FUTURE AFRICA
RESEARCH LEADERSHIP FELLOWSHIP
The Future Africa Research Leadership Fellowship (FAR-LeaF) is an early career research fellowship program focused on developing transdisciplinary research and leadership skills.
About
The Future Africa Research Leadership Fellowship (FAR-LeaF II) is a two-year research-oriented fellowship programme, supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and hosted at Future Africa. The programme focuses on future-looking science leadership and developing the next generation of African scientists and academics.
The programme seeks to build a network of emerging African scientists with the skills to apply transformative research methods and approaches in addressing complex sustainability challenges in Africa, including inter- and transdisciplinarity, systems thinking, and futures literacy. Furthermore, it will provide multiple research and learning opportunities covering different sectors of science and society, aiming to create sustainable solutions in a real-world context, establishing communities of practice, and addressing the broad scope of sustainability, sustainable development, resilience, and greater social cohesion.
The FAR-LeaF II programme follows the first FAR-LeaF programme, which supported research focused on sustainability and well-being on the African continent. The research in the new FAR-LeaF II programme will extend and build upon the FAR-LeaF research, focusing on sustainability science, resilience, and social cohesion. The Fellowship will support early-career researchers in conducting relevant research projects in the context of relevant national and regional challenges in sustainable development.
The importance and relevance of sustainability science in Africa are exemplified by the need to:
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Advance the development and full integration of the natural sciences with the social and human sciences as a cross-cutting research approach.
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Generate actionable knowledge relevant to achieving sustainable development goals in Africa.
Articulate African perspectives on and solutions to geopolitical challenges and opportunities related to achieving these goals.
The envisaged research will harness the tools of the digital revolution to fuel scientific discovery and advance societal engagement to pursue sustainability. Technology is embedded in the research programme, and training will ensure that the research projects build on cutting-edge technological advancements to deliver tangible research outputs that are inclusive and transformative by nature. The proposed research and training (in the programme) will integrate research and technology skills to strengthen scientific capacity. Applying novel methodologies of co-design and co-production and other relevant approaches is vital for high-quality integrated research.
Programme values
Future Africa’s focus on sustainability science, transdisciplinary research approaches, systems thinking skills development, and inter-sectoral collaboration is reflected in the values of the FAR-LeaF programme:
Transdisciplinarity
Future Africa’s interpretation of transdisciplinary research is that it is a demand-driven and problem-oriented form of research that combines inter- and trans-disciplinary approaches with the participation of various stakeholders, including community stakeholders and policymakers, in
co-creating the research programmes. The purpose is to create multiple learning opportunities (such as exchanges, knowledge generation, and integrating existing or newly developing knowledge). The proposed research and training in the FAR-LeaF programmes will integrate research skills that strengthen the scientific capacity to apply novel methodologies on co-design and co-production and other relevant approaches vital for high-quality integrated research.
Leadership training
Research leadership encompasses issues specific to the research ecosystem, such as building linkages with policymakers, being an effective ambassador for science, and engaging with other role-players and science communities to influence research and its resourcing. As such, the programme will require a strong focus on research development and management, career development, establishing interdisciplinary relationships, building networks, and acquiring leadership competencies.
Open Science and technology
Support for continuous online research collaboration will be provided through a virtual research environment (VRE) to facilitate intensive and extensive interaction between the Fellows and their research projects. Research and data management processes will be hosted on the FAR-LeaF online platform, including communicating with their research teams, establishing and archiving research materials such as data sets, conducting training, and accessing research tools.
Programme structure
Fellows will engage in three interrelated types of research and skills development experiences:
Supporting institutional capacity building through engagement with the host institution’s regional areas of interest. The research should be on a research topic of interest to the fellow. It will be integrated into a broader strategy for leadership development through practical experience, exposure to leadership opportunities and mentoring, and a balanced career development plan.
Individual skills development that simultaneously builds on what is learned at the host institution and meets a home institution’s research needs in addressing sustainable development in a local context.
A strong engagement with communities supports transdisciplinary teamwork. This activity will include, as far as possible, joint fieldwork in communities to test planning and transdisciplinary research tools.
Skills Development
and Training
The core leadership training will be provided by Future Africa so that after completion of the programme, fellows will have mastered skills related to foresight, critical thinking, innovation, communication, analysis, policy-making and international negotiations. The programme will include initiatives supporting fellows through a structured skills development programme to achieve these goals. The programme will provide opportunities for partner organisations to contribute to the science dialogue and opportunities for fellows to meet scholars outside of their home and host institutions.
Supervision and Mentorship
Academic supervision and mentorship are foundational values of the programme. They are expected to be demonstrated by the active involvement of the supervisors and/or mentors from the application phase until the completion of the fellowship. Mentorship is crucial in supporting research that expands beyond the traditional disciplinary boundaries of rigid academic discipline structures.
Each fellow must have a supervisor (in their home institution) and a mentor (assigned from the University of Pretoria). Academics at the University of Pretoria working in relevant (transdisciplinary) research fields will be invited to collaborate and provide mentorship where appropriate, so that each research team includes the fellow, home supervisor, and a University of Pretoria researcher acting as a mentor.
Workshops and
Seminars
Research visits to Future Africa will be to gain valuable research experience in a new environment, broaden their views by building on their existing knowledge, and enrich their research skills. The FAR-LeaF virtual knowledge platform will be critical to facilitate intensive and extensive interaction. The Virtual Research Environment (VRE) will allow access to diverse virtual tools to support individual online research spaces, online collaboration platforms, data sharing, etc.
The fellowship is intended to allow for scientific mobility between the university of the fellow, African universities and Future Africa at the University of Pretoria, if and when possible. In the FAR-LeaF programme, Future Africa will seek to support other institutions in sharing the programme with Future Africa. Future Africa will also host any selected candidates who need to spend time with mentors based at the University of Pretoria. Future Africa will also host the leadership and skills development training and the fellows' final conference.
About us
Future Africa is the University of Pretoria’s collaborative platform for research that works across the sciences and with society to address Africa’s biggest and most urgent contemporary challenges. Its fundamental purpose is to develop and unleash the transformative potential of African sciences to inform and inspire a future of thriving African societies. Future Africa was established in March 2019 to promote transformative research excellence and capacity development, foster the development of research networks, train at an advanced level, and contribute to Africa’s sustainable and equitable development. Future Africa seeks to develop novel research ideas and build scientific capacity around them. It aims to shape a new generation of researchers and academics through mentorship and science leadership development programmes. Future Africa’s vision is to advance transformative research for thriving African futures. Read more: https://www.futureafrica.science/
The University of Pretoria is one of South Africa’s leading research universities and is emerging as a leading academic institution on the African continent. Implementing the 2025 vision of the University of Pretoria strongly focuses on initiatives that have helped establish the university as a leading research‐intensive university in Africa, recognised internationally for its quality, relevance, and impact. The university has nine faculties, a business school, and numerous research centres and institutes, including many engaged in transdisciplinary research. Read more: https://www.up.ac.za/
