British Academy Writing Workshop for Sub-Saharan Africa (Early Career Researchers)

Group shot of delegates outside the Association of African Universities building Building on the success of the 2019 British Academy (BA) writing workshop, Professor Juliet Thondhlana, Professor Evelyn Garwe, senior academic mentors and journal editors, in partnership with the Association of African University (AAU) and the British Council Ghana, ran an additional three-day BA sponsored writing workshop in Accra, Ghana in March 2024.

This workshop, which ran under the UNESCO chair with a view to contributing to UNESCO’s Operational Strategy for Priority Africa, aimed to strengthen the research and grant writing, as well as mentoring capacities of alumni, as well as create sustainable networks and train new Early Career Researchers (ECRs). The workshops were inspired by the need to create more impact across the alumni through networking, harnessing, and sharing good practices by those who have done well and strengthening the capacities of those facing challenges. It is hoped that acquiring grant writing skills will enable alumni to secure funding for research, a critical challenge in Sub-Saharan Africa. The additional workshop also provided an opportunity to increase impact by taking on board new ECRs who are being mentored by alumni until March 2025 with the support of senior academic mentors and journal editors.

The emphasis in this round of workshops was on co-planning, peer learning, mentoring, networking, thereby creating an ‘intellectual community’ which can disseminate research through articles publishable in reputable outlets both in Sub-Saharan Africa and beyond. The workshops facilitated and strengthened mutual learning and sustainable partnerships among alumni, new ECRs, senior academic mentors and editors of international journals in the Global South and Global North. Such interaction is intended to strengthen the likelihood of knowledge and work generated by researchers from Sub-Saharan Africa to be recognised, funded, published more widely and cited in international journals where their knowledge and work can contribute to academic debates that shape sustainable futures of development in Africa and globally.

Specific objectives

to increase participants’ understanding of the processes, academic writing conventions and dynamics of publishing in international journals
to increase participants’ understanding of the democratisation/decolonisation of knowledge
to increase participants’ understanding of how best to enhance the visibility of African scholarship
to develop participants’ capacity to write for publication
to provide an overview of possible grant schemes
to develop participants’ skills for writing national and international funding applications
to increase participants’ understanding of the importance of mentorship in academic publishing and grant writing
to establish sustainable collaborations amongst new ECRs, alumni, senior academic mentors and journal editors