Deadline: 1 June 2020
Private Enterprise Development in Low-Income Countries (PEDL) is inviting applications to this special Exploratory Research Grant (ERG) call for projects addressing the economic impacts of coronavirus.
These impacts are already being severely felt across the world and for many developing regions the worst is still to come. PEDL, alongside its new partner CDC Group, is looking to fund research that can inform policymakers and other stakeholders on the economic impacts of coronavirus in developing countries so that the costs can be mitigated as much as possible.
PEDL and CDC’s research focuses overlap in several areas, listed below are several examples of topics of particular interest related to coronavirus for each organisation. For PEDL, these areas include:
- Income transfers to labour and firms (of all sizes, both formal and informal)
- Disruption to markets
- Disruption to supply chains, especially those of critical sectors (e.g. food, export sectors with continued demand, etc.)
Areas of particular interest to CDC include:
- The provision of finance to large firms and the effectiveness of current financing models to deal with the impacts of coronavirus
- How firms will maintain employment relations and what are the most likely consequences for skilled and unskilled labour
- Disruption to supply chains as outlined above
The topics listed here are not exhaustive and, through the expressions of interest, they are happy to consider other areas that they believe are relevant.
Funding Information
- As with most ERG rounds, funding for this call is available between £10,000 and £40,000.
- ERG projects typically run for 12 months but this may vary depending on the research question.
Eligibility Criteria
- Only individuals can apply for a PEDL Exploratory Grant. PEDL Exploratory 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 applies also to Doctoral students.
- Please note that an important criterion for funding of proposals is the relevance to policy in low-income countries and other eligible countries as defined by the PEDL and CDC 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. For proposals of especial relevance to CDC, those in countries with higher investment from CDC are more likely to receive funding.
- Note that they are currently unable to fund projects located in Myanmar and Palestine.
For more information, visit https://pedl.cepr.org/content/special-call-proposals-economic-impacts-coronavirus