The University of Pennsylvania's African Studies Center has received funding from the Ford Foundation over a three-year period (1998-2001) to institutionalize "dual intellectual citizenship" among Africanists. This will be accomplished through a program that combines the sharing of knowledge already being produced in Africa with the training and research that will produce new kinds of scholarly interactions between Africa and the West.  

The program consists of four initiatives. The first will disseminate scholarship produced in Africa through the internet in collaboration with various African research institutions, including the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) and the Economic Commission on Africa (ECA), and the Organization for Social Science Research in East Africa (OSSREA). The second will provide Africanist graduate students with the opportunity to study and initiate long-term mentoring relationships with African scholars through a summer graduate program in Dakar, Senegal. The third aims to recruit undergraduate students, particularly those of minority background, into Africa-related studies and professions through a "Careers in Africa Day." Outstanding participants in this event will be selected the following year to work as interns with relevant institutions and NGO's in Africa. The final initiative will provide funding for Penn medical students and graduate students in the social sciences to undertake short-term health "practica" in a variety of settings on the African continent.  
  
Each of these initiatives represents an existing project of Penn African Studies or a collaborative effort with other Penn schools and African institutions that will be taken into a new dimension with the help of Ford funding.