NB: this event is targeted at Ethiopian students. A further event will be held before the end of 2020 for students outside of Ethiopia.
This event is limited to 100 people. We therefore request that people register for this event. To register, please email: secretariat@africalics.org. Access details for the MS Teams meeting will be sent at least 2 days before the event.

Background

The African network of researchers in learning, innovation and competence building systems (AfricaLics) aims to hold a PhD Academy every two years. The focus audience of these PhD Academies is PhD students who work in the field of innovation and development studies as well as those who don’t work in these fields but have an interest in the subject areas studied.

Within the AfricaLics community, innovation is broadly defined as spanning from “new to the world inventions” to the diffusion and use of technology new to the user or context in which it is introduced and includes competence building among users of innovation. Technology here can mean both a physical product as well as a process or new way of doing things. Innovation and Development Studies research as defined by the AfricaLics network includes the study and management of processes that link technological and social innovation with development. This includes studies and improved understandings of how learning and
competence building systems contribute to development processes. Scholars in the field may have a background in economics and/or other social sciences (Sociology, Political Science, Science and Technology Policy, Geography, History or Development Studies), but some also work within the STEM (science, technology, engineering or mathematics) subjects or even manufacturing. They work within a broad range of areas including energy and sustainable development/transformation, health, agriculture, manufacturing and work organisation, big data and the fourth industrial revolution. To understand more about the field of innovation and development and see if your work fits within this research area, please look at the papers published in relevant journals including (but not only) the following: Research Policy, Innovation and Development, African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and Development, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Technology in Society. Journal of Product Innovation Management, Technovation, Industry and Innovation.

The PhD Academy is a two week residential event for around 20-25 students from Africa and a handful of students from the rest of the world. The Academy includes frontier researchers in the field of innovation and development from around the world to provide lectures and mentor students.
The AfricaLics Ph.D. Academy sessions includes the following activities:

• Lectures by senior researchers on areas ranging from research methodologies to the latest theories and empirical research in the fields of innovation, innovation management and science policy.
• Presentations by Doctoral students of their work with feedback from the senior scholars facilitating at
  the event.
• Sessions focused on enabling interaction between the students and practitioners and policy makers on innovation and development issues

We have held six PhD Academies since the start of the AfricaLics network in 2012 (Nairobi 2012, Algiers 2013, Mombasa 2015, Hammamet 2016, Ile-Ife 2017 and Marrakesh 2018). The next Academy is expected to be held at the University of Gondor in Ethiopia in 2021 in collaboration with the University of Addis Ababa (date to be determined based on COVID-19 situation).

Objective Pre-event meeting

Ethiopia being the venue for the upcoming PhD Academy, we aim to sensitise Ethiopian PhD students to the upcoming event. The objective of the pre-meeting is to increase the number of accepted applications from Ethiopian students in the 2021 PhD Academy. Specifically, because this is a burgeoning field on the continent, it is important that students who have a strong fit with the subject area are selected. This is to reduce the incidences of misunderstanding between students and their supervisors that may occur when a student becomes interested in bringing in new theory, concepts or methods into their PhD.The meeting is open to all interested PhD students and/or PhD supervisors from across Ethiopia.

Please register by emailing secretariat@africalics.org

Deadline: 9th October 2020