Newton Trust,
the A G Leventis Foundation, the Zochonis Charitable Trust, and the Smuts Fund for Commonwealth Studies, the Centre of African Studies has for the past five years administered a successful Visiting Research Fellowship programme for Africa-based academics. Each year, a group of four or five scholars have come to Cambridge for six months of research. At the culmination of their tenure, fellows presented the fruits of their research to the broader Cambridge community at a scholarly conference put on for them. They returned to their home institutions refreshed by Cambridge's intellectual hospitality, fortified by a broad range of contacts, and energized by the freedom of six months of research. In all, fellows have published over twenty books and articles based on the research material they collected, with many more essays in draft.

With support from the Leverhulme Trust, we now plan to inaugurate a new programme of academic and intellectual exchange that will establish longer-term partnerships between Cambridge and particular African universities. A group of five Africa-based scholars, chosen out of a competition organized around a particular theme, will come to Cambridge for six months of research. One or two scholars will be invited from a specific African university that has strengths in the area under study. A Cambridge lecturer pursuing research on the yearly theme will coordinate the programme. At the conclusion of the Visiting Fellows' tenure in Cambridge, the lecturer involved in the previous year's activities will go to the African university with which we have partnered to convene a conference. The five African Visiting Fellows will also attend. During the following year an edited volume would be produced, published on the Centre of African Studies' book series and co-published by a press run by the partner African university.

Africa-based scholars are invited to apply for the 2011-2012 fellowship programme,
which will be centred on the theme of' Citizenship, Belonging and Political Community in Africa'. An application package can be downloaded here.
The group of scholars visiting Cambridge in 2009-2010 are listed here.