12 Fully Funded Fellowships | 4-Year Doctoral Training Programme
The African Climate Collaborative is pleased to invite applications for 12 PhD fellowships to support participation in a four-year doctoral training programme in Climate and Development. The programme comprises one year of structured coursework followed by three years of thesis research, and is designed to build a new generation of African scholars addressing the continent’s most pressing climate and development challenges.
Programme Structure
- Year 1: Structured pre-doctoral coursework
- Years 2–4: Independent thesis research under supervision, along with doctoral skills training
- 12 fellowships available, each linked to a specific research topic and supervisory team
Eligibility Criteria
- Academic qualification: A completed Master’s degree in a discipline relevant to climate and development in Africa, and specifically in the discipline listed as eligible for the chosen research topic (see table below).
- Citizenship: Open to citizens of an African country ONLY. African applicants who reside outside Africa are also welcome to apply.
- Age: Applicants must be under 35 years of age as of 1 February 2027.
- One topic only: Each candidate may apply to only one of the 19 listed research topics. (Multiple applications from a student may result in disqualification)
- UCT acceptance: Successful applicants will need to apply and be accepted for admission to study for a PhD at UCT in order to qualify for the fellowship. We will offer assistance with the application to successful fellowship applicants.
We particularly encourage applications from women and from applicants with lived experience of displacement or disability.
Available Research Topics
Each topic below is linked to a named supervisor (or supervisory team), whose disciplinary background determines the Master’s discipline required of applicants to that topic. Please carefully review the topics below to find more detail on each topic, and apply only to the topic for which you meet the disciplinary requirement.
Available Research Topics
- The politics of care in an African urban flooding-health context
- Managing locust outbreaks under climate change
- Whose energy transition? Multi-level governance of electricity commons for implementing the Paris Agreement in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Who Gets Resilience? Governing Water Infrastructure Investment under Climate Change in African Cities
- How do knowledge and governance together shape urban climate adaptation interventions in southern African cities?
- Sustainable concrete technology for African urbanisation
- An evaluation of energy system impacts (demand and supply) of climate-model-predicted future ENSO swings in Southern Africa
- Detecting and attributing biodiversity change in the Cape Floristic Region using remote sensing and causal inference
- Innovation systems and the climate-compatible transition to electric cooking in Africa
- Innovating equitable, relevant climate and development education in and for Africa
- Participatory modelling and scenario development for climate resilient fisheries in the southern Benguela
- From Site to System: a scale-explicit framework for evaluating climate adaptation in South African fisheries (a southern Benguela case study)
- Multi-modal remote sensing for smallholder climate resilience: Scaling correlation to prediction and cross-border transferability in sub-Saharan Africa
- Hydrological reorganisation under climate and development pressures: shifting controls on water partitioning across diverse South African landscapes
- Building Climate-Resilient Estuaries in South Africa: A Catchment-to-Coast Nature-Based Solutions Framework for the St Lucia Estuarine System
- Climate-Resilient Blue Bioeconomies: Mapping Indigenous and locally defined ecosystem values contributing to coastal adaptation in South Africa
- Collective Action for Scaling Business Climate Adaptation
- How effective is biodiversity spatial planning in preventing habitat loss and supporting climate-resilient conservation?
- After the policy-bank era: The changing architecture of Chinese power finance in Africa
Required Application Documents
| Required Document | Details |
| Curriculum Vitae (CV) | Maximum 5 pages, including the names and contact details of 3 referees, one of whom must have supervised the candidate’s Masters dissertation. |
| Writing Sample | A sample of previous academic or research writing, ideally from your Masters dissertation. |
| Academic Transcripts | Transcripts for Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. Successful candidates will be asked to provide certified copies prior to confirmation of the fellowship. |
| Letter of Motivation | Explaining your interest in the topic and the programme, and how your training and experience positions you for the topic. |
| Copy of Identification | National ID or passport |
How to Apply
Complete applications, comprising all documents listed above, must be submitted by 15 October 2026. Applicants should clearly indicate the single research topic to which they are applying.
Application deadline: 15 October 2026 at 23:00 (SAST).
