completed· Education

Evidence for innovation: project development grants

This initiative supports seven project-development grants and one capacity-strengthening consultancy. The project-development grants were recommended for funding through the Evidence for Innovation call for proposals. This funding opportunity has two streams: full research grants (‘direct-entry') and project-development grants (‘stage 1’). The project-development grants were introduced in the expectation that some teams would benefit from additional time and support to undertake background studies and networking activities before submitting an in-depth proposal. The overall aim of this funding opportunity is to generate new evidence on the performance and the distributional impacts of innovation-support programs for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with a geographic focus on the least-developed countries. This integrative approach to understanding both the firm/economic performance of SME-support programs as well as their social impacts integrates equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) analyses. It stems from an interest in promoting evidence-informed decision-making as well as understanding how economic policies can support social-development goals (such as gender equality). The research findings are expected to demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of targeted and non-targeted EDI initiatives for the SME sector and the collaboration with innovation agencies is expected to influence their policies and practices. Development grants will support teams in two or more countries to undertake preliminary analysis of innovation-support policies or programs for the SME sector, network with public and/or private agencies implementing SME-support programs and develop a concrete proposal for an in-depth study. During this 12-month period, the responsible officer and consultants supported through this grant will organize peer-learning webinars and methodological training to support teams developing their research proposals. This project supports teams in Bangladesh, Benin, Cambodia, Ghana, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Nepal, Senegal, Somalia, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.