From 1972 to his retirement in 2003 Paul Jenkins was the head of the Basel Mission archive and from 1989 a lecturer in African History at the Department of History of the University of Basel. As such he has been one of the central figures in the development of African Studies, especially research and teaching on African History, in Basel.

His scholarly publications focus on the history of the Basel Mission, the history of Ghana, the history of Christianity in Africa and Asia, and on the use of photographs as historical sources.

Before his time in Basel, he taught at the University of Ghana for almost ten years.  In 2006, he received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Theology of the University of Basel.  Since his retirement Paul Jenkins has continued to work as a private scholar concerned to promote improved accessibility to the holdings of the Basel Mission archive.  He has also extended his field of operations to include encouraging South Indian scholars to consider working with the Basel Mission archive, and to include the Basel Mission in their research programmes. 

• Gilbert, Michelle, Paul Jenkins, Michelle Gilbert, and Paul Jenkins, eds. 2024. The Reports of Theophilus Opoku: A 19th-Century Gold Coast Pastor. Fontes Historiae Africanae. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
• "Württemberg als Hauptsäule der historischen Basler Mission - transregionale Erwägungen über Entwicklungen bis 1914", pp. 19-54 in Blätter für württembergische Kirchengeschichte 116. Jahrgang, 2016.
• "Signs of an African Emancipation?  Slavery and its Resolution in the Reports (1868-1900) of a Ghanaian Pastor - Kofi Theophilus Opoku", pp. 126-155 in (ed.) Rebecca Shumway & Trevor Getz Slavery and its Legacy in Ghana and the Diaspora, Bloomsbury, London & New York, 2017.