Skip to Content

Search: {{$root.lsaSearchQuery.q}}, Page {{$root.page}}

University of Michigan African Presidential Scholars (UMAPS) Program

Strengthening African universities is one of the most effective ways to contribute to the continent’s growth and continued excellence. The U-M African Presidential Scholars (UMAPS) program has helped retain and strengthen faculty members working in African institutions of higher education, and empowered them to contribute to international academic networks and set their own research agendas.

The UMAPS Program brings early career faculty from African universities to Ann Arbor, Michigan. Scholars are paired with a faculty collaborator during their stay and have full access to the University of Michigan's (U-M) resources to further their work on a research project, an academic degree, publications, grant proposal, or other relevant activity. The program supports the development of the next generation of African scholars by integrating them into international academic networks, and promotes U-M’s international commitment to research and teaching collaborations across diverse disciplines, from engineering to literature to economics.

Since 2009, the UMAPS Program has hosted scholars from Ghana, South Africa, Liberia, Uganda, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Gabon, and Zambia representing a wide range of disciplines that closely align with the following initiatives:

African Heritage and Humanities Initiative (AHHI) supports research related to the arts, humanities, and interpretive social sciences, which highlights the dynamic, contested process by which African cultures and histories are made;

African Social Research Initiative (ASRI) promotes social science research on democratic governance and distributive politics; income dynamics and poverty; and gender, health, and development;

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Initiative (STEM-Africa) seeks to nurture the study of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in Africa, which extends scientific knowledge and yields solutions to global problems.