Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa: Doctoral Dissertation Completion Fellowship

Deadline: 1st February, 2021

The Social Science Research Council offers fellowships to support the completion of doctoral degrees and to promote next generation social science research in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda. The fellowships support dissertation research on peace, security, and development topics.

The doctoral dissertation completion fellowship supports a one-year leave from teaching and administrative responsibilities through a stipend up to US$10,000 to permit the completion of a dissertation that advances research on peace, security, and development topics. This program also offers two workshops each year to help fellows further develop their chapters and complete the writing of their doctoral dissertations. Facilitators at the workshops help strengthen the capacity of fellows for scholarly writing, including academic publications.

ELIGIBILITY:

All applicants must:

be citizens of any sub-Saharan African country
be enrolled and working towards a PhD in an accredited university, or affiliated to an institution in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda
be in the final year of writing and have completed at least two doctoral dissertation chapters
As of May 2015, the program prioritizes applicants holding a faculty position or demonstrating a durable commitment to higher education in Africa, but does not restrict eligibility to such individuals.
The program seeks to promote diversity and encourages women to apply.

Thematic Priorities:

The program features a thematic focus on peace, security, and development in order to renew basic research agendas and strengthen interdisciplinary social science research capacity addressing these issues.

The program encourages innovative research on peace, security, and development topics, moving the boundaries of scholarship and research by exploring concrete linkages between these themes. We envision supporting a diverse set of projects that shed light on a range of economic, political, social, conflict and peace building processes using evidence-based research.

Please see the following list of prospective issues that are considered relevant to Next Gen fellowships:

Causes and driver of conflict
Institutional and local approaches to conflict prevention, management and resolution
Elections, transitions and development
National and regional approaches to peace, security and development
Identity and conflict
Gender, youth, conflict, peace and security
Conflict, peace and human mobilities
Cultural issues in security and development
State-society relations
Digitality
Economic and humanitarian perspectives to conflict and peace
Democracy, human rights and development
Post-conflict development, reconstruction and reconciliation
Law, peace agreements and transitional justice
International justice, genocide and war crimes
Cities, migration and mobility
Law and constitutionalism
Health, food security and development
Natural resource governance and development
Climate change, conflict, peace and security
Globalization and emerging insecurities
Media, conflict, peace and security
Data, privacy and security