Deadline: 08-Dec-20
The Arab Council for Social Sciences is pleased to announce the launch of the eighth round of the Research Grants Program on the topic of “Health and Livelihoods in the Arab Region: Well-being, Fragility and Conflict”.
The program includes three courses on the same topic, and this session is the second of it. The Research Grants Program provides a funding opportunity that aims to support research across disciplines and different methodological approaches to major topics of interest to the Arab region.
Funding for this program comes from a grant provided by the Canadian International Development Research Center (IDRC), the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), and the Andrew W. Foundation. Melon for the Arab Council for Social Sciences.
The topic “Health and Livelihoods in the Arab Region: Well-being, Fragility and Conflict” responds to the ongoing economic and socio-political changes in the region, especially during the past decade that has witnessed conflicts and unrest that led to massive displacement and forced migration. These changes were accompanied by a sense of intense insecurity and social injustice, especially among vulnerable or vulnerable groups, which include refugees, displaced persons, and disadvantaged groups in host societies. At the same time, marginalization, social injustice, and deprivation have also spread among vulnerable groups in countries that have not witnessed major conflicts or socio-social changes. It is therefore important to explore and analyze the implications of these factors for health and well-being through social science approaches.
This call encourages the presentation of innovative research on health-related to the Arab region and the health crises and challenges raised and exacerbated by conditions of vulnerability, conflict, fragility, and insecurity. Research proposals must be innovative, demonstrate critical thinking, and adopt well-established approaches in the social sciences to study health in conditions of conflict and volatile situations in the Arab region.
Research Topics
Topics or research areas that the proposals could address include, but are not limited to:
- The intersection of health and livelihood in everyday life.
- The impact of migration (forced, voluntary, illegal, or otherwise) on health and well-being.
- The role of the global humanitarian system in providing health services at the national and local levels.
- The role of culture (local, global, and public), religion and faith, social structures and societies in shaping, supporting or undermining health care and health insurance.
- Experiences and narratives of fragility and resilience in the context of conflict and poverty.
- Healthcare systems: healthcare system structures and services in the Arab region; The impact and dynamics of global, regional, rural and urban healthcare systems.
- Biosecurity, National Sense, and Boundaries Control: Discourses, Politics, and the Politics of Health and Disease.
- Historical approaches to health in the Arab region (for example history of health practices, health and medicine under colonial, post-colonial and neo-colonial conditions).
- National policies and conditions for health within a global, political, and economic context (for example, neoliberalism and the privatization of health services, the role of companies affecting health conditions and food (insecurity) food).
- Study of health from an institutional perspective: the role of the state, NGOs, and practitioners in defining a healthy and sick body, and the impact of health education on societal understanding of health and well-being.
- Producing knowledge about health, livelihood and well-being in the Arab region: types of research, their agendas and their contents, validating international and local health procedures and concepts, global diagnostic tools and methods for implementing them in a local context, and developing locally established alternative tools.
- Ethics and Profession of Healthcare Professionals: Bioethics and the Relationship between Health Care Providers and Patients.
- Research ethics; And research on vulnerable groups in the context of conflict and violence.
- Pandemics, epidemics, and endemic diseases: responses and their implications for livelihoods, health care systems and providers, and patient experiences.
- The COVID-19 Pandemic: Differentiated Responses in Different Environments and Their Implications
- Artistic and cultural embodiments of medicine, health, illness and disease, care, and medical practice.
Funding Information
- Grants are available to individual researchers (each grant is up to a maximum of $ 20,000), research teams (each grant is up to a maximum of $ 35,000), and active research groups and institutions (each grant is worth a maximum of $ 50,000) who focus their research Mainly on Arab societies.
- The duration of the scholarship does not exceed 18 months for individuals and research teams (beginning on June 1, 2021, and ends on November 30, 2022), and does not exceed 24 months for active research groups and institutions (beginning on June 1, 2021, and ending on May 30. May 2023).
Eligibility Criteria
This program is open to individual researchers, research teams, active research groups, and institutions. For the purposes of this invitation:
- Research teams include researchers from institutions, geographical regions, and specializations themselves or from different institutions, geographical regions, and specialities, provided that they are interested in conducting multidisciplinary research on the mentioned topic.
- The Active Research Group is an independent and informal group of researchers who may not be registered as an institution, but have worked collaboratively on a specific topic or area of interest for many years. The group should have an operational (mission) statement and set of practices or outputs that reflect its identity and goals. Unlike research teams, which may include researchers from one or different institutions, in active research groups, only members of the same group are principally responsible for the research project.
- Institutions are formal legal entities, which may be a university or college in a university, a think tank, a non-governmental research organization, etc.
- Research teams, active research groups, and institutions must submit their requests within teams of no more than four members, including the principal investigator and co-researchers.
- In the case of individuals: researchers have:
- nationality of an Arab state (namely, the state Arab state affiliated with the League of Arab States).
- residents in the Arab country for a long time, (staff five years ago, at least in an organization based in the Arab region, And that they have produced academic work about the region, and will continue to reside in the region and participate in it for the foreseeable future.
- refugees and stateless persons from an Arab country and currently residing in the Arab region. Preference in selection will always be given to researchers currently residing in an Arab country.
Selection Process
- The review and selection process for proposals for funding will be undertaken by a multidisciplinary committee composed of prominent Arab researchers with a solid record of research and publications, as well as experience in research and teaching in the region, and they will review the proposals and choose which will receive funding.
- The selection committee adheres to the highest academic and ethical standards of judging.
Evaluation Criteria
Final decisions are based on the following evaluation criteria:
- Contribution to knowledge (research questions/relevance and innovation);
- The topic is related to the Arab region and the current call for submissions;
- A for the cohesion of the theoretical and conceptual;
- A comprehensive review of the literature;
- A sound methodological approach linked to the research objectives;
- A thorough discussion of ethical procedures for research and potential ethical challenges;
- Outputs (publication / potential impact);
- Feasibility of research (CVs / researchers qualifications / timetable).
By virtue of submitting the completed electronic application form, the applicants of the research proposals have agreed, without any objection, to the determined evaluation and selection results issued by the Selection Committee and the Arab Council for Social Sciences. The results will be communicated to applicants by the end of February 2021. Successful applicants receive initial letters of acceptance confirming their selection. They may receive requests for clarification and detail from the selection committee, if applicable. Unlucky applicants will not be informed of the specific reasons for their rejection.
For more information, visit http://www.theacss.org/pages/rgp-cycle8-call-for-proposals