Deadline: 31-May-23
The Private Enterprise Development in Low-Income Countries (PEDL) is pleased to announce an open call for the Exploratory Research Grants Programme 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.
Objective
The objective of PEDL is to fund cutting-edge, policy-oriented research that could be published in leading academic journals and be relevant to the policy dialogue in LICs. It will promote research related to private enterprises of all sizes and invites applications in any aspect of private sector development, with a particular emphasis on PEDL’s three priority research areas:
- Innovation, Organisations and Markets
- Climate and Environment
- Finance and Entrepreneurship
Themes
- They are particularly interested in proposals related to the work of British International Investment (BII), the UK’s development finance institution. These will address the impact of development finance on private sector development.
- PEDL also encourages proposals that address three cross-cutting issues:
- Fragile and conflict affected states
- Gender
- Scaling up Research into Policy
- ERGs are designed to allow researchers to:
- Explore new approaches to the study of firms in LICs; and
- To develop new (or build on) existing sources of data on firms in LICs.
Categories
- Data Acquisition/Field Work
- Travel
- Research Stipend
- Research Assistance
Funding Information
- ERGs are grants of between £10,000 and £40,000. These grants will fund research assistance, data collection and new surveys in LICs, and (if necessary) teaching buyouts for the principal investigator.
- ERGs typically run for 12 months.
Eligibility Criteria
- Only individuals can apply for an ERG. The grants will be issued through a contract between CEPR and the successful applicant directly. In exceptional circumstances, a contract with an institution can be issued, but the contract will be non-negotiable, and the institution cannot take any overheads. This also applies to doctoral students.
- PEDL invites applications from researchers located anywhere in the world.
- You may apply as a team, but only one researcher should submit the proposal as the representative of the team. That individual will be the named individual on the contract and will be responsible for the project implementation, should it be successful.
- The programme is open to mixed / multi-disciplinary approaches. However, the core of the approach should be related to the literature in economics and grounded primarily in economic issues.
- Only those who have been explicitly invited to do so may resubmit a previously unsuccessful proposal.
Notes
- PEDL will consider proposals for research in other LMICs but they should make a clear case for the relevance of the research to policy in LICs, and also justify why the research is only feasible in a non-focus country (e.g. because of exceptional data availability). Note that they are currently unable to fund projects located in Myanmar and Palestine.
For more information, visit PEDL.