Deadline: 11 April 2019
The Centre of Excellence for Development Impact and Learning (CEDIL) is pleased to announce a call for proposals for research projects to contribute to the Centre’s strategic agenda on impact evaluation and evidence synthesis.
The Programme is structured into three Programmes of Work which reflect priority areas for research to innovate and build capacity in the field of international development impact evaluation and evidence synthesis. These are:
- Evaluating complex interventions
- Enhancing the transferability of evaluation through middle range theory
- Enhancing the use and usefulness of evaluation findings
Project Types
- Evaluations: CEDIL will provide up to £1 million over three years for evaluation projects that work directly with development interventions to generate innovative approaches to impact evaluation. Evaluations are appropriate to deliver research objectives under PoW 1 (complex evaluations) and PoW 2 (middle-range theory).
- Secondary data analysis: CEDIL will provide up to £300,000 in funds over two years for projects which use and combine existing sources of data, including big data and other new forms of data, to develop and apply new methods to address evaluation questions. This would include retrospective impact evaluations using secondary data, including multi-country evaluations or simulations. These evaluations will not collect primary data in the field. Secondary data analysis projects are appropriate to deliver research objectives under PoW 1 (complex interventions) and PoW 2 (middle range theory).
- Evidence synthesis: CEDIL will provide up to £200,000 over 18 months for projects to develop and conduct innovative approaches to systematic reviews and other methods to synthesise research and evidence from impact evaluations published in scholarly and grey literature. Evidence synthesis projects are relevant to all three CEDIL programmes of work.
- Exploratory projects: CEDIL will provide up to £100,000 over one year for exploratory research projects in areas where substantial bodies of published research or datasets do not yet exist. Exploratory projects are relevant to PoW 2 (middle-range theory) and PoW 3 (evidence use).
Priority Themes
Along with improving the geographic range of impact evaluations, CEDIL also aims to increase the range of development sectors in which impact evaluations can be conducted. Projects will be prioritised which involve research in areas which do not yet possess a significant evidence base of impact evaluations. CEDIL has identified the following broad thematic areas in which it wishes to encourage evaluation research and which CEDIL’s current funder DFID has substantial policy and programming interest:
- Economic development, inclusive growth, trade, investment, infrastructure and building markets
- Governance, conflict, extremism, security and stability, justice
- Anti-corruption including illicit financial flows
- Humanitarian
- Migration and modern slavery
- Climate change and sustainable resource management.
- Accelerating use of family planning
- Education
- Disability and gender
- Nutrition
- Southern innovation and use of technology
Projects are not restricted to addressing these themes, but projects which work in sectors which have substantial bodies of evaluation evidence, and for which existing evaluation methods are wellsuited, are unlikely to be a priority for funding.
Eligibility Criteria
- CEDIL particularly encourages applications from or including researchers and evaluation practitioners in the Global South, particularly from the priority countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma/Myanmar, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Pakistan, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Yemen, Zimbabwe.
- Projects with strong intellectual leadership from southern partners will be prioritised.
How to Apply
Applications must be submitted online via given website.
For more information, please visit https://cedilprogramme.org/funding-opportunities/