Research Grants: Economics of Climate Risks, Natural Resource Use, and Environmental Change

Focus Areas

• They seek concept notes related to themes linked to areas of work within ICIMOD’s strategic groups:
  • Economics of reducing climate and environmental risks – e.g. understanding the economics of
    • cryosphere changes and associated risks;
    • multi-hazard disaster risks;
    • nature-based solutions for disaster risk reduction;
    • disaster risk financing;
    • sustainable river basin management (e.g. irrigation, drinking water, electricity generation, as well as up-and downstream water management); and
    • air pollution, examining the potential data collection and monitoring approaches, policies, solutions, and communication strategies.
  • Resilient mountain economies and landscapes – e.g understanding the economics of
    • sustainable and resilient mountain livelihoods (e.g., economics of yak/chauri herding or rangeland management; economics of climate-resilient, organic, and inclusive agriculture; sustainable tourism; clean energy; and sustainable settlements);
    • policies and institutions and their responses to enhance green, circular, and transformative livelihoods in the face of climate and environmental change;
    • economic valuation and incentive-based mechanisms that help restore mountain ecosystems/landscapes;
    • incentive-based mechanisms that address human–wildlife conflict or co-existence; and
    • economics (e.g. cost effectiveness) of springsheds and wetlands management.
  • Economics of global mechanisms and policies and their impacts on the delivery of climate, environment, and biodiversity objectives at local and/or national levels or addressing regional and transboundary risks. This can include covering issues such as adaptation, mitigation, loss and damage, biodiversity conservation, sustainable use, and access and benefit sharing and Indigenous people, and/or examining the role of National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs), Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), and National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans (NBSAPs). These issues can equally be linked into any other project covering work areas 1 and/or 2.

Themes

• Currently, SANDEE’s research activities focus on three prioritized research themes:
  • Ecosystem management: Ecosystems provide a variety of provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural services. With human activities, some of these services are being lost at an accelerating rate. Changes in ecosystems have short-run as well as long-run implications for livelihoods and the health of natural systems. Research on ecosystems management will focus on:
    • Understanding the implications of ecosystem changes for economic and social systems
    • Economic analysis of conserving ecosystems and their services by evaluating costs and benefits to different stakeholders, especially the poor
    • Examining different institutional arrangements to manage ecosystem services
  • Economics of climate change: With climate change, South Asia is expected to face more variation in temperature and precipitation, more extreme weather events, and sea level rise over time. These changes are affecting millions of poor people in South Asian countries. Research on economics of climate change will focus on:
    • Evaluation of the impacts of climate change
    • Economic analysis of adaptation measures
    • Evaluation of the mitigation strategies, particularly those that offer local co-benefits
    • Examination of institutions and policies that need to be in place for low carbon growth and long-term adjustment to climate change
  • Policies and programs for greener development: Governments and other organizations in South Asia put forward a variety of regulations and policies to manage local to global environmental problems. There is a need to examine alternate policy options and to evaluate their impacts in order to ensure that they are on a sustainable path. Under this theme, research will focus on:
    • Program evaluation of the impacts of environmental policies, regulations, and programs
    • Assessment of the economic incentives associated with different regulatory and market mechanisms and their contribution to policy compliance

Funding Information

• Grants are likely to be in the range of USD 20,000–30,000 over a two-year period.

Eligibility Criteria

• SANDEE welcomes concept notes that involve interdisciplinary projects, cross-border collaborations, and transboundary topics with a mountain and gender focus, but a clear identification of the roles and responsibility of each team member is needed.
• Researchers from and working in South Asia and the HKH region are eligible to submit concept notes.
• Women researchers from the South Asia and HKH region are encouraged to apply.
• To avoid conflict of interest, researchers whose relatives are working at ICIMOD and current consultants are not eligible for receiving the research grant.
• Principal investigators (PIs) must be junior to mid-career professionals employed by a university, research institute, or other similar institutions in the region, including government agencies and non-profit organisations. Senior researchers (professors, directors, and other similar level/positions) are not eligible for the research support/grant.
• Institutional affiliation of the PI is mandatory for receiving research support. While submitting a full proposal (not needed for concept notes), a support letter from the institution where the PI is affiliated is required for further consideration.
• Due diligence of the grant hosting institutions will also be conducted before awarding the research grants.

Selection Criteria

• Regardless of whether concept notes submitted in response to this call focus on any of the climate/environmental/natural resource and development issues, SANDEE will prioritise the selection of concept notes that have a strong economics component and methodology, and the dual potential to produce high-impact scientific publications and information that are useful to regional-, national-, provincial-, or local-level policy makers in the region.

For more information, visit ICIMOD.