IN A move unprecedented in the African media space, Nigerian media organisation, Sundiata Post has launched two complementary international scholarly repositories: the Sundiata Post Dataverse on Harvard Dataverse and Sundiata Post Elements on Zenodo. Both are maintained by the Sundiata Post Knowledge Lab (SPKL), the institution’s research and knowledge-production unit.
According to a statement released on Monday by Ms Vivian Daniel, Manager, Sundiata Post Knowledge Lab, Sundiata Post Dataverse (https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/sundiata-post) sits within Harvard University’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS) platform. It serves as the institutional home for research datasets, empirical materials, indicators, methodologies and technical documentation generated through Sundiata Post’s work and collaborations. The repository focuses on themes of insecurity, sovereignty, state capacity and governance relevant to Nigeria, Africa and the Global South.
Sundiata Post Elements (https://zenodo.org/communities/sundiata-post-elements/) is a dedicated community on Zenodo, the multidisciplinary open repository operated by CERN. It concentrates on Media, Security and Sovereignty in Africa and the Global South, providing a venue for research papers, working papers, conceptual frameworks, reports and other scholarly and policy outputs.
Together the platforms give Sundiata Post permanent, citable infrastructure for preserving, organising and disseminating research data and intellectual products—an unusual step for an African media organisation.
From news reporting to enduring knowledge infrastructure
The move reflects a deliberate expansion of what an African media institution can be. Beyond covering events and shaping public discourse, Sundiata Post is building the capacity to generate research, develop analytical frameworks, preserve empirical evidence and contribute to international scholarly and policy conversations.
Through SPKL, the organisation is institutionalising the link between journalism and research. The repositories will also host the analytical tools developed in-house, including the Insecurity Triad, the Trinity of Sovereignty Decay (TSD) and the Decoupling Sovereignty Index (DSI). The DSI offers a structured way to examine the gap between a state’s formal juridical sovereignty and the lived experience of sovereignty among its population and institutions.
Open to global collaboration
Sundiata Post is inviting scholars, research institutions, newsrooms, international organisations and development agencies working on Nigeria, Africa and the Global South—particularly on media, security and sovereignty—to contribute datasets, working papers, reports, frameworks and methodologies.
Partnerships will help preserve and share relevant research, expand access to evidence, and strengthen the knowledge base that informs scholarship, policy and public understanding.
Officially unveiled in 2015, Sundiata Post is an African media, intelligence and knowledge institution focused on Nigeria, Africa and the Global South. It reports news, generates intelligence and produces knowledge. The Sundiata Post Knowledge Lab (SPKL) coordinates its research and maintains the new repositories.
Its founder, Dr Max Amuchie, is a scholar-journalist, media executive and researcher, and an Expert Member and Peer Reviewer in Behavioural and Social Sciences at ScienceOpen.
