The Project - Qualitative Research Methods Network

Purpose

This project seeks to help strengthen the independent research capacity of institutions of higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa. It provides a new generation of African scholars' access to cutting edge and innovative research design strategies in the social sciences, and aims to establish a training and research network that will stimulate and sustain, over the medium term, the uptake of these methods by African university departments. The training will be provided at three hub institutions - Ashesi University College (Ghana), University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), and University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa) - and will be run in collaboration with the faculty from the Institute of Development Studies (UK), the Danish Institute for International Studies, Boston University, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, and University of Central Florida.

A Summary Of The Problem

1. There is a decline in the qualitative research capacity in African Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)
2. There is a quantitative bias in current research (the rise of 'quick', "a-methodological" consultant studies)
3. There is a disparate professional status and opportunities in favour of quantitative researchers
4. Junior faculty in African HEIs have extremely limited access to funding for national or international research, and equally limited access to journal publications - national and/or international
5. Governments tend to exhibit a bias towards externally-defined and produced quantitative data.

Key Objectives

1. To enhance the independent capacity of Sub-Saharan Africa's institutions of higher education to conduct rigorous and innovative qualitative and multi-method social science research.
2. To provide access to cutting edge and innovative research design strategies to a new generation of African scholars
3. To break the relative international isolation often felt by African scholars, especially junior faculty or early career scholars
4. To establish a training and research network that will stimulate and sustain, over the medium term and long term, the uptake of these methods by African institutions of higher education.

Expected Results

1. Training of up to 120 junior faculty in at least 6 African countries
2. 30 quality research designs forming the bases for fieldwork
3. Working Paper Series from practicum
4. A web-based academic journal
5. A coherent curriculum for graduate-level methods course: focus - innovations in Concept Formation, Qualitative (Small-N) Studies, and Network analysis.
6. A high quality mixed-format Course Reader