The DAAD-funded African Centre for Skills Enhancement and Career Support (ACCESS) hosted summer school participants from all over Africa (and beyond) at Leipzig University from June 20 to 29, 2025. The programme, which was open to PhD students and advanced Masters’ students from ACCESS partner universities in Africa and the Graduate School Global and Area Studies (GSGAS), Leipzig University, provided participants with an opportunity to engage in deep exchange with those from different disciplinary and institutional backgrounds on topics of common interest and to network across disciplinary and geographical boundaries. Our goal was to enhance participants’ methodological capabilities.

Our visitors had a chance to get to know Leipzig during a city tour focused on Leipzig’s cultural, social and economic history. The academic programme started with a lecture on conducting socially impactful research by ACCESS Board Member, Professor Adebola Ekanola (University of Ibadan) and a talk about the employability of PhDs by ACCESS postdoctoral fellow Nabil Smida.

From June 23 to 25, ACCESS collaborated with the GSGAS for its 23^rd international summer school themed “How to Study the Global?” ACCESS Research Lead Professor Dmitri van den Bersselaar (Leipzig University) gave a keynote speech on researching employability in Africa in the context of global crises and global (labour) markets. Furthermore, five student panel sessions were held over the course of three days with presentations focused on studying the global. The final joint event – three parallel methodology workshops – sought to enhance the participants’ ability to apply research tools across different social science fields. For one participant, the “biggest takeaway” from one of the workshops “Methods in Global Studies” was “learning the methods of Global studies and how to best situate my research in a global way.”

The remaining sessions included career talks, keynote methodology lectures, methodology workshops and a methodology clinic. The participants help us get a sense of the success of these sessions. As noted by one participant: “It’s really hard to pick one moment as every moment counts and every moment was so important with the quality of teachings and how instructive they were […].” On the methodology workshops on qualitative and quantitative analysis, another participant remarked: “It was an eye-opening moment that made the concepts feel more tangible and practical, inspiring me to deepen my understanding and explore the relevant software tools.” The lecture on “Research Ethics in Qualitative Research” by Dr Steffi Mauksch (Leipzig University) and the career talk “Strategic Visibility: Enhancing the Reach and Reception of Your Scholarship” by Dr Enrique Martino (University of Madrid) were described as “insightful” by another participant. Finally, the methodology clinic where participants could receive direct, one-on-one feedback from experienced researchers was beneficial to many. As one participant put it: “… I received constructive feedback on my PhD research. The comments and suggestions made will go a long way in enriching the final research output.”

ACCESS thanks the following (and more) for the summer school’s overall success: our funders the BMZ and the DAAD; Martina Keilbach and Leipzig University’s Graduate School GSGAS; Antje Zettler and her team at Research Centre Global Dynamics (ReCentGlobe); Claudia Günther and the Institute for African Studies; Mariam Sharif (EHESS(IMAF), Idris Olabode (summer school volunteer); and all the facilitators and the summer school participants for making it a truly global event and for staying with us throughout the programme.

Dr. Ngozi Edeagu (ACCESS research coordinator/co-organiser ACCESS/GSGAS summer school).