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MIASA Annual Report 2021

The Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA) was created in March 2018 under the College of Humanities at the University of Ghana (UG). The institute is based on a collaboration between the University of Ghana and a consortium of four German partners, the University of Freiburg (leading partner), Goethe University Frankfurt, the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA), and the German Historical Institute Paris (GHIP). MIASA is sponsored by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF), with co-funding from the University of Ghana. The BMBF-sponsorship is split into a preliminary, main and final phase. In December 2019, MIASA was successfully evaluated. The main phase of the BMBF-sponsorship started in September 2020 and will cover six years until August 2026.

Creating a thriving place of international and interdisciplinary encounter and academic exchange

MIASA CC-BY-4.0: MIASA Directors from left to right: Dr. Susann Baller, Prof. Charlotte Wrigley-Asante, Prof Abena Oduro

MIASA has two Directors, one from the University of Ghana and one representing the German consortium. The term of MIASA’s first Director ‘Germany’, Professor Gordon Crawford (University of Freiburg), ended in December 2020. In January 2021, Dr. Susann Baller (German Historical Institute Paris), followed him for a three-year term during which she is based at the University of Ghana in Legon-Accra. Prof. Abena Oduro (University of Ghana), MIASA Director ‘Ghana’, completed her three-year term in July 2021. She was replaced by Prof. Charlotte Wrigley-Asante in August 2021.

MIASA is a thriving place of international and interdisciplinary encounter and academic exchange. In 2021, the institute welcomed twenty fellows from around twelve different disciplines and nine countries. While the first two years of MIASA fellowships (2019-2020) had been structured only around Interdisciplinary Fellow Groups (IFGs) which each addressed one topic, MIASA started to also host individual and tandem fellows in 2021, which increased the diversity of topics addressed within each fellow cohort at the same time.

The beginning of the year was still overshadowed by the covid-19 pandemic. The Ghanaian borders had been closed until October 2020, and the University of Ghana opened only gradually in 2021. While most fellows opted for an onsite fellowship in Accra, many of the MIASA events, especially during the first half of 2021, were held online. A few events had to be postponed. Nevertheless, the institute was able to continue its MIASA Public Lecture series as well as its internal research seminar. In addition, MIASA organised its first Writing and Publishing workshops online as well as its fourth Female Academic Careers in Africa workshop in a hybrid format.

During the second half of 2021, MIASA held most of its events, including some of the institute’s major thematic conferences, onsite, but provided online access for all of them. The offices at the MIASA bungalow on Legon campus were fully occupied. Moreover, the institute increased its visibility and further developed the networks of MIASA on campus and beyond. MIASA not only established contacts with new partners at the University of Ghana, such as the Department of Philosophy and Classics, but was also able to strengthen MIASA’s links with other Institutes of Advanced Studies in the world, such as the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies (STIAS) and other Merian centres, as well as with German organisations based in Accra.

The annual report 2021 can be accessed via UGSpace: MIASA Annual Report 2021 or as a light version.

See also: MIASA Publications.

This annual report was edited and authored by Dr. Susann Baller (MIASA Director ‘Germany’).


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
teammiasa (June 13, 2022). MIASA Annual Report 2021. Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa - Blog. Retrieved January 20, 2026 from https://miasa.hypotheses.org/3030


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