The University of Ghana in collaboration with the German Ministry of Education and Research have signed an agreement to establish the Merian International Centre for Advanced Studies in Africa, located at the University of Ghana, Legon.
The goal of the Centre is to develop an intellectual programme and research agenda that could make the significance of African knowledge production more visible in its effect.
The Centre will be headquartered at the University of Ghana in Accra, with a second office location at the Centre de Recherches sur les Politiques sociales in Dakar, Senegal.
The Centre, expected to start in mid-2018, is to bridge the knowledge divide between Africa and the rest of the world.
Professor Francis Dodoo, Pro-Vice Chancellor, Research, Innovation and Development, University of Ghana signed for Ghana while Professor Andreas Mehler, Director of the Arnold-Bergstraesser Institute, Freiburg University signed on behalf of Germany.
Prof Dodoo said the German consortium that won the bid to establish the centre was of the strong conviction that the University Of Ghana College Of Humanities in West Africa, offered the best location to establish the Centre.
He said that the Centre would bring together both leading and emerging scholars from Africa and the world to produce and disseminate path-breaking, rigorous and relevant scholarship in the social sciences and humanities in Africa.
According to Prof Dodoo that conviction enabled the University of Ghana to establish a compelling partnership characterized by a clear vision, commitment and mutual respect.
“We pledge to do our utmost to ensure that the Centre thrives and catalyses African centred knowledge production for addressing some of the burning global issues of the 21st Century,” he added.
Prof Mehler said the institution which would serve the entire continent, would put top research in the Humanities and Social Sciences on a new, internationally recognised level, and giving it at the same time a new direction.
He mentioned that “Sustainable Governance” would be the key topic around which the research at the institute would be organised to offer great potential for policy advice and outreach to Africa’s academic communities.
“We want to activate high potentials within people, and foster a climate of true collaboration among the fellows of the institute, between senior and junior researchers, African and non-African researchers and across disciplinary boundaries,” he added.