The African Critical Inquiry Programme is pleased to announce the 2026 Ivan Karp Doctoral Research Awards to support African doctoral students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences and invites proposals from scholars and/or practitioners in public cultural institutions in South Africa to organise a workshop to take place in 2027. ACIP is a partnership between the Centre for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape and the Laney Graduate School of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia (USA).
Closing Date: Friday 1 May 2026
The African Critical Inquiry Programme (ACIP) seeks to advance inquiry and debate about the roles and practice of public culture, public cultural institutions and public scholarship in shaping identities and society in Africa. The Ivan Karp Doctoral Research Awards are open to African postgraduate students (regardless of citizenship) in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. Applicants must be currently registered in a Ph.D. programme in a South African university and be working on topics related to ACIP’s focus. Awards support doctoral research projects focused on topics such as institutions of public culture, museums and exhibitions, forms and practices of public scholarship, culture and communication, and the theories, histories, and systems of thought that shape and illuminate public culture and public scholarship. Awards are open to proposals working with a range of methodologies, including research in archives and collections, fieldwork, interviews, surveys, and quantitative data collection.