CERGE-EI Announces its Ninth Regional Research Competition

CERGE-EI, with financial support provided by the Global Development Network announces a research competition in all fields of the social sciences. Proposals are invited from economists, demographers, political scientists, sociologists, and other social scientists. Projects with a significant commercial aspect or that propose funding the distribution of previous results (such as book preparation) rather than original research are explicitly excluded.

Proposals must be postmarked by 01 July 2008.

The sponsors have identified several priority areas of research. While funding for research in other areas will be provided, projects in these areas will receive priority:

I. Enterprise Development and Behavior including Corporate Governance and Restructuring
II. Labor Markets including Retirement, Social Assistance and Health Economics
III. Globalization including Regional and International Economic Policy Coordination
IV. The Reform Process including Public Finance, Fiscal Burden, and Taxation
V. Education including Educational Policy, Reform, Funding and Outcomes

Funding Details

Maximum funding will be US $20,000 although it is expected that the vast majority of grants awarded will be for substantially smaller amounts. Grants in excess of US $15,000 will be granted only in exceptional cases. The median grant awarded to start in January 2008 was approximately US $9,000. Grants must begin no later than 31 December 2008 and end no later than 31 December 2009, although a six-month no-cost extension request may be made during the year.

Applicants must be residents of any of the following countries: Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Kosovo (UNMIK), Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia. Applicants must be resident for the substantial majority of each year in the country from which they are applying although they may be of any nationality or citizenship. Graduate students now outside of the region are encouraged to collaborate with current residents but will not be considered residents unless they provide credible evidence of an intention to return to Central Europe after completion of their degrees (an example of such evidence would be a binding labor contract with an employer granting leave for study).

Applications may be submitted by individuals or teams of researchers. In the latter case, at least 50% of the researchers must be residents of eligible countries. No grant funds may be used to pay compensation to non-residents. Grant funds may, however, be used to pay travel and other direct costs required to enable participation by non-residents if such participation serves a clear scientific purpose. No applicant can submit or be a part of more than one proposal. Formal application must be made by an institution with which the applicant is affiliated and that will administer funds if awarded. No funds may be paid directly to individuals. Examples of eligible institutions include universities, research institutes or non-profit organizations. Administrating institutions may charge no more than 10% of the total grant as overhead.

In the interest of diversity, no grants will be made to persons who have served as a principal researcher in a GDN Regional Research Competition-funded grant in the past three years.

Funds will be released one-third upon award of the grant, one-third upon receipt of a progress report at the mid-point of the grant and one-third upon receipt of final deliverables from the grant. Where this schedule would result in a serious hindrance to the proposed research, the applicant may petition for funds to be released on a different schedule after award of the grant. Final deliverables must include at least one formal research paper that has been submitted to an international peer-reviewed journal. Proof of submission will be required.

All successful applicants must agree to come to Prague to present a seminar on the completed work at CERGE-EI’s expense if requested. In addition we anticipate smaller workshops involving recipients in the various thematic areas held either at CERGE-EI or other regional institutes in order to facilitate development of links across researchers.

Proposal Submission

Seven (7) complete printed copies of all proposals must be submitted (preferably double-sided and bound). In addition, all materials should be included on a CD or diskette in WordPerfect (.wpd), Word (.rtf or .doc) or Acrobat (.pdf) format. All proposals must be submitted in English.

Proposals must be postmarked by 01 July 2008 and sent by courier or post to:

CERGE-EI
GDN RRC9 Proposals
Politickych veznu 7
11121 Prague 1
Czech Republic

In order to ensure against postal problems, when a proposal is sent, an e-mail indicating that it should be expected should be sent to:

Proposals must, however, be submitted in hard copy and on diskette. No e-mail submissions will be accepted.

Proposals must include the following seven components:

1. A cover sheet clearly specifying the project title, thematic area addressed from list of priorities if any, names of principal researchers, mailing address and e-mail contact addresses (very important - e-mail will be used for follow-up requests and questions).

2. An abstract of no more than 200 words outlining the significance of the research and the methodology to be used.

3. A research proposal of no more than ten (10) doubled-spaced pages showing sufficient familiarity with the topic and methodology to provide confidence in the project’s successful completion.

4. A bibliography of relevant literature.

5. CVs of all principal researchers.

6. A budget in USD showing expenses in all categories. While the categories will vary from grant to grant, they should, where applicable, include as a minimum:

• Salaries and other compensation for the grantee(s) (including payroll taxes and fringe benefits);
• Salaries and other compensation for research assistants and clerical personnel (including payroll taxes and fringe benefits);
• English Editing Fees;
• Grant related travel;
• Equipment Purchases;
• Data and software purchases;
• Materials, supplies, telecommunications charges;
• Institutional Overhead.

7. A letter signed by a responsible officer of the sponsoring institution agreeing to administer the grant.

Proposal Review Process & Evaluation Criteria

Applications will be screened to ensure that they fall within the terms of reference for proposals. All qualified proposals will receive two to three external reviews. Anonymous reviewers' comments will be shared with applicants after the final selection of grants to be funded. Final selections will be made by an independent panel of senior scholars considering the external reviews along with the evaluation criteria enumerated below.
The primary criterion will be the scientific merit of the proposed research. Scientific merit will be evaluated based on:

• Clarity of the proposed research question.

• Originality (preference will be given to projects that develop new methodologies or use the transition experience to obtain new insights into fundamental questions rather than those that call for mechanistic application of conventional techniques to new data).

• Use of the most modern and appropriate techniques.

• Competence of the principal investigator(s).

Other things equal, preference will be given to projects that:

• Are relevant to current policy concerns and interests of the World Bank, broadly defined. For an overview of the types of research of interest to the bank, please see http://econ.worldbank.org.

• Are cost effective. Smaller proposals will receive priority over larger ones in order to increase the number of projects that can be funded.

• Request funds for direct research expenses rather than income augmentation (i.e. could not be undertaken without the proposed grant). It is recognized, however, that low academic incomes often mean that scholars in the transition economies must supplement their base salaries from other sources including research grants and that grant support may facilitate research output by enabling scholars to substitute scholarly for non-academic activity (such as corporate consulting).

• Promote cooperation between residents of eligible countries and scholars from those countries who currently reside elsewhere (including advanced graduate students).

• Increase the geographic, disciplinary, ethnic, gender, or other diversity of funded proposals.

• Expand the pool of research-active scholars in the region.Preference will be given to proposals from researchers who have not been awarded grants in previous competitions. Proposals by past grant recipients should include significant changes in team composition and/or research topic.

Each team will receive an e-mail confirming receipt of their proposal by 15 August 2008, and final award decisions will be announced in early December 2008. Questions and inquiries may be addressed to:

Prague, April 2008