Research Grant Competition on Urbanization and Development in Francophone Africa.

The Global Development Network’s (GDN) and the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs have issued a call for proposals for the Research Grant Competition on ‘Urbanization and Development: Delving Deeper into the Nexus-Francophone Africa Component.’

This research grant seeks to support systematic research that addresses fundamental issues on urbanization and development in Francophone Africa as well as provides opportunities for researchers from this region to engage in dialogue with other researchers and policy makers.

Topics

The topics to be covered include (but are not limited to):

• Cities as Engines of Growth
• Agglomeration Economies and Urbanization
• Urban Externalities: Congestion, Contagious Disease and Crime
• Urbanization and Poverty
• Innovation, Technology Infusion and Smart Cities
• Migration and Urbanization
• Ethnic Minorities and the Urbanization Process
• The Enabling Policy Environment: Housing, Transportation and Other Public
• Infrastructure
• Urban Governance
• Financing Urban Infrastructure

Eligibility

1. The research grant is open only to researchers in Francophone African Countries with the requirement that the applicants (researchers) need to be citizens and permanent residentsof any one of these countries. They could either submit the research proposal individually or jointly as a team.
2.  The Research Team Leader and at least half of the research team must currently be residing in one of the Francophone African countries and should be affiliated to an organization headquartered in one of these countries.
3. Citizens of Francophone African countries temporarily residing in any other country are also eligible to apply as part of rest of the team.
4.  The upper age limit for applicants is 45 years as of January 31, 2013.
5.  Staff members of multilateral and bilateral organizations (World Bank, IMF, UN agencies, DFID, AusAID, AFD, AfDB, etc.) and previous employees of the GDN are not eligible to apply,although they can be brought in as advisors later.
6. The proposal should not be receiving or scheduled to receive funds from other sources, unless it is clearly explained how the additional funds provided by the grant would reinforce the existing funds for successful completion of the research.
7. Applications that have multidisciplinary research teams and/or are joint applications from researchers with affiliation to different institutions based in Francophone countries are welcome.

Grants

The grant aims at supporting ONE research case study. The amount of the grant is around US $25,000 for the proposed research and it will be awarded to the organization/researcher(s) for whose proposal to conduct research in this theme holds the greatest promise for improving our understanding on issues pertaining to the above mentioned theme in Francophone Africa.

How to apply?

1.  The Research Team Leader must send the research proposal in the provided application template.
2. Research Proposals must be submitted in English.
3.  Completed applications and other supporting documents (listed below) must be submittedas electronic attachment to the following email address: ssangita@gdn.int with the subject line “Research proposal for Urbanization – Francophone Africa Component”.
4.  Incomplete applications will NOT be considered.
5. Please note that all forms of academic dishonesty are unacceptable to GDN, plagiarism being one of them.

LIST OF DOCUMENTS TO BE SUBMITTED AS A PART OF THE APPLICATION

• CVs of all of the research team members, along with any another supporting document.
• Copy of the passport of all the research team members as an evidence of the eligibility criteria 1, 2, 3 and 4 as mentioned above.
• A brief profile of the organization of affiliation of the Research Team Leader.

The deadline for submission of proposal is 31 January, 2013.

For More Information: Download the Call for Proposal of Research Grant Competition on Urbanization and Development in Francophone Africa.