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The Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth has secured further external funding through the DFG initiative “Global Minds in DFG Consortia”. Prof. Dr Salome A. Bukachi of the University of Nairobi will join the Cluster as a Mercator Fellow Global and work closely with Africa Multiple over several years. Funding for the fellowship is expected to amount to around €550,000.

The DFG initiative forms part of the 1000 Heads Plus Programme, supported by the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR). It aims to strengthen long-term collaboration between German research institutions and internationally recognised scholars based abroad. The Mercator Fellow Global module allows researchers to remain at their home institutions while becoming closely involved in a DFG-funded research consortium in Germany.

For Africa Multiple, the fellowship is an important success. It strengthens the Cluster’s international network and supports one of the aims of its second funding phase: to connect its strong humanities and social sciences profile in African Studies more closely with other areas of research at the University of Bayreuth.

“With Salome Bukachi, we are gaining an internationally well-connected scholar whose research fits extremely well with the further development of Africa Multiple. The Global Minds Initiative gives us the opportunity to build a long-term collaboration and to integrate her expertise closely into the Cluster,” says Prof. Dr Rüdiger Seesemann, Dean of the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence.

Local knowledge and the early detection of zoonotic diseases

Salome Bukachi is Professor of Anthropology at the Institute of Anthropology, Gender and African Studies at the University of Nairobi. During her fellowship, she will investigate how knowledge held by people locally can contribute to the earlier detection of zoonotic diseases. Zoonoses are infectious diseases that can be transmitted between animals and humans. Her project, “Integrating Gendered Community Knowledge into Early Warning Systems for Zoonotic Disease Detection”, combines medical anthropology with the One Health approach, which considers human, animal and environmental health as closely interconnected.

The research will take place in Kajiado in Kenya and Nakaseke in Uganda. It will examine which signs of disease people notice in their everyday lives and how this knowledge could be incorporated more effectively into existing early warning systems. The project will also explore how divisions of labour, gender roles and social structures influence who notices warning signs, whose observations are heard and whether information is passed on.

“People who live and work with animals every day hold knowledge that can be highly valuable for the early detection of disease. I look forward to exploring these questions together with colleagues in Bayreuth. The combination of African Studies and health research provides a particularly exciting environment for this work,” says Prof. Dr Salome A. Bukachi.

Connecting African Studies and health research

Within Africa Multiple, Bukachi will join the Research Section Ecologies. Her project brings an anthropological perspective into dialogue with One Health and health research and reflects the Cluster’s broader effort to foster collaboration across disciplinary boundaries.

The proposal highlights the particular potential of Bayreuth as a place where established strengths in African Studies and the health sciences can be brought together. During the preparation of the proposal, Bukachi was also supported by colleagues at the University of Bayreuth, including Tim Dorlach from the Junior Professorship of Global Nutrition and Health Policy.

The fellowship will run from August 2027 to September 2031. During this period, Bukachi will spend a total of 32 months at the University of Bayreuth in three research phases and will be closely integrated into the Cluster’s academic environment.

“The successful appointment of a Mercator Fellow Global underlines the international attractiveness of the University of Bayreuth as a research location. At the same time, the project strengthens cooperation between two of our established research areas, African Studies and the health sciences,” says Prof. Dr Stefan Leible, President of the University of Bayreuth.