CGIAR Standing Panel on Impact Assessment (SPIA) is seeking Expressions of Interest (EoIs) under three calls.
1. Country-level studies of the dynamics of agricultural innovation in Ethiopia, Uganda, Vietnam, Bangladesh
Scope of call
CGIAR Standing Panel on Impact Assessment is seeking Expressions of Interest (EoIs) from research teams interested in leading longitudinal research on the adoption and impact of agricultural innovations in Ethiopia, Uganda, Vietnam and Bangladesh. In each of these four countries, SPIA has built up a program of panel surveys in which detailed agricultural modules are integrated in nationally-representative household surveys. Having demonstrated the viability and novel insights of this approach, we are now looking to contract with research teams to build on these foundations and to extend the work for several additional years.
The core research questions that guide this work focus on CGIAR innovations and include:
- What is the reach of improved agricultural innovations in country X? (i.e. what share of households / communities are using new agricultural innovations?)
- How does the adoption of innovations vary over time? Which kinds of households adopt / adopt then disadopt / never adopt these innovations? Is adoption correlated with particular dissemination programs by government / NGOs / private sector?
- When an innovation is shown to have been adopted at a large scale, what are its impacts on individuals, households, markets, the agri-food system writ large, and/or the environment?
- How can new measurement approaches (e.g., remote sensing, DNA fingerprinting, text mining, etc.) be deployed for tracking adoption of innovations at a national scale?
For each country study, they aim to contract over a six-year period (3+3 years, with a mid-term evaluation) starting late 2024 or 2025. Given the nature of the work, we expect the strongest research teams to have excellent local collaboration partners and involve researchers from multiple disciplines, including economics, other quantitative social sciences, and biophysical sciences (e.g., genetics, soil science, health/nutrition). Researchers from CGIAR institutions are not eligible to apply with an EoI. We anticipate these being significant research grants of up to $2 million USD per country over a six-year period, but final budget limits will be announced at the full proposal invitation stage.
More information
2. Country-level studies of the dynamics of agricultural innovation in Colombia, Nigeria, Egypt and India
Scope of call
CGIAR Standing Panel on Impact Assessment is seeking Expressions of Interest (EoIs) from research teams interested in leading longitudinal research on the adoption and impact of agricultural innovations in Colombia, Nigeria, Egypt and a cluster of states in northern India including Odisha and Bihar. SPIA has identified these four countries as forming phase two of a program (that started with Ethiopia, Uganda, Vietnam and Bangladesh - see Phase 1 call for EoIs) that aims to build a panel in which detailed agricultural modules are integrated in nationally-representative household surveys.
The core research questions that guide this work focus on CGIAR innovations and include:
- What is the reach of improved agricultural innovations in country X? (i.e. what share of households / communities are using new agricultural innovations?)
- How does the adoption of innovations vary over time? Which kinds of households adopt / adopt then disadopt / never adopt these innovations? Is adoption correlated with particular dissemination programs by government / NGOs / private sector?
- When an innovation is shown to have been adopted at a large scale, what are its impacts on individuals, households, markets, the agri-food system writ large, and/or the environment?
- How can new measurement approaches (e.g., remote sensing, DNA fingerprinting, text mining, etc.) be deployed for tracking adoption of innovations at a national scale?
For each country study, they aim to contract over a six-year period (3+3 years, with a mid-term evaluation) starting late 2024 or 2025. Given the nature of the work, we expect the strongest research teams to have excellent local collaboration partners and involve researchers from multiple disciplines, including economics, other quantitative social sciences, and biophysical sciences (e.g., genetics, soil science, health/nutrition). Researchers from CGIAR institutions are not eligible to apply with an EoI. We anticipate these being significant research grants of up to $3 million USD per country over a six-year period, but final budget limits will be announced at the full proposal invitation stage.
More information
3. Scoping studies on agricultural innovations in 12 countries (Ghana, Mali, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Malawi, Philippines, S India, Nepal, Morocco, Guatemala, Peru)
Scope of call
CGIAR Standing Panel on Impact Assessment is seeking Expressions of Interest (EoIs) from research teams interested in carrying out initial scoping reviews on the adoption and impact of agricultural innovations in a set of twelve countries (Ghana, Mali, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Malawi, Philippines, S India, Nepal, Morocco, Guatemala and Peru). Researchers from CGIAR institutions are not eligible to apply with an EoI. Each of these scoping reviews is anticipated as being funded with a research grant of up to $250,000 USD per country.
More information
EoI timeline – Key dates
- ASAP: Register for a webinar here
- By 5 Jan 2024: Submit questions for us to address in the webinar
- 9 Jan: Webinar with Travis Lybbert and James Stevenson (9am EST / 2pm London / 5pm Nairobi / 7:30pm Delhi)
- 15 Jan: EoI application portal goes live
- 31 Jan: Deadline for EoI submission
- Feb-March: Clarifying discussions between SPIA and EoI researchers
- March-May: Invitations will go out to prepare full proposals
- June-Sep: Full proposals due (two months after invitation)
- July-Oct: SPIA review of proposals
- Sept-Dec: Decisions / contracting
- Contracts to begin ASAP after 1 Oct 2024
Webinar for applicant Q&A
SPIA Senior Research Fellow James Stevenson and SPIA Chair Travis Lybbert will be hosting a webinar on Tuesday 9 Jan 2024, giving a short presentation and answer any questions that prospective EoI applicants may have. Please submit questions in advance here. The website for this Call will be updated with additional clarifications and FAQs to reflect this virtual discussion.
