University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, February 2015

Hosted by the School of Social Sciences of University of the Witwatersrand, the fellows met for the third workshop in February 2015. As the fellows’ projects were reaching the middle of their funding period, this workshop in Johannesburg was an important waypoint towards successfully reaching the final destination. Therefore, the group had decided that the meeting in Johannesburg should be first and foremost dedicated to academic essentials such as presenting and discussing papers which are in the process of being finalized for publication (program).

In addition, in several sessions, experts from the Wits University and the University of Pretoria discussed enhancing academic writing skills and improving chances to get published in the relevant journals. Finally, taking advantage of the variety of disciplines that are represented in the Humanities program, the group also explored and critically assessed the potentialities and challenges of interdisciplinary approaches.

Several colleagues, senior and junior researchers from Wits generously agreed to join the meeting as reviewers and respondents, facilitators and discussants. The fellows were thereby given an excellent opportunity to not only benefit from their comments and advice, but to also make their research work known to a wider academic public. As in the previous workshop in Dar es Salaam, it remained an important goal to take such crucial steps towards establishing sustainable trans-national and trans-regional networks between African institutions. As such, the Volkswagen Foundation’s declared purpose to not only support career development strategies of individual young African researchers, but to also strengthen and enhance academic networks inside Africa, remained a vital part of the workshop.

In addition, the hosts had organized an exciting and interesting cultural program for the fellows which included a visit to the Origins Centre and two cultural excursions to Soweto and the city of Johannesburg.