The Study of Africa

The University of Oxford is one of the world's leading centres for the study of Africa. In every Division and almost every Faculty across the University there are active research programmes focused on the continent. 

African Studies Centre
The African Studies Centre, within the School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies, acts as a focal point for graduate level work and faculty research on Africa. The centre’s MSc in African Studies, inaugurated in 2006, is already recognised as Europe's most prestigious and successful training programme in its field. Some of Oxford’s top economists focus their research interests on the economies of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Centre for the Study of African Economies
The Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE), led by Professor Paul Collier, carries out economic research with a particular focus on Africa. The CSAE uses modern research methods with the aim of helping to improve economic and social conditions in the poorest societies.

International Growth Centre
Professor Stefan Dercon is a development economist and is the lead academic for Ethiopia at the International Growth Centre (IGC), a research institute based jointly at LSE and Oxford University. The IGC-Ethiopia programme looks at rural agriculture and financial systems. Professor Dercon’s own work also extends to conducting extensive long-term household surveys in Ethiopia and Tanzania, and random control trial based research on extending health insurance in Kenya, and on raising aspirations and extending drought insurance in Ethiopia.

IGC-Tanzania
Professor Christopher Adam is the lead academic on the IGC-Tanzania programme where his focus is on growth, macroeconomic management, agriculture and trade. Amongst other partners, the Tanzania programme collaborates with local Tanzanian and Tanzania-based researchers, including the research department of the Bank of Tanzania.

International Migration Institute
Within the Oxford Martin School, the International Migration Institute is undertaking a two-year project – ‘Mobility in the African Great Lakes’ - which seeks to analyse the complex mix of motivations that can be identified in any individual’s migration movements, in a challenge to the standard assumption that all migration in the Great Lakes region must only be the result of trauma or conflict. Once agreements are finalised, the project will involve partners from a number of African academic institutions.

African Environments Programme
The African Environments Programme (AEP) is an interdisciplinary initiative that aims to foster communication, collaboration and interdisciplinary research between academics at Oxford working on environmental issues in Africa. It does this through actively promoting the exchange of information on ongoing research, bringing together different researchers through interdisciplinary seminars, and encouraging interaction between institutions in Oxford and other institutions in the UK, in Africa and other areas of the world working on environmental issues in Africa.

Oxford’s research into global health issues on the African continent is extensive. Oxford's Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine is currently conducting research in Guinea Bissau on the HIV2 virus, a strain of the virus that does not cause AIDS. The hope is that this work on immune response to this virus may help contribute to the search for a vaccine for HIV-1. Stephen Kennedy and Professor José Villar from the Nuffield Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology are collaborating on two projects:

• INTERGROWTH-21st looks at ascertaining how foetuses and babies from different parts of the world grow if they experience similar maternal health, environmental and socio-economic conditions. One of the study areas for this project is Kenya.

• Their 2nd collaboration is INTERBIO-21st which examines why foetuses grow less well when mothers are exposed to malnutrition and infection, especially in resource-poor settings. Much of this work is taking place through Oxford’s unit in Kenya which is part of its Tropical Medicine Network.

Scholars of African studies can draw on the exceptional resources of the Bodleian Library and the University’s museums. The Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House holds extensive research collections on the history, current affairs, culture and anthropology of Sub-Saharan Africa including books in English, Afrikaans, French, German, Portuguese and other European languages.