REFA Hub Hosts First Pan-African Fellows Convening
Scholars from across the continent and the diaspora gather to launch the REFA Research Network and begin collaborative planning for the Hub’s first thematic streams.
In February 2026, the Rethinking Economic Futures for Africa (REFA) Hub convened its inaugural Network Fellows meeting, bringing together researchers from across West Africa, East Africa, and the diaspora for the first time as a collective. The convening marked a significant milestone in the development of the Hub, moving from proposal to practice and establishing the architecture through which the network’s research and engagement activities will take shape over the coming years.
The meeting was hosted by Ekiti State University, the Hub’s institutional home for its first three-year wave, and was convened by Dr Ruth Badru, REFA Founder and Convenor, alongside Co-Convenors Dr Omowumi Idowu and Dr Oluwasola Emmanuel Omoju. Fellows joined from institutions across Nigeria, Ghana, and Senegal, as well as from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, representing disciplines spanning economics, education, public health, governance, psychology, sociology, and development studies.
The convening centred on three objectives. First, presenting the full REFA architecture to the network, including the Hub’s research philosophy, its commitment to co-production with communities, and its emphasis on producing knowledge that is grounded in African institutional realities rather than imported frameworks. Second, discussing the thematic streams that will organise the network’s research over the initial phase, which span economics, education, governance, health, and social institutions. Third, beginning the collaborative planning process through which fellows will shape the research agenda collectively rather than receiving it from above.
A Different Kind of Research Network
What distinguishes the REFA Network from conventional academic collaborations is its insistence on starting from the realities that people on the continent live with every day. The research agenda is not defined by external priorities or donor frameworks but by the questions that emerge when African scholars examine their own institutional contexts with rigour and honesty, and when communities are treated as knowledge holders rather than research subjects.
A key outcome of the convening was the articulation of shared principles that will guide how the network operates: that research should be co-produced with the communities it concerns, that local knowledge systems are legitimate sources of insight rather than obstacles to be overcome, and that the purpose of scholarship in this space is not merely to describe but to inform the design of institutions and policies that actually work for the people they are meant to serve.
Fellows also discussed the practical infrastructure of the network, including the REFA Charter, plans for a working paper series, the development of the REFA Hub website as a public platform for the network’s output, and initial conversations about institutional pilots that will test the translation of research findings into real-world applications.
The convening represents the beginning of what the Hub envisions as a sustained, continent-wide effort to build an intellectual community devoted to rethinking Africa’s economic futures from within. As the network grows, the Hub will continue to bring together scholars and practitioners who share this commitment, expanding both the geographic reach and the disciplinary breadth of the collective.
Over the coming weeks, we will be introducing the Network Fellows individually through this platform. Follow our updates to learn more about the researchers, their institutions, and the questions they are pursuing.