Are SANDEE
grants mainly for economists or can non-economists apply?
SANDEE seeks to promote economic analyses of environmental
problems. Thus, most of the grants we support have economists
as principal investigators |
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Who
is eligible to apply for a SANDEE grant?
SANDEE grants are generally made to individual researchers.
SANDEE encourages academic junior and mid-career economists
to apply for grants. We also encourage post-graduate students
working on Ph.D. dissertations to apply. Senior researchers
and full professors are ineligible because of SANDEE’s
focus on capacity strengthening. |
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Are
SANDEE grants restricted to academic researchers or can NGOs
apply?
SANDEE’s focus is to strengthen rigorous academic research.
NGOs can apply for SANDEE grants. However, these grants are
generally made to individuals, which makes it difficult for
NGOs to seek our support. We encourage researchers to work with
NGOs and policy makers. |
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Can
teams of researchers apply for SANDEE grants?
Yes, a team of researchers can apply. However, the team will
need to include an economist, who is preferably, the principal
investigator. |
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If
a team of researchers applies for the grant, does it need to
be a multi-disciplinary team?
Yes and the proposal needs to be very clear about how each person
and discipline contributes to the study. |
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Does
SANDEE provide grants for South Asians living outside South
Asia?
Grants are made available to South Asians outside South Asia
only if they are graduate students attempting to undertake field
research for their dissertation. This is done to encourage students
studying abroad to focus their dissertation research on a topic
relevant to their country. |
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Does
SANDEE provide grants to non-South Asians seeking to undertake
research in South Asian countries?
No. However, we will provide support for South Asians working
with non-South Asians. The proposal will need to be written
by the local research collaborator for his/her work. |
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Can
SANDEE grants be used to support trips overseas for conferences,
internships etc?
SANDEE grants may be used, under certain circumstances, for
travel within South Asia. For example, a Nepali researcher may
need to visit Delhi to do a literature survey – this is
acceptable if a strong case is presented in the proposal. However,
SANDEE grants cannot be used for conferences or study tours
outside South Asia. |
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How
important is it to follow SANDEE’s 15 page limit?
Very important. We sometime receive long proposals – this
actually works to the disadvantage of the researchers since
reviewers, who review a number of proposals, find this tedious.
Please add appendices if you need to – however, the most
important information you want to convey should be in the main
text of the proposal and should be restricted to 15 pages (12
point font). |
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Do
I need to include a draft questionnaire to the proposal if I
am undertaking a field survey?
Yes, we are now asking for draft questionnaires based on requests
from our reviewers. Proposals without questionnaire that involve
a field survey will no longer be accepted. |
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| What
is the process for getting a SANDEE grant?
SANDEE solicits proposals two times each year. Once you meet
the deadline, proposals are recorded and acknowledged by email.
They are then reviewed by the SANDEE’s Program Director
and the best proposals are sent out for external review. Included
among the reviewers are SANDEE management and advisory committee
members. Each proposal that is sent out for review is generally
reviewed by 2-3 senior researchers. Based on reviewer comments,
research applicants receive a letter that will either ask
them to re-submit for the next round of grants, reject their
application, or ask them revise their proposal and re-submit
within a month’s time so that they can defend their proposal
at a SANDEE meeting.
Invited researchers will need to discuss
their proposals at SANDEE’s research meeting with advisory
committee members and peers. Based on the researcher’s
presentation and the discussion that follows, SANDEE’s
advisory committee will make a final decision about the grant.
All researchers who are denied a grant are eligible to re-submit
their proposal for the next round.
|
| Who
is on SANDEE’s Management and Advisory Committee?
SANDEE’s management
and advisory committee currently include
| 1. |
Dr. A.K. Enamul Haque
East West University, Bangladesh |
| 2. |
Anna Maria Oltorp
SIDA, Sweden |
| 3. |
Dr. David Glover
IDRC, Canada |
| 4. |
Prof. Jeffrey Vincent
University of California at San Diego, USA |
| 5. |
Prof. Karl-Goran Maler
The Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics,
Sweden
(Special Advisor) |
| 6. |
Lucy Emerton
IUCN – The World Conservation Union, Asia |
| 7. |
Prof. Partha Dasgupta
Cambridge University, UK |
| 8. |
Dr. Priya Shyamsundar
Program Director, SANDEE |
| 9. |
Dr. Shanta Devarajan
The World Bank, Washington |
| 10. |
Dr. Rehana Siddiqui
Pakistan Institute of Development Economics |
|
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| What
are some common mistakes to avoid in developing a proposal for
SANDEE? |
| There
are several simple changes that can improve the chances of a
proposal. The most common and very important drawbacks are: |
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|
| a. |
Long
and detailed introduction |
|
Researchers sometimes
write 2-3 pages of introduction when 2 paragraphs would
suffice. Reviewers get lost when they read such long-winded
introductions and it is hard to identify the real issues
involved. |
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|
| b. |
Broad
goals and research questions |
|
|
Sometimes, research
goals are presented so broadly (they extend through entire paragraphs)
that reviewers have to actually interpret what the research
questions are. This is a big drawback and makes one wonder if
the researcher really has a clear idea about what he/she is
proposing. Research questions/goals should be simple, direct
and clear. |
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|
| c. |
Over-ambitious
research studies |
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This is a key problem in most
proposals. In many many proposals, researchers lay out a number
of goals/questions and don’t really address how each of
those goals will be answered in the study. Another subset of
proposals first identify a long list of goals and then really
discuss only a subset of these goals. Neither model is appropriate.
The former indicates that the proposal is over-ambitious and,
the latter confuses the core issues that the researcher is trying
to addresses. SANDEE funds studies that are simple but are well
done. We request researchers to identify a small number of goals,
to really follow them through in the proposal and, to show the
study will actually answer these goals. |
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|
| d. |
Long
and detailed description of the study area |
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This is equally problematic.
Researchers often feel they have to write everything they know
about a study area in their proposal. Much of this is completely
irrelevant to the question they are asking. More, in this case,
is definitely, not better. Researchers need to include only
what is needed to show that the researcher really understands
the local context and the question he or she is raising in the
proposal. |
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|
| e. |
Irrelevant
literature survey |
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This
is one of the most common problems in research proposals. Proposals
include literature surveys rather than literature reviews –
this is inappropriate.
The
literature review should:
| » |
identify who
(internationally or nationally) has worked on the type
of questions the researcher is trying to address; |
| » |
identify any
theoretical literature that may be relevant to the study;
|
| » |
identify what
some methodological concerns may be and how other studies
have dealt with these issues; and, |
| » |
identify local
literature that may be useful for the study. |
The
literature review should not:
| » |
Provide references
to environmental economics theory in general or to broad-based
text books in the field. |
| » |
Should not
provide references to or details about every study that
has been undertaken. For example, often researchers refer
to practically every important study on poverty-environment
that has been undertaken without clearly saying why this
is relevant to their study. |
| » |
Should not
include references unless they can add a few sentences
showing the link between there reference and their study.
|
| » |
Should focus
on new work rather than studies undertaken years ago,
unless they are referring to a classic study. |
| » |
Should not
include just a list of references – this does not
tell us anything. |
|
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|
| f. |
Adding information in the theoretical
section even if the researcher has nothing relevant to say |
|
SANDEE tries to encourage research that
really understands the theoretical and empirical aspects of
the study. This is why we have included a theory section in
our proposal format. However, if the researcher does not have
anything significant to say, he/she should say nothing. |
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|
| g. |
Very broad hypothesis |
|
Hypothesis should be testable. If they are
broad and laden with sub-hypothesis, then this should be acknowledged.
The researchers should then try to test the sub-hypothesis.
Hypothesis that are broad statements are more likely to be opinions
rather than testable hypothesis. |
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|
| h. |
Weak
methodology section |
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Many proposals start out strong but it isn’t
clear from the methods section that the researcher knows what
he or she is likely to do with the data that is collected. Often,
the researcher proposes to collect lots of data and suggests
that somehow the data will be analysed using econometric techniques.
This is insufficient. The author needs to present at least a
preliminary idea of what some methodological concerns may be
and how he/she will try to solve these concerns. What kind of
an equation will be estimated? What tools will be used to estimate
this? Will the sample size be sufficient? |
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|
| i. |
Lack
of links between research questions, hypothesis and research
analyses |
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This is a glaring problem in many proposals.
The hypothesis need to follow directly from the research questions.
The researcher then needs to show that the analyses will actually
help test the hypothesis presented. Often, researchers start
with strong hypothesis but say nothing about how these hypothesis
will be tested – this should be the focus of the methodology
section. |
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