Call for Submissions: India Sustainable Growth Hub Grant

The India Sustainable Growth Hub (ISGH) is a collaboration between the Centre for Research on the Economics of Climate, Food, Energy and Environment (CECFEE) at the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) Delhi and the International Growth Centre (IGC) based at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

Their focus in India is on sustainable growth: how can India continue to grow rapidly while protecting its environment? India rightly has ambitious development goals, aiming to become a developed country by 2047. Despite immense progress on growth, environmental degradation has worsened.

Themes

Firms, trade, and productivity – Projects that look at investments that can raise firm productivity and lower externalities. This includes understanding the effects of various environmental policies on firms.

State effectiveness – Because the nature of environmental externalities involves market failure, there is a key role for the state to be involved in facilitating sustainable growth.

Cities – Making cities more productive and inclusive while addressing the downsides of density and ensuring resilience to climate change. Cities, done right, can be havens for climate resilience. Done poorly, they can amplify vulnerabilities for those in poverty.

Energy and environment – Improving access to reliable, cost-efficient energy, supporting the transition to clean energy, reducing global and local environmental externalities, and more effectively managing natural capital. This theme emphasises how India can source the energy to power its growth and how it can best preserve its threatened natural assets.

Climate Change and Macroeconomics – This theme focuses on the macroeconomic risks and opportunities posed by climate change, and how India can align economic stability, growth, and its green transition.

Data and Methods – They welcome proposals that create broadly useful, policy-relevant datasets using novel data sources or methods. Proposals that generate reusable data assets aligned with their core research areas are especially encouraged.

Types of Grant

Full research grants: These grants are for fully developed research projects. Not only must the research question be clear, but applicants must also demonstrate a commitment from implementing partners (if applicable), well-defined instruments, and a clear and compelling research design.

Small research grants: These grants are for pilot studies and exploratory research. They also encourage applicants who want to work purely on administrative data to apply through this window.

Funding Information

Full research grants: All full research grants will be capped at GBP 40,000.

Small research grants: All small grants will be capped at GBP 15,000.

Eligibility Criteria

They encourage any local researcher to apply for these, but in particular PhD students and early-career researchers.

They welcome applications for either grant from individuals and teams led by a Principal Investigator (PI) who is based in India and affiliated with an Indian institution.

Before applying, please carefully review the following:

The lead-PI must be based in India and specialising in economics or related social sciences (please note, all PIs should be pursuing or have obtained a PhD). The ISGH is committed to equal opportunities for researchers from all over India, and particularly welcomes proposals from a wide variety of institution types – this includes universities, research and policy institutes, government as well as non-government organisations. The host institute for the grant from IGC needs to be an organisation registered in India.

Please see below for some guiding principles:

Any researcher based in India is allowed to apply for the full research grant and the small research grant.

A single researcher can be included in more than one proposal during the same call for proposals with different proposals. A single institution is allowed to submit multiple proposals. If multiple proposals are submitted, the researcher and/or institutions involved should have the capacity to conduct the research according to the proposed timescales.

The Lead PI of a proposal must hold or be currently pursuing a PhD. The Lead-PI should also be based in India. Co-PIs generally should have the same qualifications, but candidates with a master’s degree can be considered. Co-PIs can be based anywhere in the world.

The ISGH will not fund projects that are purely qualitative, not grounded in sound economic research principles, or not relevant to India.

Applications that are in line with ISGH Research Priorities, empirically rigorous, advance their knowledge about inclusive growth policy, and have strong value for money are favoured.

Evaluation Criteria

Policy impact: The potential for significant and direct policy impact from the research, reflecting both the importance of the policy target and the current and future engagement with relevant policymakers. ISGH will favour projects with high policy relevance and impact.

Alignment with research strategy: Does the research question address the ISGH research priorities identified in the Innovation, Growth and the Environment Paper and ISGH Research Priorities?

Quality of research design: This captures the academic rigour and quality of research design. Only projects that can demonstrate methods likely to produce valid and reliable results are considered.

Academic impact: The potential for research to advance scientific understanding of a particular issue, by significantly contributing to the existing literature and being published in a high-profile economic journal.

Engagement with local institutions: ISGH prioritises proposals that involve local researchers, use researchers embedded in a ministry or government agency, and/or partner with local institutions. This includes PIs who reach out to country teams during proposal development or who have strong track records of engagement with policymakers.

Value for money: This involves scrutinising the budget and considering whether it is cost-effective. Key questions to consider: is the budget proportional to the task? Could the same results be achieved more inexpensively? Do the costs reflect local market rates?

For more information, visit IGC.