Christopher Isike, PhD is a Professor of African Politics, African Development and International Relations at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. He is an immediate past Vice President (2016 – 2018) of the South African Association of Political Studies (SAAPS) and currently one of four Vice Presidents (2018 – 2020) of the International Political Science Association (IPSA).

An Africanist scholar by research standpoint, Prof Isike teaches Strategic and Security Studies (Undergraduate and Honors levels) and Security and Strategic Theory at the Masters level. A C rated researcher by the National Research Foundation (NRF), Prof Isike has over 50 publications in top national and international peer-reviewed journals including chapters in books published by reputable publishing houses such as Palgrave McMillan and Cambridge Scholars. Prof Isike serves on the Editorial Board of several international journals such as the International Political Science Abstracts. In 2008, Prof Isike alongside his doctoral supervisor at UKZN, Prof Ufo Uzodike founded the Forum for Constructive African Scholarship (FCAS), a research think-tank committed to producing knowledge by Africans for Africa. To this end, in 2009, FCAS established Affrika: Journal of Politics, Economics and Society which was accredited by IBSS in 2017.

Prof Isike consults for the UNFPA, UNICEF, UN Women and the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government on gender equality and women empowerment issues in the province. In recognition of his work on gender equality in Africa, he was selected by the South African government to be part of a KwaZulu-Natal government delegation to Ethiopia on a study tour to explore its social transformation model in ending early childhood/forced marriages in 2013. In 2015, Prof Isike had a 12-months sabbatical stint as Senior Research Advisor at the Shell Petroleum Development Company in Nigeria where he was a programme monitoring and evaluation specialist in the External Relations Department of the company.

Apart from IPSA, Prof Isike has extensive international research collaboration networks with scholars through his membership of the Canadian Association of African Studies (CAAS), EPOS; Global Conflict Mediation and Resolution Network and the Ontario International Development Agency (OIDA). He is also a staff member of Resilience Peace; a research network of scholars led by the University of Bristol which is committed to exploring resilient peacebuilding actors, cultures and policy transfer in West Africa and is funded by the Worldwide Universities Network’s Research and Development Fund