Female Academic Careers in Africa Workshop

Yiri Lodge, University of Ghana, 7-8th September 2022

The Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA) invites applications for its workshop on Female Academic Careers in Africa which is organized from 7 to 9 September 2022 in collaboration with the German Historical Institute Paris (GHIP) and the Centre for Gender Studies and Advocacy (CEGENSA) at the University of Ghana (UG).

MIASA is based on a cooperation between UG and four German partners (the University of Freiburg, Goethe University Frankfurt, the German Institute for Global and Area Studies, and the GHIP). The institute is located at UG, Legon Campus. The institute is sponsored by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) with co-funding from UG.

This will be the fifth edition of MIASA’s Female Academic Careers in Africa workshop series, but for the first time, it will be held entirely on Legon Campus in Accra. The first two workshops took place in Dakar (2018 and 2019), the third (2020) was organized virtually and the fourth (2021) in a hybrid format between Dakar, Bamako, Accra and virtual participants.

This workshop welcomes early- and mid-career female academics who are affiliated in the Social Sciences and Humanities with universities or research institutes in Africa. Applicants should have a PhD. We are open to a broad range of disciplines and appreciate, in particular, applicants who work on one or more of MIASA’s main research themes (https://www.ug.edu.gh/mias-africa/research-profile).

The workshop offers time and space to discuss the challenges and opportunities for women in academia in African contexts. Participants from Ghana and other African countries will be accompanied by a professional coach through different modules that address the issues of (i) how to build up efficient teams, (ii) how to deal with university hierarchies, (iii) how to address conflicts at the workplace, and (iv) how to proceed an academic career with multiple time constraints. The workshop explores professional relationships in academic practice.

The coaching aims at assisting participants to define their own working and leadership style, but also to consider how to adapt oneself to different contexts and challenges. The overarching purpose is to encourage early- and mid-career female academics in Ghana and other African countries to further build up their careers, to develop strategies for keeping a work-life-balance that allows for prospering in one’s research and academic work, and to become ready for taking up leadership positions and/or seizing other professional opportunities.

The workshop will be run in English.

Applications:

If you wish to apply for participating in this workshop, please submit your application as one PDF to the following address: workshop-miasa@dhi-paris.fr

Submission deadline: 3rd of August 2022

Accepted participants will get notified by 12th of August 2022.

The dossier should be comprised of:

Motivation letter (please describe your general professional profile and indicate the two main reasons why you wish to participate in this workshop)

Research profile, max. 500 words (please describe briefly your main research theme-s)

CV, including publication list, max. 2 pages.

Please join all documents into one PDF file, called SURNAME_GIVEN NAME_Female2022.pdf

MIASA covers travel costs for participants (economy class flight, only mandatory covid-19 tests, local transport, accommodation). Please consider the current Ghanaian travel protocols, which require full yellow fever and covid-19 vaccination.

Organizing team:

Prof. Charlotte Wrigley-Asante, Director (MIASA)

Dr. Susann Baller, Director (MIASA)

Dr. Deborah Atobrah, Director (CEGENSA)