The African Institute for Sustainable Energy and Systems Analysis (AISESA) is a research instiiture established in response to a defining challenge: how African countries can build and transform energy systems that support inclusive development, industrialisation, and resilience while navigating climate constraints and structural global inequalities. 

AISESA approaches energy as a foundational pillar of livelihoods, economic transformation, and long-term development. The institute’s work is organised around five interconnected research clusters that examine energy transitions from systems, implementation, governance, finance, and institutional perspectives. As an African-led and African-anchored institute, AISESA seeks to strengthen knowledge sovereignty by placing African institutions and scholars at the centre of agenda setting, theory building, and policy engagement.

This call invites applications for one fully funded PhD scholarship to be undertaken at the University of Ghana’s Centre for Social Policy Studies (CSPS), in partnership with AISESA, under its Political Economy research stream, which focuses on how energy and climate decisions are shaped, contested, and implemented across African contexts.

The scholarship will run for four (4) years, subject to satisfactory academic progress, commencing on 1 September 2026.