The PEDL Competitive Research Grants Programme comprises Major Research Grants and smaller Exploratory Grants. Grants will be awarded on a competitive basis, with applications solicited from researchers throughout the world.
PEDL will give particular encouragement to proposals which address three cross-cutting issues:
- Fragile and conflict affected states: The importance of the interaction between growth and conflict provides a very compelling case for supporting research in this area. A critical bottleneck to research on firms in conflict-ridden areas is the availability of data. But if researchers are able to overcome this issue, there is tremendous potential for research on private enterprise development in conflict-ridden states.
- Gender: For proposals for research on issues that operate at the level of the enterprise, PEDL will encourage proposals which take into account differences in gender.
- Unlocking data for understanding markets and firms: A key to drawing new researchers into topics of private sector development in LICs is making relevant data more widely available. Of course, the data generated by any project must be made available to other researchers to the extent allowed by confidentiality or purchase agreements. But data generated by projects are not all equal in this regard. Where researchers can make a case that the data generated by their project is likely to be of particular interest to other researchers, we will consider providing additional funding to allow the researchers to make the data more accessible to the research community.
Exploratory grants
ERGs are designed to allow researchers to:
- explore new approaches to the study of firms in low-income-countries (LICs); and
- to develop new (or build on) existing sources of data on firms in LICs.
ERGs are grants of between £10,000 and £40,000. These grants will fund research assistance, data collection and new surveys in low-income countries, and (if necessary) teaching buyouts for the principal investigator. Please note that cost effectiveness and value for money are important evaluation criteria.
For more information on these grants, including information on submitting a proposal, please visit the ERG page.
Major Research Grants
MRGs are designed to allow researchers to:
- build on and expand previous exploratory research on the study of firms in low-income-countries; and, more generally,
- conduct research on the study of firms in low-income-countries at a large scale
MRGs have an average grant size of £300,000. Note however that while there is a lower limit of £100,000 for each MRG, there is no upper limit. These grants will fund research assistance, data collection and new surveys in low-income countries, and (if necessary) teaching buyouts for the principal investigator. Please note that cost effectiveness and value for money are important evaluation criteria.
For more information on these grants, including information on submitting a proposal, please visit the MRG page.
