When one contemplates the remarkable expansion in research interest in African phenomena among social scientists on both sides of the Atlantic, the need for an up-to-date inventory of completed, continuing and projected research becomes increasingly apparent. Field research is costly; knowledge should be cumulative; reproduction ought to be systematic; and effective rapport with the human actors concerned should be scrupulously preserved. These and many other considerations dictate closer liaison among scholars everywhere in the organization and planning of future research on African subjects.

The purpose of this report is to provide a brief analytical survey of the character of research on Africa recently completed, or currently being pursued, by social scientists associated with European centers. There is, of course, a certain arbitrariness in focusing upon the state of research in European centers only, particularly in view of the very close organizational links between metropolitan institutions and associated research centers and institutes in the African territories. Moreover, as an increasingly greater proportion of the total research activity is being carried on by agencies established in Africa, a survey of the European centers provides us with only a partial picture of the overall dimensions of research sponsored and supported by the European countries concerned. In this report, however, space considerations unfortunately dictate this narrower focus upon the European side only.