For the 2018-2020 cycle, seven strategic areas will inform programme delivery to achieve IEA Saint Louis goals and fulfil its ambition.

1. Facilitating intellectual and cultural life by organizing an IEA Saint Louis Major Lecture Series.

A breakdown of the lecture series is as follows:
- IEA Inaugural Lecture on “Saint-Louis, Senegal, a Centre of Excellence for thinking Africa and the World”, to be delivered in December 2018 by Professor Djibril Samb
- Lecture on “Youth and Culture”, to be delivered on 4th February 2019 by Amadou Tidiane Wone, writer, in tribute to Hamidou Dia, philosopher, writer and poet (1953-2018)

- Lecture on “Do Sahel countries have a future?”, to be delivered in May 2019 by Professor Alioune Sall
- Lecture on “Feminism in Senegal: past and future”, to be delivered in December 2019 by Marie Angélique Savané and Fatoumata Sow
- Lecture on “African Cultures in Latin America”, to be delivered in December 2019 by Professor José Burucua
- Lecture on “Africa and Global Antiquity”, to be delivered in December 2019 by Professor Babacar Diop Buuba
- Lecture on “Youth and the Demographic Dividend in the Sahel”, to be delivered in February 2020 by Mr. Mabingue Ngom
- Lecture on “Water and Migration in the Sahel”, to be delivered in May 2019 by Professor Isaïe Dougnon
- Lecture on “African graduates and decolonization”, to be delivered in December 2020 by Professor Pascale Barthélémy

2. Opening forums for exchange between researchers, practitioners, artists, and men and women of letters in the form of national and international colloquiums, conferences and workshops.

To trigger these exchanges, deconstruct dogmas and prejudices, and promote innovation and creativity, IEA Saint-Louis organises seminars, colloquiums and conferences for researchers and practitioners from different geographic regions and disciplines to develop and reinforce knowledge and skills in African societies so that they experience accelerated economic and societal transformations.

The conference, seminar and colloquium series include:

• The International conference on “Globalization, national languages and Development in Africa”, to be organised on 3 - 5 December 2018 in tribute to two pioneers of African linguistics: Arame Fall and Pathé Diagne. The Global History Network’s International Conference on “Colonial Cities in Global Perspective”, set for December 10 to 12, 2018. This conference will be followed by an Institute for reinforcing graduate students research capacities, 13 to 15 december 2018
• The Academic Meeting of the Postdoctoral Fellows in the Humanities in Sub-Saharan and North Africa; (Volkswagen Foundation’s Founding Initiative: Knowledge for Tomorrow- Cooperative Research Projects in Sub-Saharan Africa), set from January 24 to 31, 2019
• The International Conference on “Between the local and the global, biography as an approach to microhistory”, set for May 2019
• The International Conference on “Myths of Founding African Cities: Saint-Louis in Senegal, Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire”, set for December 2019
• The colloquium on and private view of the works of Anta Germaine Gaye, painter, set for December 2019
• The International conference on “Youth, mobility and pastoralism in the Sahel”, set for February 2020
• The International conference on “The challenges of feeding and nutrition in Africa”, set for May 2020
• The International conference on “Youth employment, Vocational Training and Sustainable Development in West Africa”, set for May 2020
• The International conference on “Women, Entrepreneurship and Communication for Development in Africa”, set for December 2020

3.Conducting research programmes on a diverse range of strategic themes relating to major development issues and the history of African societies (2018-2020):

- Research on “African colonial employees”. This research project aims at paying more attention to African colonial employees whose contribution in the functioning of the Colonial rule has been largely neglected by the scholars. This Project is a collaborative work which involves the Stanford Center for African Studies, The FASTEF/UCAD, the Directorate of the National Archives of Senegal and the IEA Saint-Louis.

- Research programme on “Youth employment, vocational training and sustainable development in West Africa”

- Research programme on “Women, entrepreneurship and communication for development in Africa”

- Research programme on Great African Figures: Ibrahima Sarr, Trade Unionist and Minister of the Civil Service; Macodou Ndiaye, Member of Parliament and Mayor of Saint Louis in Senegal; El Hadji Madior Cisse, Officer of the Court and Religious Leader; Abdoulaye Diaw, Colonial Administrator; Amadou Fall “Damel”, Administrative Clerk.

- The Rewriting Jolof History Project: In reviewing Senegalese history writing, we deemed it important to re-examine the sources used so far to write the history of this part of Senegal. One could make a caricature of the situation by saying the tyranny of peanut farming conditioned the types of privileged sources used! But a bottom-up approach to various communities in Senegal shows that the Jolof region’s sylvo-pastoral economy, just like the rice-based civilization in the South, experienced the tyranny of peanut farming and were often studied through the lens of the Wolof model. Our project seeks to rethink this model by conducting a regressive exercise that uses biography as a microhistorical approach to this dominant model for rewriting the history of this part of Senegal! Five figures have been selected in the initial phase, namely: Ardo Sassi Sow, native chief; Sidy Ndiaye, teacher; Bocar Boydo, teacher; Tuube (viceroy) Mbaba Nguy Ndiaye, who served in this capacity during the reigns of Jolof Kings including Alburi Ndiaye, Samba Laobe Fall and Buuna Alburi Ndiaye; and Farba (Chief of the Armed Forces) Mayeebe Fall.

4. Offering capacity building programmes for PhD students, executives and officers in development organisations and programmes:

- Organising summer institutes for PhD students in 2018, 2019 and 2020
- Customized training for officials in the public sector, private sector and NGOs to improve their performance in managing the programmes of these institutions: November 2018; April 2019 and April 2020.

5. Hosting resident researchers, academics, artists, writers and practitioners with innovative projects.

To encourage researcher mobility and young talents from Africa, IEA Saint-Louis is setting up a research centre for residents with research topics in synergy with the Institute’s programmes. It hosts researchers, academics, artists, writers and practitioners committed to innovation and the critique of dogmas and paradigms.

- Hosting batches of 5 resident researchers per year from 2019
- Hosting research associates upon request as from September 2018

The residency period for researchers or research “fellows” will be from one to six months, depending on the availability of resources. For each resident researcher the Centre hosts, a residency agreement will be drawn up to set out the contractual conditions and obligations of both parties: IEA Saint-Louis and the “Fellow”.

6. Establishing platforms for dialogue between researchers, innovators, decision makers, public policy officials and local communities.
To promote the mainstreaming of research results and innovation, IEA Saint-Louis is opening forums for dialogue between researchers, writers, poets, thinkers, decision makers, public policy officials, and local communities to contribute in improving development programmes and policies. A series of meetings between researchers and decision makers will be organised once a year as from 2019.

7. Initiating a dynamic publishing programme that uses a range of different mediums: books, brochures, newsletters, websites (www.iea-saintlouis.sn) and social media.

An agreement is going to be signed with Senegal’s Harmattan Publishing Company in October 2018 to disseminate the proceedings of conferences, colloquiums and major conferences.

8. Building partnerships
The Institute of Advanced Studies (IEA) in Saint Louis, Senegal will forge partnerships with institutions that share a common mission or can support IEA in its institutional development. The first institutions identified are:
- Université Gaston Berger in Saint-Louis, Senegal, particularly Senegal’s research and documentation centre, research and training laboratories, and the central library;
- The school inspectorate in Saint-Louis;
- The Institut Supérieur de Management and the Forum de Saint-louis
- The Gandon Commune in the Saint-Louis Region
- Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, Senegal
- National Directorate of Archives in Senegal;
- The Institut d’Etudes Avancées in Nantes, France;
- The Fondation des Maisons des Sciences de l’Homme in Paris, France;
- The Centre for African Studies at the University of Bayreuth, Germany;
- The Center for African Studies, Stanford University, California, USA;
- The Centre for International Education, Nazareth College, Rochester, New York, USA