Eligible candidates must have an internationally recognised Master’s or an equivalent degree in anthropology or related social sciences and humanities disciplines. They must have received their Master’s degree or equivalent (120 ECTS) no later than 31 August 2026. They must have less than four years of research experience after their Master’s degree and not hold a PhD degree. All applicants must have achieved a high grade point average in their Bachelor and Master’s studies and must have fluent oral and written communication skills in English and submit their dissertation in English. All applicants must document English language qualifications (see the requirements here: https://www.kuleuven.be/english/study/apply/language-requirements/english-proficiency-tests).
Applicants can be of any nationality. We encourage applicants who have African language skills and relevant experience outside the academy. However, in order to be eligible, candidates have not resided more than 12 of the last 36 months in Belgium before the recruitment date.
The Doctoral Candidate is required to spend time at each university, have a supervisor at each institution and will receive a dual degree issued by each university.
The Doctoral Candidate is expected to take part in the HEALENAE dual degree PhD programme and to complete the project within the set fellowship period. Since the doctoral student will receive a dual degree, his/her research project will be subject to an evaluation meeting according to the standards of both Cape Town University and University of Leuven. The format of the evaluation will be made clear on registration, but candidates should be aware that they may be required to undergo two examination processes to obtain the dual degree.
The details regarding time spent at each university, supervision, evaluation as well as other legal matters will be specified in a contract prior to the start of the PhD project.
The Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Leuven (KULeuven), in collaboration with University of Cape Town (UCT) invites applications for one fully-funded 3-year PhD fellowship in social and cultural anthropology starting on 1 September 2026. The positions are funded by the EU Research and Innovation programme Horizon Europe, under a grant by Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Networks (MSCA-DN). The successful candidates must commence their PhD degree programme on 1 September 2026.
Background HEALENAE:
KULeuven and MU have embarked on the collaborative project HEALENAE: Health and Environment in Africa and Europe run by a consortium of universities: in Aarhus (Denmark), Cape Town (South Africa), Edinburgh (UK), Leuven (Belgium), Nairobi (Kenya), and Oslo (Norway) and Makerere University (Uganda).
The HEALENAE Doctoral Network offers a cross-continental, innovative, interdisciplinary, and multi-sectoral anthropological approach to pressing, interrelated health and environmental challenges across contemporary Africa and Europe. HEALENAE seeks to develop a strong interdisciplinary network that is based in anthropology, global one health, environmental and regional studies, to examine connections, correspondences and new challenges for health and environmental contexts in and between Africa and Europe.
By exploring specific topic areas of health and environment through long-term anthropological fieldwork, the research will provide insights into, and enable the future mitigations of, challenges related to current demographic, disease, climate and environmental changes, accelerated urbanisation, uneven growth, refugee issues, and gender and generational dynamics. The HEALENAE Doctoral Candidates will collaborate across projects to bring together insights anchored in different sectors and countries. They will analyse these in relation to each other creating clarity of interlinkages between specific health and environmental domains in an intercontinental perspective. Together, approaches from anthropology, post-colonial and regional studies on health and environment offer unique research perspectives and methods providing grounded, bottom-up understandings of how environments and health issues play out in everyday settings.
The research network offers an academically stimulating and interdisciplinary working environment, an innovative training programme that allows the PhD fellows to obtain specialist knowledge on a specific research topic as well as transferable skills that can be employed in academic as well as non-academic institutions. The HEALENAE PhD education includes one year of fieldwork in Africa and/or Europe (in total), annual training schools and writing retreats and 6 months stay with the secondary university. HEALENAE also offers an attractive salary, the opportunity of favourable pension benefits as well as funding for research, travel, conference participation and dissemination, books and equipment.
The HEALENAE project strives equal opportunity for diversity among the DCs. We encourage candidates from all continents, applicants with disabilities and minorities to apply. The salary will include social security and be composed of living and mobility allowances and a family allowance where appropriate, as outlined in the table on p.118 of the MSCA Work Programme 2023-2025: wp-2-msca-actions_horizon-2023-2024_en.pdf
Project 7: Toxicity: urban living in landscapes of extraction
Supervisors: Filip De Boeck (KUL) & Nikiwe Solomon (UCT)
Aim: To conduct a comparative study on the toxic fallout of extractive economies and its impact on urban life in Southern Africa (South Africa or Zimbabwe) and the UK.
Objectives: 1: To describe and compare evidence of older (colonial and early post-colonial) histories of toxicity and pollution of soil, water and air as a result of industrial coal mining, and their impact on daily urban living (based on bodily experience, scientific medical and toxicological data, and historical urban planning experiments); 2: To research the ecological, social and cultural impact on urban living of recent extractive practices and mining booms, and investigate how histories of toxicity affect processes of social and cultural mutation; 3: To investigate links between the production of toxic waste and industrial detritus and processes of displacement of populations, or how histories of toxicity are shaping migratory processes between rural and urban worlds, and are contributing to the post-colonial urban social condition; 4: To engage in collaborations with local and (inter)national academics, civil society organisations and expert activism concerning the social, cultural and environmental toxic fallout of large-scale industrial and artisanal mining activities.
Expected Results:
This research will demonstrate how extractive toxicity has shaped the post-colonial urban social condition in large parts of Southern Africa and the UK. It will document the toxic impact of extractive mining economies on contemporary life in post-colonial urban settings. It will generate eco-historical knowledge about dumping grounds for toxic waste, industrial detritus; map out its impact on urban populations in terms of physical and social health, and demonstrate the link between extractive toxicity and toxic social issues such as autochthony, ethnic identity, urban sociality, and the ‘right to the city’ – issues that have given rise to extreme violence in the recent past.
Planned secondments:
1: UCT, one semester after fieldwork (M29-M35), to engage in another academic environment and get face to face supervision from co-supervisor Nikiwe Solomon; 2:During fieldwork, the DC may also spend time with a local NGO or independent arts and research centre in the area of fieldwork, such as GroundWork, Life After Coal, CAMP (Contemporary Arts Membership Platform) in Southern Africa and UK.
Enrolment: KULeuven and UCT
The Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at KU Leuven University is a vibrant community of 8 lecturers, 12 postdoctoral scholars, and 40 PhD students. The research at the Department is clustered around three axes: "making", "living" and "moving" around the world. The department faculty are committed to long-term ethnographic research in order to gain an in-depth understanding of how individuals and groups organize their lives, relate to pasts and prefigure futures.
HEALENAE will recruit altogether 15 PhD fellows, referred to as Doctoral Candidates (DCs). The Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology of the University of Leuven en Makerere University (Uganda) invite applications for 1 dual PhD fellowship in the field of anthropology where the two universities have mutual strengths and can offer excellent research environments. The available position is hosted by the University of Leuven (Primary University) and Makerere University (Secondary University).
This will be one fully-funded 3-year PhD fellowship in anthropology of health and environment under the broad topic Toxicity: urban living in landscapes of extraction. The successful candidate must commence their PhD degree programme by 1 September 2026.
Project 7: Toxicity: urban living in landscapes of extraction
Supervisors: Filip De Boeck (KUL) & Nikiwe Solomon (UCT)
Enrolment and employment at University of Leuven
The PhD student must complete the studies in accordance with the current regulations for the Doctoral Programme in Social Sciences at KULeuven: https://soc.kuleuven.be/fsw/doctoralprogramme
The PhD scholar will be employed as a PhD student at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Leuven. In general, the student is expected to be present at the school on an everyday basis when he/she is in Belgium.
KU Leuven strives for an inclusive, respectful and socially safe environment. We embrace diversity among individuals and groups as an asset. Open dialogue and differences in perspective are essential for an ambitious research and educational environment. In our commitment to equal opportunity, we recognize the consequences of historical inequalities. We do not accept any form of discrimination based on, but not limited to, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, age, ethnic or national background, skin colour, religious and philosophical diversity, neurodivergence, employment disability, health, or socioeconomic status.
For questions about accessibility or support offered, we are happy to assist you at this email address.
Job application procedure
Working conditions
Career opportunities
Do you have a question about the online application system? Please consult our FAQ or email us at apply@kuleuven.be
For questions about PhDs at the Faculty of Social Sciences, please contact the Doctoral School of the Faculty of Social Sciences (fsw.phd@kuleuven.be)
If you have questions about the PhD position, please contact supervisor Filip De Boeck, Filip.deboeck@kuleuven.be and co-supervisor: Nikiwe Solomon, nikiwe.solomon@uct.ac.za
If you have questions about the EU requirements, please contact Mia Korsbaek, korsbaek@cas.au.dk
Application:
The application must be submitted in English.
Deadline for applications: 1 March 2026, at 23.59 Brussels time (CET/CETS).