2025 African Fellowships for Research on Indigenous and Alternative Knowledge (AFRIAK) Deadline: May 15, 2025

Applications are open for the CODESRIA African Fellowships for Research on Indigenous and Alternative Knowledge (AFRIAK) 2025. The programme is offered with the support of the Mastercard Foundation as part of the Foundation’s commitment to promoting the education and skills of young people in Africa, and in recognition of the contribution of the late Ghanaian intellectual Sulley Gariba to the valorisation of African knowledge in research and evaluation.

This program aims to implement an innovative approach to training a new generation of youth in research project design and knowledge production, through a partnership between academic mentors and Indigenous knowledge holders. This approach will focus on local, indigenous and endogenous knowledge as knowledge forms or systems that are deeply rooted in communities and closely linked to their lived experiences. Although these forms of knowledge may be geographically close to young people in Africa, they remain inaccessible to them partly due to the predominance of Western learning systems in the school and university curricula and partly due to the gerontocratic nature of our communities, where this knowledge is preserved for a few knowledge holders. mainly men. This approach is innovative in that it encourages us to use what we have in our communities and to appreciate the many ways in which what we have in our communities is used, preserved and disseminated.

Fellowship

• The fellowship covers induction, mid-term internship, fieldwork, dissemination activities, and post-fellowship activities, during which alumni will contribute to a community of practice in indigenous and other knowledge systems. Fellows will be grouped into teams of seven, accompanied by two Indigenous/local knowledge holders and an academic mentor. The conceptualization of the research, its execution, and dissemination approaches will be co-developed by the youth fellows, academic mentors, and Indigenous knowledge holders. The duration of the fellowship, including fieldwork and dissemination, will be seven months. Throughout the duration of the fellowship, research teams will benefit from mentorship and support from intellectual hubs, which will be identified and constituted by CODESRIA in order to strengthen intellectual and community engagement.

Eligibility

• Open to young people between the ages of 24 and 35 who are engaged in research and knowledge production activities that are inspired, or have the ambition to be inspired, by the perspectives of indigenous/local knowledge.
• The targeted youth must be attached to formal research and knowledge institutions or research centres on indigenous knowledge in Africa.
• Practitioners with formal teaching qualifications, who are engaged in activities that rely on the application of indigenous/local knowledge perspectives, are also encouraged to apply.

Application

Individual and joint applications will be accepted

Individual applications must submit the following:

• A one-page CV that includes date of birth, current employment/engagement, and institutional affiliation.
• A two-page concept note that introduces a topic, explains how the topic fits into a priority area defined by CODESRIA, justifies the choice of topic and its persuasiveness, and summarizes the main steps the topic wishes to take to achieve the results of the research and fellowship process.
• A one-page reference letter written by two people familiar with the applicant’s work.

Joint applications (maximum 7 people) must submit the following:

• A one-page CV for each member of the group, to be submitted in a consolidated document. Each CV should include, among other details, date of birth, current employment/engagement, and institutional affiliation. The Principal Investigator or Group Leader must be clearly marked at the top of all CVs
• A two-page concept note that introduces a topic, explains how the topic fits into a priority area defined by CODESRIA, justifies the choice of topic and demonstrates its persuasiveness, and summarizes the main steps the group intends to take to achieve the results of the research and fellowship process
• Two letters of reference that specifically support the group, rather than individual members

Click here to apply

For more information, visit CODESRIA.