Deadline: 1-Oct-20
NWO and the National Research Foundation of South Africa (NRF) aim to finance and strengthen scientific collaboration between the Netherlands and South Africa.
Consortia of research institutes and other organisations (both public and private) in the Netherlands and in South Africa can apply for funding of joint research projects that focus on the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus in urban contexts.
The aim of this call is to support research into the WEF nexus with a view to enable suitable policy responses at particularly the local government level in urban contexts. Studies should have a clear methodology explaining how the WEF nexus approach can be integrated in governance and planning to support decision making for resilient cities. Research projects funded in this call should focus on at least one of the following research foci:
- The current state of the WEF nexus in urban areas: Looking at e.g. interlinkages, synergies, and trade-offs between water, energy and food provision in urban areas, including challenges of communities and local governments in providing water, energy and food, temporal and spatial dimensions and their systemic and cumulative impacts and technical innovations.
- Governance challenges and socio-technical arrangements: Research on governance challeges may include e.g. capicities of municipalities, the alignment of sectors, the design and implementation of WEF policies and looking systematically at complexities and socio-technical tranformations and arrangements.
- Capacity building: Capacity building at local community, government and the educational sector, e.g. mainstreaming the WEF nexus in education and training, looking at pedagogies, perceptions and practices and focussing on citizen sciences and co-creating knowledge and co-learning of citizens, practitioners and researchers.
- Scaling for a regional/global perspective: Research into the urban WEF nexus in South Africa has the potential to be highly valuable for other contexts. Research proposals can include a focus on the potential for scaling up or out to national, regional or global levels.
Funding Information
- The total budget for this call is 1.4 Million euros on the Dutch side, and R6 Million (i.e. 360,000 euros) on the South African side. Projects can apply for a maximum of 700,000 euros at NWO for four years and a maximum of R3 Million (i.e. 180,000 euros) from the NRF for three years (not more than R1 Million, i.e. 60,000 euros per annuum).
Eligibility Criteria
Applications can be submitted by consortia consisting of the following:
- Dutch Principal Investigator, who will submit the application to NWO;
- A South African Principal Investigator, who will submit the application to NRF;
- A societal partner, such as a local or municipal government or NGO, or a partner from industry.
Your consortium may include additional applicants. However, it must include the above applicants in order to be eligible.
For more information, visit https://www.nwo.nl/en/funding/our-funding-instruments/wotro/merian-fund/cooperation-south-africa-the-netherlands/cooperation-south-africa-the-netherlands.html