Jobs and Announcements

South African Health Review (SAHR) 2019 Emerging Public Health Practitioner Award
Deadline for Applications: 31 July 2019

This call invites practitioners to submit a completed manuscript to the South African Health Review (SAHR) to apply for the 2019 Emerging Public Health Practitioner Award. The successful candidate will have their paper published in the 2019 edition of the SAHR. The winner will also receive a cash prize and access to wider networks of practising public health practitioners and researchers in the field. Preference will be given to papers that take cognisance of the World Health Organisation’s six building blocks for an effective, efficient and equitable health system. The SAHR aims to advance the sharing of knowledge, to feature critical commentary on policy implementation, and to offer empirical understandings for improving South Africa’s health system. To be eligible for the award, the applicant must be a South African citizen or permanent resident, with a valid South African ID number, currently registered for a Master’s degree in health sciences/medicine or public health at a South African tertiary institution. The applicant must be the sole author of the paper. Any other contributions may only be recognised as acknowledgements. Entries will be assessed by a panel of public health experts. The official prize-giving ceremony will take place at the launch of the 22nd edition of the SAHR.

The Mandela Institute for Development Studies: Diamond Empowerment Fund Scholarship
Deadline for applications: Friday, 31 May, 2019

The Mandela Institute for Development Studies has partnered with the Diamond Empowerment Fund to establish the first in a series of Diamond Empowerment Fund Scholarships. The Fund was inspired by Nelson Mandela who encouraged Diamond Empowerment Fund’s co-founders to tell the world the positive impact Africa’s diamonds were having in building healthy and educated communities on the continent. The Mandela Institute for Development Studies, Diamond Empowerment Fund Scholarship will be earmarked for students from a diamond producing country whose chosen post-graduate study will be in a field that meets the needs for improving the quality of life for Africans. Preference will be given to students who want to gain critical skills in short supply on the continent. Applications are invited from qualifying students in eligible countries, namely Angola, Botswana, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Liberia, Namibia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

Accelerating universal health coverage: a call for papers
Deadline for submissions: 15 June 2019

This issue of the Bulletin of the World Health Organisation will explore policy options and country experiences on how to expand population coverage, service coverage and financial protection. The editors welcome manuscripts that capture knowledge and experience in addressing bottlenecks and root causes of stagnation that hamper successful UHC advancement. Papers which present an analysis of breakthroughs in health systems that have been conducive to rapid expansion of coverage are encouraged. Papers should focus on, for example, implementation science in health systems, innovative health financing, strategic purchasing, UHC and primary health care, the role of the private sector, policy coherence across government levels (particularly in decentralized health systems), the role of innovative technology and the design and use of health information. Best practices in good governance for health, based on transparency and accountability, would also be useful to learn how vested interests that hamper progress towards UHC are countered in different socioeconomic and political contexts. Comparative cross-country analyses are encouraged.

African Diaspora Support to African Universities: Call for Senior African Diaspora Academics to serve in the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa College of Mentors
Deadline for applications: 30 April 2019

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), with support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York is implementing an African Academic Diaspora Support to African Universities Program. In the early part of 2019, Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa intends to recruit 50 doctoral students in the social science and humanities from accredited public universities in Africa and place them under the College to benefit from the mentorship program. As part of this initiative, CODESRIA intends to recruit 15 senior academics from the Diaspora to complement existing academics who are already serving in the College of Mentors. Selected mentors and mentees will be brought together at a ‘College of mentors’ summer institute scheduled to take place in August 2019. The institute will provide the opportunity for mentors and mentees to get to interact directly learn more about each other’s research interests and get to establish supervisory unions on the basis of shared interests. The call specifically targets senior African Diaspora in the social sciences, humanities and higher education studies based at universities in North America, Europe or Asia. African academics based at universities or other higher education and research institutions in Africa but outside of their own countries may also apply. Mentors will be compensated with a modest honorarium after a midterm review of the project. African academics in the Diaspora wishing to be considered should send detailed current CV’s and a brief note expressing interest to serve in the College.

Call for abstracts: Special issue of Critical Public Health ‘Public health activism in changing times: Re-locating collective agency’
Deadline for applications: 1 May 2019

The special issue will examine emerging new forms of public health activism, and associated novel sources of collective agency, that are evolving in the fight for health-enabling conditions. Attention to structural forms of power, and the strengths and weaknesses of individual agency have long been cornerstones of critical public health, rooted in a long-established structure-agency binary. The editors seek to disrupt this binary by calling for papers that draw attention to alternative, distributed, networked, disruptive, bottom-up sources of agency that characterise emerging new forms of activism. New and resurgent social movements include attention to issues of anti-austerity, disability rights, new feminisms, defence of public services, housing justice, urban regeneration, anti-racism and advocacy targeting commercial determinants of health. Alternative forms of health-enhancing agency and efforts to connect grassroots collective agency to traditional axes of power are emerging. Papers on any of these, or other, locations of collective agency with potential for innovative public health activism would all be suited to the special issue. The editors invite papers from the full range of public health disciplines, exploring the possibilities of public health activism in contemporary conditions, especially papers with strong empirical bases in studies of recent/contemporary activism. Creative responses to crisis are most often generated in practice rather than theory, and papers rooted in activist and collaborative praxis are particularly welcome.

French Institute for Research in Africa: Fieldwork Grants 2019
Deadline for applications: 28 April 2019

IFRA-Nairobi invites applications for fieldwork grants from Masters and PhD students who conduct research in social sciences and humanities in the East African region (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, and Eastern Congo). IFRA will prioritize support to the following research themes: workers, labour, and employment; decolonizing knowledge and practices in the social sciences; and gender & LGBT in words and in practice. These research areas target studies on workers in industries, in factories and on plantations in East Africa, focusing on working conditions, workers relations (considering gendered issues), workers/employers relations, organized protest or consent, the growth of a working class culture, entertainment and reading practices, political consciousness, etc. Both case-study approaches and comparative approaches are welcome. Read more at the website.

Urban Studies Foundation International Fellowships
Deadline for applications: 7 May 2019

Applications are invited for an International Fellowship for early to mid-career urban scholars from the Global South, on any theme pertinent to a better understanding of urban realities in the Global South. The Fellowship covers the costs of a sabbatical period at a university of the candidate’s choice in the Global North or South for the purpose of writing up the candidate’s existing research findings in the form of publishable articles or a book under the guidance of a chosen mentor in their field of study. Funding is available for a period ranging between 3-9 months. Applicants must be early to mid-career urban scholars with a PhD obtained within the preceding 10 years who currently work in a university or other research institution within the Global South. Candidates must also be nationals of a country in the Global South, defined here as countries on the OECD’s current ODA recipient list (2018-2020). Preference may be given to candidates from least or low-income countries but middle-income countries on the list are not excluded if the need for support is justified. The candidate must make suitable arrangements to be mentored by a suitably experienced senior urban scholar at the candidate’s chosen research institution.

Africa Health Agenda International Conference
5-7 March 2019, Kigali, Rwanda

The Africa Health Agenda International Conference 2019 (Africa Health 2019) in Kigali, Rwanda is geared to be one of the largest health convenings in Africa, with over 1,500 participants expected. Africa Health 2019 will serve as a platform to foster new ideas and home-grown solutions to the continent’s most pressing health challenges, with a focus on achieving universal health coverage (UHC) in Africa by 2030. The conference will be a key opportunity to map a pathway from commitment to action on UHC and to build momentum among diverse stakeholders, including policymakers, civil society, technical experts, innovators, the private sector, thought leaders, scientists and youth leaders.

African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA) 5th scientific conference
11-14 March 2019, Accra, Ghana

The African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA) is hosting the fifth Scientific Conference in Accra, Ghana from 11 to 14 March, 2019. The broad theme of the conference is: Securing PHC for all: the foundation for making progress on UHC in Africa. This broad theme acknowledges the important role of PHC in the achievement of UHC. Strengthening PHC improves equity, accessibility and quality of care. Similarly, UHC ensures access to needed good quality health services irrespective of ability to pay. The two are therefore closely related. PHC is the main gateway to healthcare for the majority of the population, especially for those living in rural and underserved communities. A well-functioning PHC system will be able to respond to the health care needs of most of the population, including preventive, promotive and non-specialist clinical care, at a much lower cost than if similar services were provided at higher levels of the health care system. The conference will explore how securing PHC for all is a more cost-effective way to move towards the UHC agenda of any country, particularly for low income and lower middle income countries (LICs/LMICs) where the resource constraints are more severe.

Call for Expressions of Interest: Universities and Social Inequalities in the Global South
Deadline for Submission of Proposals: 10 March 2019, 23:59 CET

UNRISD invites expressions of interest from researchers to prepare papers that will feed into the development of a research proposal for a project on the relationship between universities and social inequalities in low- and middle-income countries. With the persistent and rising inequalities of present day encompassing not only income and wealth but also inequalities across race, gender, ethnicity and geographic region, it is critical to reinvent, reimagine and strengthen a wide range of policies and institutions that can play a role in overcoming inequalities. This call and the subsequent research project to be developed focuses on universities as one such institution. The project proposal will focus on the role of universities in reinforcing or lessening social inequalities in low- and middle-income countries. It will explore the following questions: What potential does higher education have today to increase social mobility, reduce inequality and contribute to the advancement of society through the production of knowledge and skills? Are institutions of higher education contributing to inequality rather than equality, and if so, through what specific actions and mechanisms? How can the transformative potential of such institutions be fully harnessed for overcoming inequality?

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