Call for Research (ORD) Proposals - Global Development Awards Competition 2024

The Global Development Network (GDN) invites researchers from low-income or middle-income countries to submit research proposals within the theme ‘Sustainable Climate Action for Human-Centered Development‘ for the Japanese Award for Outstanding Research on Development (ORD).

The Award

The Japanese Award for Outstanding Research on Development is a competitive research grant program under the umbrella of the Global Development Awards Competition (GDAC), administered by GDN, funded under the Policy and Human Resources Development Fund (PHRD) trust fund managed by the World Bank, and generously supported by the Ministry of Finance, Government of Japan. This award program identifies and funds outstanding research proposals in low- or middle-income countries with high potential for excellence in research and clear policy implications for addressing development issues.

The three winning projects will receive grants worth US$ 60,000. Finalists will be invited to join a communications training in preparation of a pitch of their project in front of a high-level Jury, which will decide which research proposal to award. The awards will be given to the researcher(s) whose proposals hold the greatest promise for improving our understanding of development issues and puts forth clear, articulate and well researched policy implications to address relevant developmental problems.

The first prize winner will receive a grant of US$ 30,000. The second prize and third prize winners will receive a grant of US$ 20,000 and US$ 10,000 respectively. The funds will be used to support the research work proposed by the winners towards the completion of their research. Additionally, awardees will be paired with world-class academic in their area of work who will play the role of a Scientific and Technical Advisor.

Gender Bias

GDN recognizes the imbalance in the opportunities provided to women in professional research, as well as the consequences of unconscious gender bias in review processes in environments across the world. GDN also recognizes the impact these factors can have on the prospects of women researchers in securing awards and funding.

Since the 2022 edition, GDN embed more equitable grant-making processes to guarantee that more women can compete and win while still maintaining a high-quality standard on the evaluation. Therefore, GDN instituted a selection process for GDAC where we will make all efforts to guarantee gender representation amongst the 3 finalists of the ORD category.

The first prize winner will receive a grant of US$ 30,000. The second prize and third prize winners will receive a grant of US$ 20,000 and US$ 10,000 respectively. The funds will be used to support the research work proposed by the winners towards the completion of their research. Additionally, awardees will be paired with world-class academic in their area of work who will play the role of a Scientific and Technical Advisor.

Selection Process

Once the submission of proposals is closed, a multi-stage review process will be used to select the winners. The review process will follow the blind review process wherein identities of the authors and reviewers will be concealed to eliminate any selection bias. The proposals will be reviewed at all stages on the basis of the review criteria given in the next section.

●     In the first stage, a preliminary assessment will be undertaken by GDN staff to check for eligibility, originality and coherence.

●     The eligible applications are then reviewed by external scholars in two steps. At a first step, Lot 1: First level review, reviewers will be selected to conduct a first assessment of proposals on the basis of the ORD selection criteria and shortlist the best proposals taking into consideration the process GDN installed to counter gender bias. The shortlisted applicants receive comments from reviewers and are allowed to update their proposals and respond to the reviewers’ comments. At the second step, Lot 2: Expert level review, experienced researchers review the shortlisted proposals, and select the three finalists of the ORD category. The final ranking is validated by the Panel Organizer, selected based on her/his professional experience from the Lot 2 reviewers. Reviews at all stages are triple and blind.

●     The final selection of proposals will be undertaken by the ORD High-Level Jury, after a public presentation of the projects by the finalists. The decision of the Jury will be final.