Research and Publication

The Research and Publications Unit is responsible for conducting, promoting and coordinating research and publication on Ethiopia with special emphasis on the humanities and cultural studies. This Research and Publication Unit is headed by an associate director and is interested with the task of generating and disseminating research within the broad objectives of the Institute. The research unit develops research projects and organizes seminars, workshops and conferences at both national and international levels.

The Research Unit

In addition to its own research fellows, the Institute hosts a large number of visiting scholars from foreign institutions all over the world with which it has established close ties. The Institute assists visiting scholars with scholarly advice and by providing library facilities, as well as with the processing of visa and travel documents.

The Institute conducts, co ordinates and encourages research on a wide range of subjects related to Ethiopian history, culture, ethnography, anthropology, sociology, language, literature, folklore and related disciplines. This is done in close cooperation and collaboration with departments in the College of Social Sciences, Institute of Language Studies and to some extent also the Faculties of Law and Education. The researches conducted by the IES are in the main basic research, with applied research taken up only to a certain extent.

The dissemination modes for research outputs include conferences, both international and national, and lectures, and talks. The Institute of Ethiopian Studies constitutes the Permanent Secretariat for International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, responsible inter alia for the organization of the International Conferences of Ethiopian Studies held approximately every three years. The Institute also has the privilege of hosting one out of every three conferences (i.e., every nine years). So far Fourteen conferences have been organized in about eleven venues in ten countries. The convening of the International Conference of Ethiopian Studies dates back to 1959, when the first conference was organized in Rome. Thirteen conferences have to date been organized in different parts of the world. The Institute has hosted the third, the eighth, and eleventh International conferences in 1966, in 1984 and in 1991, respectively. The fourteenth International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, was also hosted by the Institute in Addis Ababa in November 2000, coincided with the 50th anniversary of the founding of the University. The next international conference of Ethiopian studies, which will be the fifteenth, will be held in Hamburg, Germany in November 2003.Please visit the web site of the 15th International conference of Ethiopian Studies for further detail here.

Other than the regular International Conferences of Ethiopian Studies, the IES also organizes national conferences and interdisciplinary seminars encompassing wide-ranging disciplines and also specialized themes and other conferences occasioned by extraordinary anniversaries designating significant events. To this category belong the First and Second National Conferences of Ethiopian studies, conference on Ethiopian Art, Gender Issues, and special occasion marking anniversary conferences, such as the centenary victory of Dogali, Adwa and the centenary anniversary of the founding Addis Ababa.

Public lectures, talks, etc., are other regular means of disseminating research outputs or progresses. The IES also organizes lectures and talks on pertinent topics, which are regular features attended by members of the international as well as local communities in the capital. Such programs are common features at the Institute and are used also to promote Ethiopian studies and to popularize the need for the preservation of Ethiopian cultural heritage.

The Institute of Ethiopian Studies has a rich tradition of disseminating research outputs in the forms of publications, conferences, and lectures and talks. The publications, both regular and occasional, include a reputed journal and books, proceedings, monographs and reports.