JIAS - A Home of Ideas
Nestled in the heart of Johannesburg,the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study, directed byProfessor Victoria J. Collis-Buthelezi is a Global South hub for experimental, groundbreaking, transdisciplinary inquiry and creative practice informed by a commitment to theoretical innovation, social justice, decoloniality, and transformative praxis.
The Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS) is committed to fostering artistic creation, cultural critique, and interdisciplinary collaboration. By supporting research, JIAS advocates for the role of art in shaping society, challenging perspectives, and advancing knowledge. JIAS believes in the power of art to inspire change.
The Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS) is dedicated to advancing critical scholarship in the social sciences, with a focus on decolonial thought, Global South epistemologies, and the pursuit of epistemic justice. The institute supports scholars, activists, and practitioners in reimagining equitable frameworks for education, research, and social transformation. Committed to inclusivity and intellectual rigor, JIAS serves as a hub for rethinking power, knowledge, and justice from African and Southern perspectives.
JIAS interrogates the transformative potential of digital technologies as tools for liberation. Grounded in the realities of the Global South, JIAS fosters the development of community-rooted technologies that prioritize local knowledge and participatory design to promote frameworks that serve justice, ecological consciousness, and collective well-being. Through collaborative experimentation JIAS aims to empower communities to harness technology as a force for systemic change.
Host Your Event at JIAS
We offer our unique, intellectually vibrant micro-campus as a destination for workshops, seminars, conferences, book launches, and keynotes. By booking our venues and ensuite accommodation, you become part of a living community dedicated totheoretical innovation, social justice, and transformative praxis.Our facilities are designed to foster the kind ofgroundbreaking, transdisciplinary inquiry JIAS is known for. They provide the perfect environment for gatherings that aim to challenge perspectives, advance knowledge, and inspire change.
Global Blackness
Our Global Blackness project brings together scholars, activists, artists, and collectives who seek to meditate on Blackness as a global category of identification and its local iterations across diverse temporalities and geopolitical locations.Learn more
AI & Life Matters
AI & Life Matters research stream launched in 2025 as a space for rethinking digital infrastructures of power and media within a global order of colonial violence, climate injustice, and racial-sexual governance.
Our Values
Underscoring our renewed vision for JIAS are four key values:Repair, Regard, Community &Connection. We are committed to building a community of scholarship and creative practice, grounded in a Black, feminist, and queer politics of care.Learn more
Stay at JIAS
We offer ensuite accommodation for visiting scholars and guests. Extend the experience of your event or enjoy a productive stay in Johannesburg. JIAS offers ten private, comfortable ensuite rooms within our secure campus, ideal for:
Event speakers, participants, and visiting delegates.
Scholars, researchers, and writers on retreat.
International visitors seeking a connected, intellectually engaged base in Johannesburg.
Residents have access to our common areas and gardens, allowing for informal connection and continued conversation beyond scheduled events. It’s an opportunity to immerse yourself in the JIAS community.
JIAS at 10 -Join Us
As the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS) celebrates ten years of supporting intellectual and creative exchange, we are delighted to announce the launch ofConstituting a Black Archive — a five-part series curated under the directorship ofProfessor Victoria J. Collis-Buthelezi.
Drawing its title from Collis-Buthelezi’s forthcoming bookEnds of Empire, Black Liberation and Stuart Hall’s essay“Constituting an Archive,” the series asks what it means to think of the archive as a living, dynamic, and ongoing project. Through lectures, performances, and conversations, it brings togetherVictoria J. Collis-Buthelezi, Nombuso Mathibela, Danielle Bowler, Barbara Masekela, Makhosazana Xaba, andThuthuka Sibisi, whose work reimagines the archive with care, rigour, and creativity.
JIAS launched in 2015 as a flagship initiative of theUniversity of Johannesburg. Its mandate is to attract and nurture groundbreaking intellectual work, towards reshaping the direction of higher education not only at UJ, but across South Africa, the African continent and globally.
JIAS is one of three Institutes for Advanced Study (IAS) on the continent, and a member of theUniversity-Based Institutes for Advanced Study (UBIAS).
JIAS offers five fellowship programmes:
Writing Fellowships
Creative Writing Fellowships
Visiting Professorships
Research fellowships
Postdoctoral Fellowships
Since its inception, JIAS has supported over 170 fellowships and 350 public events, establishing itself as a key site for critical enquiry and community in Johannesburg. Each Director has brought unique ideas, projects, and value to the Institute. The team at JIAS remains indebted to these visionary individuals for their distinctive contributions.