GPN names its PhD fellowships after Thomas Sankara

The GPN works on the failures and problematic aspects of international partnerships that have historically been shaped by, and in part continue to reflect, colonial relations between the global North and South. To overcome these historical dynamics, the concept needs to be reconstructed towards a partnership based on mutual recognition and solidarity, appropriate to the multipolar and postcolonial nature of the 21st century.

In addition to creating e-learning tools, fostering research collaborations, and conducting a variety of workshops, the graduate program is one of the core activities of the GPN. The GPN awards twelve fellowships to doctoral students* from the Global South to support university-based knowledge production there.

We are very pleased to announce that the family of Thomas Sankara has agreed to our request to name the GPN PhD scholarships after him. Thomas Sankara was President of Burkina Faso (1983-1987) until his assassination. Our desire to name the fellowships after this outstanding figure stems from his pioneering approach to global partnerships, which we see as an inspiration for our own critical engagement with both North-South and South-South relations. His resistance to neocolonialism and his contributions to the emancipation and self-determination of the Burkinabe people continue to inspire African and international youth today. In the mere four years of his presidency, Sankara made the country independent of any food imports, allowed numerous women access to political office, fought elitism and corruption, sought to decentralize and democratize state power, campaigned against illegitimate debt, began the implementation of Africa's 'Green Wall' in Burkina Faso, and replaced the government's expensive Mercedes Benz with less expensive small cars while riding his own bicycle to work.

Our Burkina Faso civil society partner, the Balai Citoyen, considers itself a social movement and organization with a Sankarist tradition and therefore has exceptional expertise in Sankara's ideas and policies. Inviting a Balai Citoyen speaker to a virtual graduate school seminar will therefore be one of the first actions of our graduate school coordinator. By naming the GPN PhD Fellowship after Thomas Sankara, we have created a basis to draw on his visionary politics when discussing concepts such as food sovereignty, gender equality, neocolonialism, or theories such as post-development, dependency, and postcolonial theories.

GPN offers a graduate program in which our doctoral students are supervised by professors from two GPN partner universities. The selected PhD students are based at the university of their* first supervisor, but have the opportunity to spend six months at the university of their* second supervisor.

Our graduate school coordinator organizes a regular virtual graduate program together with the members of the different GPN partners (partner universities as well as partner civil society organizations). In this way, a wide range of expertise in different theoretical and practical areas can be brought to our graduate school and a link between theory and practice can be established.

The online format allows for rich international and intercultural exchange without adding too much fuel to the already ongoing climate crisis caused by air travel. The overall orientation of the content covered in the graduate program is based on the three research clusters of the GPN:

• Cluster 1: Partnership in development cooperation: access, accountability, and substantive participation.
• Cluster 2: Partnership in the global economy: agriculture, finance, and energy
• Cluster 3: Partnership in knowledge production: Eurocentrism and alternative knowledge.

Smaller groups will be formed with those doctoral students* conducting research in the same cluster to promote peer-to-peer learning across distance and different cultures. Doctoral students are encouraged to actively participate in the design of the graduate program, allowing them to shape parts of it according to their specific needs and desires.

GPN also offers its partners* the opportunity to develop e-learning tools that support the integration of the interdisciplinary and diverse knowledge of our partners* into the teaching of the graduate school.

With our Thomas Sankara Doctoral Fellowships and our 'Global Partnership Graduate School', we hope to explore new horizons together with our doctoral students and our entire network and contribute to - as Thomas Sankara used to say - dare to invent the future.

Contacts for queries:

Prof. Aram Ziai, Director GPN, tel. 0561 804-3023

Fiona Faye, Coordinator Graduate School, Tel. 0561 804 7283 (Monday - Wednesday)