The Office of African Studies is interdisciplinary in its hosting and promotion of research. It has hosted a number of conferences and visiting researchers over the years. In addition to hosting the IV the triennial meetings of the International Sudan Studies Association (June 1997), and the Sudanese Cultural Festival (September 1996), the Office of African Studies has also hosted workshops on issues pertaining to refugees, women, and children, reconstruction of war torn communities, and a number of workshops on alternative policies for Sudan. Visiting fellows at African Studies have included scholars from scholars from Somalia, Sudan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. Their projects have included studies of Eritrean women, the displaced Sudanese, and Sudanese-Egyptian relations.  Currently OAS is hosting the Group for Alternative Policies for Sudan (GAPS) a network research project linking Sudanese researchers at home and diaspora and the Working Group on Reconstruction of War Torn Communities in The Middle East and Africa (RWCMEA) which is a collaborative research project initiated by OAS and MEAwards and a number of scholars from AUC. RWCMEA's first workshop was held in May 2000 and the second held in 2002.

OAS plans to maximize its locational advantage in cosmopolitan and strategic Cairo to initiate and foster collaborative research and cooperation between the Northern and Southern parts of the continent. It facilitates exposure of African researchers to international scholarship; serves as a vehicle for North-South dialogue with particular emphasis on forging links with the emerging and spectacularly growing community of African scholars in diaspora; and contributes to capacity building in African academia through fellowships, short sabbaticals and exchange programs.