Deadline: February 1, 2022
Applications are open for the Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa: Doctoral Dissertation Proposal Fellowship 2022. 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 proposal fellowships support PhD students working on developing a doctoral dissertation research proposal as well as students who recently completed a master’s degree and seek to enroll in a PhD program. The fellowships support short-term research costs to develop a doctoral dissertation proposal. This program also includes two workshops each year that have been designed to create fellows’ networks, help fellows refine, develop and strengthen research questions, match research methods to questions, engage key literature in their fields, and finalize their doctoral research proposals
Thematic Priorities
The program features a thematic focus on peace, security, and development in order to renew basic research agenda and strengthen interdisciplinary social science research capacity addressing these issues.
The program encourages innovative research on peace, security, and development topics, broadly conceived, moving the boundaries of scholarship and research by exploring concrete linkages between these themes. They envision supporting a diverse set of projects seeking to shed light on a range of economic, political, social, conflict and peacebuilding processes using evidence-based research.
Some projects, they hope, will examine large-scale phenomena and others small-scale social processes. The strongest projects typically will explore connections across these scales. Some research projects will rigorously explore elements of governance, civil society, human rights, peacebuilding mechanisms/institutions and processes, and rule of law. Others will explore root causes of conflict, emerging trajectories and forms of conflict, insecurities, and human mobilities. Above all projects should advance important fields of study and social science knowledge.
Fellowship
- The doctoral dissertation proposal fellowship provides fellowships up to $3,000.
Eligibility
All applicants must:
- be citizens of any sub-Saharan African country;
- be enrolled, or intend to enroll by the time of the award, and working towards a PhD in an accredited university, or affiliated to an institution in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, or Uganda;
- hold a master’s degree at the time of application.
Application
Applicants must submit an online application and are asked to provide basic biographic details, project details, and relevant education and employment details. In addition, applicants must upload a preliminary budget, dissertation proposal document, a dissertation chapter (if applicable), and a project bibliography, and must request two reference letters in support of their application.
All materials must be submitted no later than 11:59 pm (EST) on February 1, 2022.
For more information, see FAQs and visit SSRC.
