Eric Cezne and Tanja Hendriks have won a Leiden University seed ('Kiem') grant for a project on green fertilizer industries in Namibia. The project develops an innovative, interdisciplinary pilot study on the emergence of green fertilizer industries in Namibia.

In June 2025, whilst leading a field school at an abandoned post-industrial diamond-mining site in South Africa, Jan-Bart Gewald chanced upon a scarab beetle in stone. Two metres in length, it was covered by petroglyphs of human and humanoid forms.

The week of 8 June marked the official launch of VOICE: Learning Globally, Acting Locally. The education programme brings together facilitators from eleven institutions across four partner countries, and forty participants from more than ten countries have signed up.

Submit your Africa-related master’s thesis for the Africa Thesis Award 2026, have it published and win € 500! The Africa Thesis Award is an annual initiative by the African Studies Centre Leiden and Brill that recognises outstanding master’s theses.

On 2 June, Martin Luther Darko, Kauthar Khamis and Rashida Adum-Atta successfully defended their PhD theses at Leiden University within the Madina Project. Mare interviewed the three new doctors, alongside Madina Project alumnus Joseph Fosu-Ankrah.

We are very sad to report that our former colleague, friend and mentor Professor Fantu Cheru passed on on Sunday 31 May. Fantu worked as a senior researcher at the ASCL from 2014 to 2019. Former colleagues Mohamed Salih (ISS) and Jon Abbink (ASCL) wrote an obituary in his honour.