The Innovations for
Poverty Action (IPA) is inviting applications
for the Peace & Recovery (P&R) Program to support field experiments and
related research on reducing violence and fragility, promoting peace, and
preventing, managing, and recovering from crises.
The program prioritizes studies that develop, illustrate, or test
fundamental theories of peace, violence, and recovery, especially those that
challenge common beliefs, pioneer innovative interventions, and produce
evidence where little currently exists.
Priorities
Priority funding areas include, but are not
limited to, the following:
- Participation and organization
of violence
- Social order without the state
- State and institution building
- Service delivery and
development in unstable or violent contexts
- Forced displacement
- Rehabilitation and recovery
from violence and building peace
- Crisis prevention, response,
and recovery
- Homicide in Latin America and
the Caribbean
P&R supports full
randomized trials, pilot studies, exploratory and descriptive work, travel
grants, and (in rare but deserving cases) non-experimental evaluations. Funding
for the Peace & Recovery Competitive Fund comes from the UK Foreign,
Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), and the Open Society Foundations
(OSF).
IPA’s Peace & Recovery Program (P&R) supports field
experiments and related research in several broad areas:
- Reducing violence and promoting
peace
- Reducing “fragility” (i.e.
fostering state capacity)
- Preventing, coping with, and
recovering from crises, focusing on conflict but including non-conflict
humanitarian crises such as COVID-19
Type of Funding
The P&R Program will
consider proposals for the following:
- Exploratory grants: These
grants are to develop preliminary research ideas. They expect these grants
to help researchers develop subsequent proposals for pilots or full
randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Awards are capped at $10,000.
- Pilot studies: These grants are
for studies with a clear research question, but for which the design and
implementation requires substantial upfront investments. The expectation
is that this work helps researchers develop subsequent proposals for full
RCTs. Awards are between $10,000 and $50,000.
- Full studies: These grants are
for research projects with a clear research question, committed
implementing partner(s), well-defined research designs, and statistical
power estimates. While most of the impact evaluations funded will be RCTs,
studies that use high-quality natural experiments will be considered in
exceptional cases when a randomized experiment is not possible. Awards are
between $50,000 and $450,000.
- “Infrastructure” and “public
goods” creation: This includes the creation of administrative datasets,
panel datasets, other new data, software, measurement strategies, and so
forth. Projects will represent a public good for the research community,
with data or tools that can be applied towards a range of purposes. Awards
are between $10,000 and $150,000.
- Reviews and meta-analysis of
relevant literatures: This includes but is not necessarily limited to the
experimental program evaluation evidence. Awards are between $5,000 and
$20,000.
- Evidence use and policy
outreach support: These grants support development of relationships with
policymakers, take-up and dissemination of evidence, sharing and analysis
of administrative data, and exploration potential experimental
evaluations. Awards are capped at $25,000.
Researcher Qualifications
- At least one researcher per
project must be affiliated with an academic institution or university, and
either hold a PhD or be currently pursuing a PhD in a relevant discipline.
- They must demonstrate
experience in field research and randomized evaluations and have sector
expertise. Successful applications will come from researchers with a track
record of published field experiments in top outlets.
- Practitioners and institutions
that implement interventions should partner with academics with strong
records implementing similar research studies in order to apply for
funding. IPA's P&R Program is available to support matchmaking with
researchers.
Focus Countries
- Proposals related to the first
seven core research themes will be eligible for funding from the UK
Department for International Development (DFID). A majority of DFID
funding must be spent in DFID priority countries. They will be able to
consider projects outside of this regional scope, provided they are in
fragile states or fragile regions in moderately stable states, but these
will have a lower probability of funding. This funding cannot support
research in high income countries.
- Proposals related to the eighth
core research theme, homicide in Latin America and the Caribbean, will be
eligible for funding from the Open Society Foundations (OSF). Only
projects in Latin America and the Caribbean are eligible. While they would
be particularly excited to receive proposals for projects in Brazil,
Colombia, Mexico, Jamaica, and the Northern Triangle (El Salvador,
Guatemala, and Honduras), proposals for projects across the region will be
considered.
Evaluation Criteria
Proposals are reviewed
by a rotating group of academic researchers. Projects are assessed against
five, equally weighted evaluation criteria:
- Academic contribution: Does the
study make a significant contribution toward advancing knowledge in the
field? Does it answer new questions or introduce novel methods, measures,
or interventions? Is there academic relevance? How does the study compare
with the existing body of research? Does the research strategy provide a
bridge between a practical experiment and underlying economic theories?
- Policy relevance: Does the
study address the priority questions outlined in the P&R Guiding
Principles and Funding Priorities document? Will results from the
intervention have generalizable implications? How, if at all, will the
“lessons learned” have relevance beyond this test case? Is there demand
from policymakers for more/better information to influence their decisions
in this area? Is there potential for the implementing partner to scale up
this intervention?
- Technical design: Does the
research design appropriately answer the questions outlined in the
proposal? Are there threats that could compromise the validity of results?
If so, does the proposal sufficiently address those threats? What changes
could the researchers make to improve the design? For full study
proposals, are there sufficiently detailed power calculations?
- Project viability Is the
relationship with the implementing partner strong and likely to endure
through the entire study? What is the credibility and policy influence of
the implementing partner?
- Value of research Is the cost
of the study commensurate with the value of expected contributions to
science and policy? Does the study leverage funding from other sources?
Post Date - 13-Oct-2020