The Institute's sixtieth Executive Council meeting took place at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon in September 1987 and was preceded by a Gulbenkian Foundation workshop on Social Science and Development in sub-Saharan Africa in which most of those who attended the Council meeting participated. We are very grateful to our Portuguese Executive Council member, Dr Victor de Sa Machado, and his Gulbenkian colleagues for arranging the meeting, which, through the good offices of Carlos Medeiros, was jointly organised with our Portuguese partner, CEPCEP (Centro de Estudos dos Povos e Culturas de Expressao Portuguesa). Dr Roberto Carneiro, the Minister of Education, presided at the closing ceremony at this very useful stocktaking of Africanist research which underlined the continuing international role of the International African Institute.