Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA) secures funding for 2020-2026

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The Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA) has been successful in securing funding from the German Ministry of Education and Research beginning from September 2020 until August 2026. This is after recommendation from a panel comprising eminent African and German scholars that visited MIASA from 2-4 December 2019 to evaluate its performance since its establishment at the University of Ghana in March 2018.

MIASA is a partnership between the University of Ghana and a consortium of German universities, i.e. University of Freiburg, Goethe University of Frankfurt, GIGA Hamburg, the University of Konstanz and the German Historical Institute, Paris. The thematic focus of MIASA is Sustainable Governance. MIASA is funded by the University of Ghana and the German Ministry of Education and Research. Initial funding of MIASA was provided for a preliminary period of two years that will end in August 2020.
Since its establishment at the University of Ghana, MIASA has hosted two Interdisciplinary Fellow Groups comprising junior and senior scholars from the University of Ghana, other African countries, Europe, the US and Australia. The Fellows have worked on the themes of ‘Migration, Mobility and Forced Displacement’ and ‘Parliaments and Democracy in Africa’. During their stay at MIASA, Fellows have given public seminars and guest lectures, organised conferences and have worked closely with PhD students. MIASA’s activities were made possible due to the good collaboration MIASA has had with the Institute of African Studies, Centre for Migration Studies and the Department of Political Science at the University of Ghana. MIASA has held summer schools at the University of Ghana that has attracted early career academics from all over the African continent. It has also held workshops for early career women academics and organised conferences across the continent.

In the period beginning September 2020, MIASA will host individual Fellows, Policy Fellows, tandem Fellowships and Interdisciplinary Fellow Groups comprising Fellows who choose to work together on a common theme. Calls for Fellowship applications will be made during the first quarter of 2020. It will organise the Anton Wilhelm Amo lecture series at the University of Ghana and conferences across the continent. It will run writing and publishing workshops at the University of Ghana and female academic career workshops at the University of Ghana and in Dakar, Senegal.
The vision of MIASA is to reduce the asymmetries in global knowledge production. It will be a hub for collaborative research across disciplines, career stages, linguistic and scholarly traditions and promote the production of African scholarly work.