People

Since 2002 the European University Institute (EUI) has welcomed researchers and fellows from the African continent. Around 30 between PhD students, Max Weber Fellows, Jean Monnet Fellows, Fernand Braudel Fellows and more recently Policy Leaders Fellows spent or are spending some time in Florence for their studies and research. They are from Algeria, Cameroon, Egypt, Ghana, Morocco, Nigeria, South Sudan, Sudan, Lybia and Tunisia.

The EUI has also 20 alumni currently working in different African countries, such as Central African Republic, Ghana, Rwanda, South Africa, Mauritius, Mauritania etc. Some of them work at the United Nations, others for Non-Governmental Organisations. 

The activities of the Global Economics area of the Global Governance Programme have successfully engaged many African academics, practitioners and policy makers over the years. Between 2015 and 2018, the executive trainings organised by the programme attracted 140 participants from different countries in the region, and several researchers from Africa have joined the programme as Max Weber or Jean Monet fellows.

Since 2017, the School for Transnational Governance runs a Policy Leaders Fellowships Programme for early- and mid- career policy professionals. So far six participants joined the programme coming from six African countries.

In 2019 the Migration Policy Centre hosted Dr Mehari Taddele Maru, Lead Member African Union High Advisory Group and Chief Strategist for Intergovernmental Authority on Development, as a Schuman Fellow and hosted Dr Linda Oucho, Director of the African Migration and Development Policy Centre in Nairobi, for one week in October 2019. Dr Mehari is back at the Robert Schuman Centre as part-time professor as of February 2020.

Professor Olivier Roy, scientific advisor of the MEDirections Programme of the Robert Schuman Centre and a world-wide expert on Islam has regularly supervised post-doc fellows from North Africa, mainly from Tunisia and Egypt.