The 2025 edition of the Junior Researchers' Institute — organized by Global Africa, the Foundation for Innovation in Democracy, and the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie — is anchored in a major intellectual ambition: to rethink democracy from African archives, territories, knowledge systems, and lived experiences.

Held in Saint-Louis, Senegal, the School brings together sixteen emerging scholars from across the continent for an intensive week of training, writing, field inquiry, critical reflection, and collective learning. Its central question: How can democracy be regenerated in a world shaped by intertwined ecological, social, political, and ethical crises?

The Institute is conceived as a training incubator, a mentoring community, and a laboratory for new theoretical and empirical perspectives — supporting participants in scientific writing for Global Africa and other peer-reviewed journals, as well as public-facing scholarship across media and digital platforms.

Together, these three notions offer powerful entry points for imagining substantive democracy rooted in African realities and capable of addressing pressing issues: social justice, ecological transitions, youth inclusion, and collective resilience.