Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on my experience of the Pilot African Postgraduate Academy (PAPA), which ran from 2020 to 2024 at Point Sud and has trained 15 young african scholars in basic research. It highlights the uniqueness of this programme in terms of collaboration in research.

Paper long abstract:

Debates in the context of knowledge production in Africa have contributed to the emergence of the idea that Africa is an ideal space to address issues of broader scientific importance, particularly in the social sciences and humanities. Most of the knowledge produced about Africa is produced by the researchers based in western universities and in a collaborative manner focused primarily on data collection. This has raised epistemological, methodological and political questions in knowledge production in Africa. Furthermore, how can we help to evolve the role of African researchers in this collaboration and increase the production of knowledge by researchers based in African universities ?

The idea of PAPA emerged in respose to the problems raised by the way in which African researchers have sought to address the methodological, theoretical and conceptual challenges they face. This paper examines i) the career development of young scholars and ii) the issue of cooperation, collaboration or partnership in research in Africa, drawing on the experience of research programmes and networks. It focuses in particular on the case of Pilot African Postgraduate Academy (PAPA), a postdoctoral programme distinguished by its basic research approach addressing epistemological, methological and political issues related to knowledge production in Africa. It aims at finding out to what extend North-South academic cooperation has influenced PAPA, and what challenges this initiative has faced and how it has responded to them.