Call for Applications: Exploratory Research Grants Program

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

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.

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.

Cross-Cutting Themes

PEDL also encourages proposals that address three cross-cutting issues:

• Fragile and conflict affected states
• Gender
• Scaling up Research into Policy

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.
• Please note that contracts should be signed within one month of the outcome notification, which is also the expected start date for the projects.
• ERGs are designed to be contracted directly with individual researchers. The individual researcher will be responsible for receiving, spending and reporting on funds. There should be no institutional involvement.

Country Criteria

• PEDL priority countries include all LICs and FCDO-focus LMICs. They are particularly interested in generating research in countries on which less research is currently being conducted. This means that countries with very active research (e.g., India and Indonesia) are lower priority. Proposals for research in these countries will need to justify why the research needs to be carried out there, and how the results are relevant to PEDL priority countries.
• PEDL will consider proposals for research in non-listed 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-target 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.