IFRA-Nigeria is opening its call for the 2027 Research Grants!
Open to second year master's students, doctoral and postdoctoral students, as well as researchers working in humanities and social sciences on a country under IFRA-Nigeria's geographical mandate (Nigeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Niger, Chad and Togo). We accept applications in French or English.
Download the full call or read more below.
Deadline for application: 30 October 2026, 23:59 WAT.
Ahead of the 2027 Presidential elections in Nigeria, IFRA-Nigeria is reopening it's Elections Observatory project. Like in 2023, a set of upcoming researchers will receive a grant to conduct fieldwork related to the elections between December 2026 and January 2027. Their findings will be published in a Working Papers article (you can find here the 2023 edition).
Deadline for applications: 20 October, 2026.
You can download the full call here.
On 17 September, Marie Lureau, research project manager at IFRA-Nigeria, will present her work in an interactive methodological seminar on “Non-religion in Nigeria: exploring (un)belief.” According to both general perceptions and statistics from the 2024 Afrobarometer, being “non-religious” is extremely rare in Nigeria. Despite this, atheism and other forms of “non-religion” or “unbelief” attract increasing public interest and press coverage.
This leads us to question how these phenomena manifest in a country where religion is such an important part of public and private lives. In this regard, Africa is for now quasi-absent from the field of “secularism studies”. We must therefore ask: what does a “non-religious” life look like in Nigeria? What are the forms of secularities created in this country, and how are they different from ones studied in the West? What are the origins and influences of such ideas in the Nigerian context?
Discussing these questions forces us to see religion and non-religion, belief and unbelief, not as polar opposites, but as categories in constant interactions with one another. Understanding the specific manifestations of secularity in Nigeria demands to take a closer look at these complex interactions, and to question what is the best terminology to encompass them.
This seminar will be a part of the research itself, as it aims to create a moment of dialogue with the participants on what is belief, on the place of secularism in Nigeria, and what non-religion can look like in this context.
Practical information:
Date & time: 17 September, 10am to 12pm
Venue: IFRA-Nigeria Resource Centre, Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan
Registration (before 14/09): https://forms.gle/tgX6QYPJjjgHphQg9
On 5 and 6 October 2026, IFRA-Nigeria, the Department of History and the Institute of African Studies of the University of Ibadan will hold an international conference on "Urban Myths and Experiences in Africa."
Cities are built environments where people converge to live, work, exchange, and interact. As such, they constitute tangible economic, social, and political centres. Yet cities are not only material spaces. They are also shaped by the ways people imagine, dream about, narrate, and experience them across different scales of time and space. Cities are produced as much through concrete infrastructures and institutions as through practices and imagination.
This international and multidisciplinary conference on African urban studies seeks precisely to examine the extent to which such urban myths have shaped spaces, practices, and ways of life across African cities.
Practical information:
Date : 5-6 October, 2026
Location: Draper's Hall, Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan
Participation: free and open to all but registration is required.
Registration deadline: 30 September 2026
Registration link: https://forms.gle/BwJDZ1bp5naCCdXM9
On Sunday, 27 September, New Culture Studios, the Institut Français of Nigeria and IFRA-Nigeria bring to you a unique event focusing on "Heritage & Family Archives" in Nigeria and West Africa more broadly. The afternoon will begin with a roundtable featuring Dr Sa'eed Husaini, researcher at the Centre for Democracy and Development in Abuja, Roméo Mivekannin, an internationally recognized multidisciplinary artist, and Rufus Nwoko, creative director of New Culture Studios.
The event will continue with a screening and discussion around Colette & Justin, a documentary film in which director Alain Kassanda brings to life postcolonial Congo through the story and archives of his grandparents. Watch the trailer here.
This event is part of our 2026 "Debate of Ideas" programme on the theme "Listen to Sensitive and Alternative Voices to Pave the Way3, and is made possible by the Institut Français of Nigeria.
The event is free for all, but you must register before Thursday, 24 September.
Practical information:
Registration link: https://forms.gle/RE7gyFMQHKBAEQBC9
Location: New Culture Studios, Ibadan.
Time: 4pm
Date: 27 September.
On 23 July 2026, IFRA-Nigeria, in collaboration with Géo-Cités (CRIA) and the Institute of African Studies (IAS), University of Ibadan, hosted the workshop “Sensitive and Minority Archives: Selection, Digitization and Archiving”. The workshop brought together researchers and practitioners to reflect on how archives are created, selected, preserved, digitized and reinterpreted, with particular attention to minority memories, community knowledge and alternative forms of archiving.
The workshop was part of the ongoing research project “Archiving and Digitizing African Futures: Minority Memories and Heritage,” a collaborative initiative involving IFRA-Nigeria, History Workshop at Wits University (South Africa), Institut des Humanités Numériques africaines de l’Université de Yaoundé (Cameroun), Géo-cités and Prodig research units (Paris, France) and the History Department at the King’s College London (UK).
![[CLOSED] V.I.A. Chargé.e de mission (chercheur.e)](/images/logos/IFRA_Vacancy_Intro_call.png)
l'IFRA-Nigeria a ouvert le processus de recrutement pour un poste de Volontaire International en Administration (V.I.A.), Chargé.e de mission (Chercheur.e).
La description complète du poste et les modalités de candidatures sont disponibles de Business France.
On 13 May, the National Museum of Lagos and IFRA-Nigeria organised the colloquium "Alternative Heritage in Time: Who Sabi?" who concluded our two-year partnership as part of the French Embassy Fund project "Nigerian Alternative Heritages." The four researchers who received a grant as part of the project presented their work in a session moderated by Dr Pauline Guinard, IFRA-Nigeria Director, and Dr Toluwalope Fajobi.
The papers presented were:
On 6 July, Adam Rodgers Johns, doctoral student in anthropology and Swahili teacher at SOAS University, presented his work “Mapping the impact of regeneration and gentrification on the Yoruba-led religious spaces in south-east London” in our last methodological seminar of the academic year.
His research focuses on the Yoruba community in south-east London, specifically the Peckham area. Often referred to as “Little Lagos,” given the high number of residents from the Nigerian diaspora, it’s also the neighbourhood where Adam Rodgers Johns grew up.
![[CLOSED] Chargé.e de mission (chercheur.e)](/images/2026/07/Deputy_Director_Job_Intro_call.png)
l'IFRA-Nigeria a ouvert le processus de recrutement pour un poste de chercheur.e.
La description complète du poste et les modalités de candidatures sont disponibles du DiploEmploi.
As part of the Nigerian Alternative Heritages project, a French Embassy Fund programme, IFRA-Nigeria began a collaboration with the Centre for Contemporary Art Lagos (CCA) at the beginning of 2026. Its main goal was to digitize, make accessible and valorise the CCA archives.
On 1 June and 16 June, the Alliance Française of Port Harcourt and Lagos respectively, organised with IFRA-Nigeria and the support of the Institut Français the screening of "Speak up for Freedom". This documentary movie by Clément Sibony follows Nigerian women who survived sexual trafficking in Europe, as they put together a play retelling their experiences.
This play was organised by MIST (Mission of Intervention and Sensitisation against Sexual Trafficking), a survivor-led association operating in France. Both screenings were followed by a discussion with Flora Enifo, MIST's co-Founder and Project Manager, and Dr Elodie Apard, Researcher at IRD, board member of MIST and head of the Life After Trafficking research project.
This event is part of our 2026 "Debate of Ideas" programme on the theme "Listen to Sensitive and Alternative Voices to Pave the Way." The goal of this screening: to look past the stigma, give back their voices to the women first concerned by this issue, and encourage a dialogue on the topic between civil society, academics, artists and more.
Between 16 and 20 June 2026, the IFRA-Nigeria team was present at the Lagos Studies Association (LSA) Conference. This 2026 edition marked the tenth anniversary of the Conference and its theme was "The state of African Studies in the 21st century". Once again this year IFRA-Nigeria supported the organisation of the conference itself, and offered several grants for participants in our own panels.
This year, IFRA-Nigeria organised four panels:
IFRA-Nigeria members also participated in several panels:
On June 3, 2026, IFRA-Nigeria, with the National Museum of Unity, Ibadan, hosted a pop-up exhibition to close the two-year French Embassy-financed Nigerian Alternative Heritages project partnership between the two institutions. This project was made possible by the French Embassy Fund.
Conceived by Dr Delphine Manetta and Adéjọkẹ Rafiat Adétòrò, the programme was centred on the theme “Build Your Museum” and invited the public to reimagine heritage while challenging conventional norms that have long dictated our understanding of identity, culture, and belonging. The event was aimed at encouraging members of the public to actively participate in the narratives on heritage, as people were invited to contribute stories, objects, memories, and cultural experiences that shape their understanding of heritage and resonate with their own journey and community.
You can watch some highlights of the event on IFRA-Nigeria's YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/5ZnXzWa7MD8
On 20 May 2026, IFRA-Nigeria, in partnership with the National Museum of Unity in Ibadan, hosted the public presentation of projects conducted as part of the research and artistic creation initiative ‘(Re)imagining Heritage, (Re)using the Museum’. The initiative aimed to explore innovative ways of engaging with heritage, culture, and museum spaces through research and artistic creativity. This event took place under the Nigerian Alternative Heritages project, made possible by the French Embassy Fund.
You can watch a highlight of this event on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/de5PV_7WhKg.