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MIASA/University of Ghana Interdisciplinary Fellow Group (IFG)

Call for Pre-Proposals

The Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA) offers
Interdisciplinary Fellow Groups (IFG)
for 4 months each at the University of Ghana
for the Academic Year 2025-2026

Submission deadline for pre-proposals: August 30, 2024, 23:59 UTC

The Maria Sibylla Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA) is dedicated to research in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The overarching theme of MIASA is ‘sustainable governance’ from a genuine interdisciplinary and critical perspective, whereby ‘governance’ is understood in a wide sense, namely as the interplay of informal and formal rules for steering public affairs, embedded in social, material and cultural practices of everyday life. Our main research axes are sustainable peace, sustainable democracy and sustainability transformation, but we are also interested in a wide range of intersectional sub-topics, such as landownership and acquisition, migration and mobility, restitution of colonially acquired cultural objects, African cities, human rights, and other related themes. MIASA is committed to reduce global asymmetries in knowledge production, to promote female scholarship and to bridge cultural divides. The institute offers time and space for supporting innovative academic research of top international quality. All MIASA fellowships are residential and mainly focus on onsite reflection, discussion and writing. In addition, MIASA facilitates networking and collaboration amongst leading researchers from Germany, Ghana, other parts of Africa and Europe and elsewhere in the world. The institute is located on the beautiful campus of the University of Ghana (UG) at Legon (Accra), and has been implemented in collaboration with the University of Freiburg, the Goethe University of Frankfurt, the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) and the German Historical Institute Paris (GHIP). It is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research with co-funding from the University of Ghana.

The present call is for pre-proposals for Interdisciplinary Fellow Groups (IFGs) for the periods from August 15 to December 15, 2025, and from February 1 to May 31, 2026. MIASA hosts two IFGs per year. They are MIASA’s central instrument for fostering original research on ‘Sustainable Governance’ and its connected thematic areas as mentioned above, which necessitates the input of experts from different academic fields and backgrounds. An IFG brings together a group of four to six fellows for the duration four months. Two of the fellows act as co-convenors. One of the two co-convenors is expected to be from the University of Ghana. IFGs are interdisciplinary and international.

The selection of IFG pre-proposals is made by MIASA’s distinguished international Academic Advisory Board who will invite promising candidates to submit a full application with a set team. The all-important selection criteria are the academic excellence of the application and the fit of the proposed topic with MIASA’s thematic research profile. Once a pre-proposal has been invited for submission of a full proposal, the MIASA team offers advice for the full application, including the composition of IFG members. IFG members from successful applications become MIASA fellows with all the corresponding rights and obligations for the funding period (four months).

For the Guidelines to IFG full proposals see here.

Application: Pre-proposals

The application for an IFG consists of two phases: (i) a pre-proposal (competition of ideas) and (ii) a full application. In the first phase, one of the two co-convenors of an IFG submits a preliminary application (pre-proposal) which offers insights into the topic to be studied, the concept of how the group is planned to be composed and the possible contribution to MIASA and UG. At this stage, it is possible, but not mandatory to indicate the names of the other IFG co-convenor and/or the IFG fellows.

Applications are accepted in English or French. The completed application form together with the information indicated below must be sent via email. After submission of the documents, applicants receive an acknowledgement of receipt. Incomplete or late applications will not be considered.

Please respect formal requirements:

Formatting: font Arial, 11pt, line spacing 1.5, all margins 2.5 cm.
Page limits may not be exceeded.
All required documents have to be comprised in one pdf-file and uploaded on the application webpage.

Applications must include the following information:

Front page with general information on the applicant (1 page):
Title, name (last, first), e-mail address, link to webpage.
Date of doctorate.
Current position/affiliation, institution and business address (Name of institution/city/country).
Research field.
Project title.
Abstract of the IFG research project (max. 150 words).
Preferred period for conducting the IFG at MIASA (first and second choice).
Project pre-proposal (max. 2 pages):
Aims, research question, theoretical framework and methodology of the project.
Innovative potential, originality and relevance of the project.
Added value of conducting research within an IFG at MIASA and UG.
Concept of how the group is planned to be composed (max. 1 page).
Bibliographical references (max. 1 page).
CV in tabular form (max. 2 pages).
Publication list highlighting the most important publications (max. 2 pages).