Claude Ake visiting chair
The purpose of this scholarship programme is to honor the memory of Professor Claude Ake, prominent African scholar, philosopher and humanist, and to invite applications from internationally recognized senior scholars with professorial competence in their respective fields of expertise.
The Claude Ake Visiting Chair is a co-financed collaboration between the Department of Peace and Conflict Research
External link, opens in new window., Uppsala University, and the Nordic Africa Institute.
The Claude Ake Visiting Chair External link, opens in new window. was set up in 2003 at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University (DPCR), in collaboration with the Nordic Africa Institute (NAI) and with funding from the Swedish Government and Uppsala University.
The Chair honours the memory of Professor Claude Ake, a distinguished scholar, philosopher, teacher and humanist, who died tragically in 1996. The Chair is intended for scholars who, like Claude Ake, combine a profound commitment to scholarship with a strong advocacy for social justice. The Chair is open to social scientists working at African universities with problems related to war, peace, conflict resolution, human rights, democracy and development on the African continent.
The visiting chair holder is offered a conducive environment to pursue his or her own research, while there is also opportunity for lecturing, holding seminars and contributing to ongoing research activities at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research and the Nordic Africa Institute.
Current holder
2022 Claude Ake Visiting Chair is Professor Kwesi Aning
Kwesi Aning is full Professor and Director, Faculty of Academic Affairs and Research (FAAR), Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre since 2007. He served as the African Union’s first expert on counterterrorism from 2005-2007. In 2021, he served as a senior consultant on the Independent Project Evaluation on Support to the Maldives on Counter-terrorism, and in 2022 appointed as a UN Expert on evaluating the EU’s Counter-terrorism interventions in Sri Lanka. From October 2022, he will serve on the World Food Programs (WFP) Security Advisory Board. Research interests include peacekeeping economies, hybrid political orders, security sector reform, and stability operations.