
MIASA CC-BY-4.0: Photo: internal seminar at MIASA bungalow on Legon campus, October 2022
This blog showcases research conducted at the Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA), University of Ghana, Legon Campus, Accra.
MIASA aims at making a contribution to the ongoing debate on the politics and meanings of knowledge production by emphasizing the role of African thinking in the social sciences and humanities. MIASA is committed to reducing existing asymmetries in global knowledge production, to promoting fair academic collaboration, and to strengthening female scholarship. Moreover, MIASA encourages critical debate and intellectual exchange across existing boundaries: across disciplines, across different countries and academic cultures, and between established and early-career researchers.
This blog is split into five sections:
- The Overview MIASA offers a general overview on MIASA’s Interdisciplinary Fellow Groups (IFGs) and academic events based on a series of posters. All posters are showcased at the MIASA bungalow on Legon campus.
- Fellows and PIs Reflections include blogposts written by MIASA fellows, alumni and principal investigators (PIs) as well as interviews and references to MIASA Working Papers.
- Reports cover reports on MIASA conferences, roundtables and early career workshops as well as references to MIASA’s annual reports.
- Insights into MIASA’s artist in residence programme, including visual impressions.
- Topics, compiling all blog contributions according to MIASA’s main and intersections thematic fields.

MIASA CC-BY-4.0: MIASA fellows and team in Aug. 2023
MIASA’s research programme explores the issue of “sustainable governance” in an interdisciplinary and critical perspective, focusing on three thematic areas:
- democratic governance
- peace and conflict
- sustainability transformations.
None of these concepts is taken for granted. MIASA encourages debates about the epistemologies of terms and concepts used, and research at the institute showcases the possibilities of different approaches to these thematic fields. Moreover, MIASA is interested in issues that are at the intersection of these areas and that allow for anchoring its research in concrete experiences and historical contexts:
- migration and mobility
- landownership and acquisition
- restitution of colonially taken African objects
- African cities
- Human rights.

MIASA CC-BY-4.0: MIASA fellows and team at Inaugural Lecture of Prof. Dzodzi Tsikata, founding director of MIASA, May 2022
MIASA provides time and space for supporting innovative academic research of top international quality through its residential fellowship programme:
- Interdisciplinary Fellow Groups (IFGs)
- Tandem Fellowships
- Individual Fellowships.
MIASA’s Academic Advisory Board selects more than twenty fellows per year based on excellency. Applications are accepted in English and French. MIASA also invites short-term guest researchers and artists in residence.
The institute organizes a broad range of academic events, including the annual Anton Wilhelm Amo Lecture, international conferences, writing and publishing workshops, female academic careers workshops as well as a Public Lecture Series. Key findings of research supported by MIASA are published in the institute’s working paper series, as external papers in peer reviewed journals or books and on this academic blog. MIASA pursues an active open access policy.
Partner
MIASA is based on a German-Ghanaian research collaboration between the University of Ghana and four German partner institutions:

MIASA sponsors and partners
- University of Freiburg (leading partner), Africa Centre for Transregional Research (ACT), Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS) and Arnold-Bergstraesser Institute (ABI);
- Goethe University Frankfurt, Point Sud Programme;
- German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA);
- German Historical Institute Paris (GHIP) (Max Weber Foundation).
The University of Ghana and the four German partners are represented in MIASA’s Executive Council. The academic profile and research programme of the institute is developed by the two MIASA directors, one from the University of Ghana and one from the German partners. The Institute is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) and the University of Ghana.
MIASA is part of the BMBF-sponsored Maria Sibylla Merian programme which enables research in the humanities and social sciences in long-term, transnational work contexts in India, Mexico, Brazil, Ghana, and Tunisia:
- ICAS:MP – M.S. Merian – R. Tagore International Centre of Advanced Studies “Metamorphoses of the Political” (established in July 2015 in New Delhi, India)
- CALAS – Maria Sibylla Merian Center for Advanced Latin American Studies “Coping with Crisis” (established in March 2017 in Guadalajara, Mexico)
- MECILA – Maria Sibylla Merian Center “Conviviality-Inequality” in Latin America (established in April 2017 in Sao Paolo, Brazil)
- MIASA – Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa “Sustainable Governance” (established in March 2018 in Accra, Ghana)
- MECAM – Merian Center for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb “Imagining Futures – Dealing with Disparity” (established in March 2020 in Tunis, Tunisia)
MIASA is a member of the UBIAS network (University-based Institutes for Advanced Studies).

MIASA CC-BY-4.0: MIASA fellows, alumni and directors attending the midterm conference in Sept. 2023