Deadline: 22-Mar-24
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is launching, in partnership with the National Commission for the Fight against Terrorism, the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research as part of the project “ Tarabot ”, a call for proposals for the establishment of a research fund aimed at fostering a shared understanding of concepts related to violent extremism and relevant prevention strategies.
The call aims for the final production of scientific articles that support the design of action and advocacy strategies useful for public action, and it is intended for Tunisian researchers:
- Attached to a public research or higher education institution (doctoral student, postdoctoral researcher, doctor, including assistant professor);
- Independents (doctors).
The UNDP “Tarabot” project supports the organizational and structural development of the National Counter-Terrorism Committee and contributes to strengthening its capabilities in strategic programming and systematic monitoring of the implementation of the National Strategy to Counter Violent Extremism and Terrorism, including through the production and valorization of evidence-based knowledge and scientific approaches specific to the Tunisian context.
Objectives
- The research fund aims to achieve the following:
- Enhance knowledge of the social, cultural, economic and political dynamics that can fuel violent extremism, based on verified empirical data;
- Identify and promote innovative approaches to preventive interventions relevant to the Tunisian context, provided that these approaches are based on development priorities, the promotion of human rights, and the strengthening of comprehensive and cooperative strategies;
- Supporting the formation and structuring of a team of experts, bringing together researchers and practitioners in the field of preventing violent extremism within an exchange and participatory framework of knowledge and mechanisms.
Research Areas
- Disengagement, rehabilitation and reintegration
- Conduct practical research on disengagement, rehabilitation and reintegration interventions targeting former prisoners in connection with crimes of a terrorist nature;
- Evaluating the impact of public prison reintegration programs on preventing violent extremism;
- Measure public perception, host communities and/or victims of terrorism of the reintegration of returnees from abroad who were former violent extremist volunteers.
- Specific case studies on the forms and vectors of violent extremism
- Social representations and reconfigurations of forms of violent extremism specific to Tunisia;
- Biographical reconstruction of individual radicalization pathways that lead to violence;
- Violent extremist discourses resonate with changing trends in Tunisian society;
- Regional characteristics of manifestations and drivers of violent extremism (e.g. specific urban or rural locations, border/cross-border areas, regional dynamics, digital spaces and social networks).
- Evaluating violent extremism prevention interventions
- Evaluating the strategies of associations and private and public actors in the field of preventing violent extremism;
- Conduct practical research on programs to prevent violent extremism through education (formal and/or non-formal);
- Conduct practical research on programs to prevent violent extremism through religious education;
- Conduct practical research on programs to prevent violent extremism through art, culture and/or sports.
- Socialization processes and violence
- Sources and forms of violence in formal and informal socialization institutions (family, school, sports, etc.);
- Gender relations, socialization and masculine identities in relation to violence;
- Spreading rhetoric that promotes violent extremism online and on social media;
- Recursive pathways between online hate speech and real harms offline in terms of violence and social cohesion.
Funding Information
- The Research Fund provides support to its beneficiaries:
- Financial support for the implementation of the research ranging between 18,000 and 26,000 Tunisian dinars as a maximum, including a grant to the principal investigator not exceeding 20% of the total budget at the latest;
- Scientific and pedagogical supervision through the appointment of a supervising expert and other experts in the field from members of the Scientific Committee;
- Scientific and pedagogical support by providing a solid working space for the Center for Economic and Social Studies and Research, documentary and logistical resources, as well as organizing thematic and methodological training modules;
- Institutional support in establishing the necessary partnerships if necessary;
- Supporting the researcher’s career development through a networking system with experts, institutions, and civil society organizations.
Priority Projects
- The Fund gives priority to supporting research projects that:
- Involve one or more partners from the public, private and/or civil society sectors. The Research Fund Technical Committee can facilitate access to the necessary partnerships if deemed relevant;
- It seeks to propose innovative and useful action or advocacy strategies to prevent violent extremism;
- Demonstrates practical possibilities in supporting strategies to prevent violent extremism;
- Adopts a multidisciplinary approach.
Project Eligibility
- Selected projects must meet the following basic requirements:
- Be submitted by a “Young Researcher”;
- The research topic must fall into one of the above-mentioned themes and be based in the Tunisian context.
- The researcher must be Tunisian and the project must be implemented in Tunisia;
- That the project be implemented within a maximum of 12 months, including final drafting;
- Research cannot be exclusively bibliographic and must include an element of empirical data collection and interaction with research subjects;
- Not receiving external funding (other than UNDP);
- It must be of great practical importance and academic quality.
Eligibility Criteria
- To be of Tunisian nationality;
- Must be currently enrolled in a doctoral program or have his doctoral thesis approved after January 15, 2014.
- Candidates can be independent researchers or attached to Tunisian or foreign public research or higher education institutions: The candidate can be a student preparing his thesis, a post-doctoral researcher, a post-doctoral researcher, an assistant professor, or a researcher.
- And/or he is currently practicing his position as an assistant professor, provided that he has succeeded in the national competition for assistant professors after January 15, 2014.
For more information, visit UNDP.