Local and international students interested in a deeper exploration of Nigeria’s Nollywood can now do so on scholarship at the School of Media and Communication, Pan-Atlantic University, Lagos. It is courtesy of a three-year PhD scholarship collaboration between Pan-Atlantic University and Goethe Universitat, Frankfurt, Germany.

The scholarship will pay for tuition and research, accommodation, maintenance, and international study exchange travel.

The School of Media & Communication said the scholarship “is within the framework of the interdisciplinary research project, Cultural Entrepreneurship and Digital Transformation in Africa and Asia [CEDITRAA], which Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung funds.”

The SMC added: “The scholarship will specifically seek to contribute to and expand the sustainable framework that interrogates the inter-related issues of how Nollywood responds to the vectors of creativity, economics, ethics and technology; how Nollywood creates value, distributes value and earns value; and how Nollywood is integrating into the knowledge economy. In particular, the scholarship will seek to contextualize Nollywood’s practice of virtual reality against perceived international best practices.”

The School of Media & Communication offers a two-year MSc in Film Production. Its study facilities include the Nollywood Study Centre and a video and audio studios suite for practical work. It also runs the BA, MSc and PhD in Media and Communication.

Scholars will spend time in the SMC’s Nollywood Studies Centre established to study and progress work on the Nigerian film industry

The three-year scholarship amounts to N7.4m. It breaks down into tu ition and related fees at N4.9m plus living costs of N1.72m per annum and the travel of the international study exchange at N747, 361. It is also open to international students whose travel costs the scholarship will fund.

Interested applicants have between 20 May and 20 June to express their interest. SMC requires a “bio-essay/intellectual biography referencing key signposts on your life’s journey: where you are coming from, where you are and where you are headed and two academic references”. Other requirements include evidence of journal publication and chapter in a book [not exceeding 25 pages for each], MA/MSc thesis and

a proposal on a thesis topic [not more than 15 pages; the title should not exceed 15 words] and an abstract [not exceeding 150 words] based on the aim/objectives of the scholarship.

Goethe University commenced in 1914 as a unique “citizens’ university,” financed by wealthy citizens in Frankfurt, Germany. Named in 1932 after one of the city’s most famous natives, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, today the university has over 48,000 students. It is the third-largest university in Germany. The 2019 Shanghai academic ranking of world universities ranks among the top 100-150 and the top 5-7 within Germany.