Request for Proposals
The African Peacebuilding Network (APN) of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) invites applications from senior African academics and researchers based at universities, training, and policy institutions in Africa to assemble and lead collaborative research projects intended to inform policy and practice on conflict and peacebuilding on the continent.
About the APN Collaborative Working Group Research Fellowship
The Collaborative Working Group Research Fellowship is an initiative and key complement to the field-based and networking components of the APN’s programming. This fellowship responds to the need for deep collaboration and engagement of researchers and practitioners on peacebuilding challenges in Africa. It also seeks to connect research to policy, promote mentoring of junior scholars by senior colleagues, foster networking between scholars and practitioners based in at least three African countries, and to increase the likelihood of impacting policy and actions through the knowledge-production process.
Collaborative working groups are expected to produce research-based knowledge and publications that are relevant to—and have a significant impact on—peacebuilding scholarship, policy, and practice on the continent. For its part, the APN will work towards inserting the evidence-based knowledge that this multinational and multidisciplinary group produces into regional and global debates, practices, and policies on peacebuilding.
The APN will support the working group in undertaking original policy-relevant research that focuses on the design, implementation, and impact of peacebuilding mechanisms and processes in conflict-affected African countries and sub-regions. Support is available for research, convening of scholar-practitioner meetings and analysis of issues such as the following:
- Local peacebuilding cultures, mechanisms, and practices;
- Inequality, poverty, and natural resource conflict;
- UN-AU-African Regional Economic Communities (RECs) cooperation on peace and security issues;
- African Governance Architecture (AGA) and African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA);
- Governance, peace, security, and development
- Women, peace, and security;
- Transnationalization, migration, youth radicalization, extremism, and violence;
- Climate change, peace, and security;
- Early Warning and Response Systems; and
- Conflict mediation mechanisms, processes, and practices
- Institutionalizing peacebuilding: Local, national, and regional processes and mechanisms
Eligibility
Applicants must be scholars or practitioners based in Africa and the lead investigator must be of the rank of a full professor and based in an African university (and hold a PhD). The competition will be open to joint researcher-practitioner teams (of six members) made up of Africans based at or affiliated with universities; regional organizations; government agencies; or nongovernmental, media, or civil society organizations located in at least three countries on the continent. While the lead investigator must be a professor and have a PhD, other members of the research group may be early- and mid-career scholars, or practitioners, who are expected to hold at least a master’s degree with two or more years of work experience.
It is expected that teams reflect diversity as much as possible, and include individuals from a range of professional, institutional, national, regional, disciplinary, gender, and generational backgrounds and experiences. The project should also leverage strong mentoring relationships between senior and junior members of the team, while encouraging both scholarly and practitioner participation as well as engagement with universities and regional practitioner/policy institutions.
