Deadline: 31-Mar-22
The Private Enterprise Development in Low-Income countries (PEDL) research initiative invites applications from PhD students to the Sixth Special Call for Proposals of its Exploratory Research Grants (ERG) programme.
A key goal of the ERG programme is to encourage research on issues related to private enterprise development in low-income countries by young scholars. While students are eligible to apply to any ERG funding round, they are issuing a special call exclusively for PhD students in order to encourage broader participation in the programme.
Areas
PEDL welcomes proposals on any topic related to firms in lower-income countries, but are particularly interested in projects in the following areas:
- Market frictions, management and organisations
- Trade and macro models – agglomeration and spatial location of firms
- High growth entrepreneurship
- Social compliance, climate change, and the environment
PEDL is running a concurrent open call for proposals on Climate Change and the Environment, and encourage proposals under this PhD student call that address the topics specified in that call. They also particularly encourage proposals that address one or more of PEDL’s three cross-cutting themes:
- Fragile and conflict affected states
- Gender
- Unlocking data for understanding markets and firms
The PEDL programme pursues a research agenda that aims to better understand what determines the strength of market forces driving efficiency in low-income countries (LICs). Existing research suggests that the private sector in LICs faces a multitude of constraints that act upon each other. What is needed is research that allows them to understand how these constraints interact.
Funding Information
- ERGs are grants of between £10,000 and £40,000.
- ERG projects typically run for 12 months.
Eligibility Criteria
- Please note that an important criterion for funding of proposals is the relevance to policy in LICs and other eligible countries as defined by the PEDL Programme.
- Proposals for projects outside the focus countries should make a clear case for the relevance of the research to policy in lower-income countries, and also justify why the research is feasible only in non-target countries.
- Note that they are currently unable to fund projects located in Myanmar and Palestine.
For more information, visit https://pedl.cepr.org/content/6th-special-erg-call-proposals-phd-students