The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) is inviting proposals from interested and eligible researchers for Research Field Fellowships to work on ICRISAT-NCAP-IRRI project on Village Dynamics Studies in India and Bangladesh.
The project entitled “Tracking Changes in Rural Poverty in Household and Village Economies in South Asia”, also known as Village Dynamics Studies in South Asia (VDSA), will involve analysing poverty dynamics and livelihoods of the poor in semi-arid tropics and humid tropics in some of the South Asian countries. The project will also involve studying the different issues related to efficiency and sustainability of agriculture in these countries.
ICRISAT is a non-profit, non-political organization that conducts agricultural research for development in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa with a wide array of partners throughout the world. Covering 6.5 million square kilometres of land in 55 countries, the semi-arid or dry-land tropics has over 2 billion people, and 644 million of these are the poorest of the poor. ICRISAT and its partners help empower these poor people to overcome poverty, hunger and a degraded environment through better agriculture.
Project Themes
The VDSA project gives priority to the following research themes, based on their importance in policy focus, relevance to the VDSA mandate, and their widespread applicability across resources and regions:
- Development pathways and poverty dynamics
- Public investment and supply response
- Diversification: Farm and non-farm including migration
- Gender, Nutrition and Health
- Technology adoption and impacts
- Governance
- Management of natural resources and common property
- Labor market
- Impact of risk
- Impact of credit and credit constraints
- Other relevant topics on current emerging issues
Funding
Fellowships will provide support for a maximum of 15 months and must be held for a single continuous period between November 2011 and June 2013. Exclusive of the cost of collecting supplemental data, the expected grant size will range between US$ 5000 and US$ 8000.
Eligibility
A full-time researcher or a PhD student in the social sciences or humanities and a national of any Asian country (Bangladesh, China, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam, among others) is eligible to apply for the fellowship. In case of a PhD student, the applicant must have completed all his PhD requirements except fieldwork and dissertation by the time the fellowship begins.
VDSA can only fund research carried out in collaboration with ICRISAT, NCAP or IRRI. Collaboration with an institution (research organization or NGO) in the country or countries of research and collaborative proposals are encouraged, but not compulsory. National institutes in developing countries may initiate the research project but the substantial involvement of ICRISAT, NCAP or IRRI is required.
Funds will be remitted to the lead center identified in the RFP, which will be responsible for accounting and deliverables.
Last date for submitting the proposals is November 15, 2011.
For more information, visit this link.
