Early-career researchers from the Global South

With the programme “Research Access for Early Career Researchers from the Global South,” the Working Group on Peace and Conflict Research (AFK) is committed to promoting greater equality of opportunity, diversity, and epistemic justice within the international academic system. The programme aims to specifically support early career researchers from the Global South, increase the visibility of their research, and foster their long-term integration into networks of German-speaking peace and conflict research.

As part of an annual call for applications, selected early career researchers are given the opportunity to present their work at the AFK Colloquium and to complete a one-week research stay at a university or research institution in Germany. The programme is accompanied by structured mentoring, individual matchmaking with suitable host institutions, support with travel and visa arrangements, as well as preparatory and follow-up online formats.

The programme promotes academic exchange between the Global South and the Global North, strengthens underrepresented perspectives in peace and conflict research, and contributes to the critical internationalisation and decolonisation of academic knowledge production. In the long term, an international alumni network is being established to enable sustainable cooperation, joint projects, and new impulses for research and academic practice.

Annual call for applications and application process

The next call for proposals is expected to take place in July 2026.

Previous young scientists

2026

Andrea Neira Cruz is a research fellow at the German-Colombian Peace Institute CAPAZ. As a feminist, she currently focuses on gender and masculinity, conflicts and transitional justice. Andrea Neira Cruz is a member of the collective ‘Masculinity in Latin America – Frictions, Leaks and Breaks’ and the Interdisciplinary Group for Gender Studies (GIEG) at the Faculty of Gender Studies at the National University of Colombia. She is pursuing a PhD in anthropology at the University of Cauca in Colombia.

Joel Abah is a final-year doctoral student at the Institute for Peace, Security and Humanitarian Studies at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria and a lecturer and researcher at Prince Abubakar Audu University in Anyigba. His academic background is in peace and conflict studies, with an interdisciplinary education combining ethnographic research, political analysis and critical humanitarian studies. His research interests focus on displacement, everyday peacebuilding, digital technologies and epistemic justice.

Leonardo D. Villafuerte-Philippsborn is a legal scholar and lead researcher at the Institute for Democracy (IpD) of the Universidad Católica Boliviana “San Pablo” (UCB). He holds a PhD in Law from the University of Antwerp (Belgium) and a Master’s degree in Civil Law from the Andean University Simón Bolívar. At UCB, he also serves as a professor in the Law Program and as editor of the academic journal UCB Law Review. His academic work focuses on mono-, inter-, and transdisciplinary approaches to justice systems.

Sudha Rawat is a feminist political geographer based in New Delhi, India. She earned her PhD in Political Geography in 2024 from the Centre for International Politics, Organisation and Disarmament (CIPOD), Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her research interests lie at the intersection of feminist geography, gender and geopolitics, wartime sexual violence, forced migration and refugee studies, and feminist research methodologies. In addition to her work on Tamil women, her research engages with gendered violence and everyday experiences of Rohingya women in refugee camps.