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Darwin Initiative Round 24
Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs
The Darwin Initiative is a UK government grants scheme that helps to protect biodiversity and the natural environment through locally based projects worldwide. The initiative funds projects that help countries rich in biodiversity but poor in financial resources to meet their objectives under one or more of the biodiversity conventions. The objective is to to address threats to biodiversity such as: - habitat loss or degradation - climate change - invasive species - over-exploitation - pollution and eutrophication
British Academy Coherence & Impact - Challenge-led grants: Urban Infrastructures of Well-being
DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
This programme supports interdisciplinary research across the social and engineering sciences and the humanities looking to explore how formal and informal infrastructures interact to affect the well-being of people in cities across the Global South.
British Academy Core - Challenge-led grants: Sustainable Development
DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
This programme funds excellent, policy-oriented UK research, aimed at addressing the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and advancing the UK’s Aid Strategy. It supports researchers in the humanities and the social sciences working to generate evidence on the challenges and opportunities faced in developing countries and respond to the Sustainable Development Goals. The Academy is particularly keen to encourage applications from the humanities in this round.
SFC - GCRF QR funding
DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
Formula GCRF funding to the Scottish Funding Council to support Scottish higher education institutes (HEIs) to carry out ODA-eligible activities in line with their three-year institutional strategies. ODA research grants do not represent the full economic cost of research and therefore additional funding is provided to Scottish HEIs in proportion to their Research Excellence Grant (REG). In FY19/20 funding was allocated to 18 Scottish higher education institutes to support existing ODA grant funding and small projects. GCRF has now supported more than 800 projects at Scottish institutions, involving over 80 developing country partners.
Global Challenges Research Fund Evaluation
DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
The overall purpose of the GCRF evaluation is to assess the extent to which GCRF has achieved its objectives and contributed to its intended impacts.
Transformation Project - ODA Reporting Tool (ODART)
DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
The Reporting ODA Digital Service (RODA) is the data submission, processing, reporting repository system for data on BEIS R&I ODA Eligible Programmes delivered by Delivery Partners
UUKi Delivery Support
DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
These are delivery cost for shared learning workshops/training and best practice (for current and future applicants) on ODA assurance, eligibility, reporting and partnership working through either the NF and GCRF
ODA website - cross-cutting for both ODA funds
DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
This is the website for NF and GCRF consortia that promotes funding calls and impact case studies as well as publishing report such as the annual report and monitoring and evaluation documentation.
Ad-hoc GCRF activity on BEIS Finance system
DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
Increased contributions towards a range of research projects jointly funded with DFID, and funding for the Devolved Administrations for disbursement to universities within the devolved regions to fund the full economic cost of GCRF ODA research.
DfE NI - GCRF QR funding
DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
Grant to Department for the Economy, Northern Ireland to enable Northern Irish higher education institutes to carry out pre-agreed ODA-eligible activities in line with their institutional strategies. For Queen’s University Belfast in FY2019/20 this included: workshops in Cambodia, Vietnam, South Africa, and Uganda about health and education; 11 pilot projects spanning 16 eligible countries (Angola, Burundi, China, Colombia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Kosovo, Malaysia, Nigeria, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam and Zimbabwe); and additional support to GCRF and NF-funded activities. For Ulster University in FY2019/20 funding supported six pump-priming projects on: LMIC maternal, neonatal and child health; PTSD in Rwanda; Decision-Making in Policy Making in Africa and Central Asia; and hearing impairment and dementia in China.
HEFCW - GCRF QR funding
DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
Additional GCRF funding to the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales to support Welsh higher education institutes (HEIs) to carry out ODA-eligible activities in line with their institutional strategies. ODA research grants do not represent the full economic cost of research and therefore additional funding is provided to Welsh HEIs in line with their research council grant income. In FY19/20 funding was allocated to Aberystwyth University, Bangor University, Cardiff University and Swansea University. In FY19/20, the funding was used to fund: the full economic cost of existing ODA eligible activities (e.g. already funded by GCRF); small ODA-eligible projects; fellowships to ODA-eligible researchers; and to increase collaboration and impact. 53 ODA-eligible countries have been reported as benefiting from the funded work, with Brazil and India the most frequently mentioned. By region, the largest number of projects were based in the LDC’s (Least Developed Countries) in Asia, South America, and East Africa, with only a few projects in the middle-income countries such as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Georgia.
ODA BEIS analysts - cross-cutting for both ODA funds
DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
ODA BEIS analysts. For the monitoring and evaluation and learning for NF and GCRF
AMS Coherence and Impact - Global Health Policy Workshops
DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
Researchers play an important role in driving sustainable impacts on health and welfare by participating in policy development. In many LMICs, poverty correlates with poor health; we are working with partners in LMICs to convene researchers and stakeholders to generate independent, expert health policy advice, based on evidence from research.
Language development in Arabic-speaking children in the early years: tackling the roots of academic and social inequalities
DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
The developmental period from 0-4 years lays the foundations of an individual's life-course, setting the trajectory for their long-term outcomes in health, education, employment and wellbeing. Language is at the heart of this trajectory. Because "skill begets skill" (Heckman, 2008), addressing language difficulties at this stage brings much greater gains and economic returns than when children are older. In the Arab world policy-makers tend to focus on later remedial programmes, with much reduced chances of 'narrowing the gap', especially for socially disadvantaged children. Across any population ~7% of children do not reach expected levels in language development. This corresponds to ~23 million children and adolescents with language difficulties in Middle Eastern and North African countries. Whilst these difficulties are found across the social spectrum, their prevalence is higher in socially disadvantaged families, reaching up to 40% in some UK schools. This 4-year project is a multi-disciplinary collaboration between two UK universities (Newcastle and Plymouth) and the University St Joseph (Beirut), the Jordan University of Science and Technology, and Birzeit University (West Bank), with activities covering Egypt, Jordan, the West Bank and Lebanon. It brings together a team of linguists, psychologists, speech and language therapists, paediatricians and educators to develop the necessary knowledge and tools for effective Early Years policy in Levantine countries and Egypt. Our aim is to address the lack of culturally sensitive and standardised tools to measure language development in Arabic-speaking children, as a primary indicator of healthy development and the foundation skill for education. For this, we need to show the feasibility of a multi-dialect approach, and we need to quantify the effects of social disadvantage, multilingualism and childcare mode on language development. We also need to estimate how war-related traumas impact trajectories of language development in the region. Finally, we need to raise awareness of the importance of early language skills in the public and policy makers, empower end users with tools to screen children for language delays and provision for language-centered curricula, and disseminate the expertise of local practitioners for prevention and interventions. In WP1, we adapt and standardise the Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) across all four countries. The CDI is the Gold Standard parental questionnaire to assess vocabulary and language development in infants aged 8 months to 4 years. In WP2, we focus on Lebanon, where the multiethnic and multilingual situation creates an acutely complex picture. Using the CDI as an investigation tool, we define an accurate measure of social disadvantage and examine how the diversity of childcare mode impacts language skills. We evaluate the most efficient way to account for multilingualism by comparing the Arabic CDI to the Lebanese trilingual CDI. Finally, with the CDI, the ASQ (5 developmental domains) and the SDQ (socioemotional skills), we paint a full picture of developmental trajectories in Syrian and Palestinian refugee children in settlements and camps, to circle back contextualised information to NGOs and policy makers. In WP3, we set up a key stakeholder group and co-design appropriate methods to maximise the impact of knowledge gathered from WP1 and 2. In particular we develop an app version of the standardised CDI, providing free assessment and culture-specific, parent-centred activities. We co-create a series of social media campaigns, professional training events, seminars for practitioners and policy makers. With refugee families, we promote and evaluate Early Years activities geared towards getting children ready for school and reducing dropout rates. Beyond the focus on Lebanon, we assess the exportability of these initiatives to partner countries, with the long-term goal of reaching out to the rest of the Middle East.
Palestinian Bedouin at risk of forced displacement: IHL vulnerabilities, ICC possibilities
DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
This project seeks to better understand the humanitarian impact of continued forcible transfer of the Bedouin communities living in E1, Jerusalem, and how impunity for violations of international law contributes to the deterioration of humanitarian vulnerabilities. Through qualitative enquiry, combining desk based research and first hand semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders, the project will gather together a significant body of evidence to highlight to ongoing deleterious impact of repeated violations of IHL (and impunity for violations) on those living at the sharp edge of the situation in Israel-Palestine, namely the Bedouin communities of E1. In their 2017 report, Humanitarian Facts and Figures: Occupied Palestinian Territory, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs noted that forced displacement is listed as one of the four key drivers of humanitarian vulnerability. The report highlighted that, "between 2009 and 2016, Israeli authorities demolished or seized over 4,800 Palestinian-owned structures in the West Bank, mostly in Area C and East Jerusalem". It further indicated that "46 Palestinian Bedouin communities in the central West Bank, home to some 8,000 Palestinians, the majority registered Palestine refugees, have been targeted by the Israeli authorities for "relocation" to a number of designated sites". The expansion of Israeli settlements, considered illegal and condemned as a "flagrant violation under international law" by UN Security Council resolution 2334 of 2016, has been a driver for confiscation of Palestinian private and public land, demolition of homes (including Bedouin shacks) and repeated displacement of Palestinian civilians. The confiscation and demolition of property in Bedouin villages, and the ensuing forcible transfer/relocation of these vulnerable communities, is recognised as a violation of IHL and human rights by the UN, EU and other international actors. Forced displacement of civilians in an occupied territory is also considered a crime under International Criminal Law. The planned expansion of the 'Ma'ale Adumim' settlement block east of Jerusalem is exacerbating the humanitarian vulnerabilities of the Bedouin and herder communities in the E1 area. Bedouin communities such as those residing in Abu Al-Nuwwar, Wadi Abu Hindi, Al Khan Al-Ahmar, Jabal Al-Baba and Sath Al Bahar are at the front line of defence for resisting Israeli settlement expansion, thus ensuring Palestinian access to Jerusalem. This scenario does not just affect individual Bedouin villages at risk of demolition and transfer, but carries grave implications for the broader Israeli-Palestinian situation. Thus, Palestinian Bedouin at risk of forcible transfer have, unintentionally, become key players in the regional context, whilst simultaneously facing unique humanitarian vulnerabilities that must be better understood. A number of Israeli policies and practices in those areas, including a restrictive permit and planning regime, demolitions and threats of demolitions of property and the active promotion of relocation plans all contribute to the coercive environment, "which generates pressure on Palestinians to leave their communities". In the Israeli-Palestinian context, impunity for violations of international law, including IHL, has been recognised as a "driver of conflict". In espousing the benefits of holding violators of IHL to account, it has been noted that, "effective accountability not only ensures that perpetrators are brought to justice, but also ensures that victims have access to remedies and serves to deter future violations and to try to repair the harm suffered." As such, it is vital to understand the impact of violations of IHL on the Bedouin and herder communities in Palestine, and engage with the ICC's work. This project will work fill this gap, and produce an edited book and policy report.
Harnessing the power of global data to support young children's learning and development: Analyses, dissemination and implementation
DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
The 2017 Lancet Series, Advancing Early Childhood Development: From Science to Scale, estimated that 43% of children under 5 years in LMICs (250m children), were at risk of not reaching their potential because they had stunted linear growth or lived in extreme poverty. The proportion of children at risk increases appreciably when additional risk factors are considered, especially low maternal schooling and child maltreatment. Living in poor and unstimulating conditions affects young children's learning and development. Children exposed to poverty and adversity explore and learn less than children not exposed to these stresses; they learn less at school and achieve fewer school grades; earn less as adults; have more social problems, and poorer physical and mental health. We will study barriers and accelerators to learning in LMIC ECE programmes, at home and in communities, as well as associations between early learning and indicators of child development and school performance. We will estimate their longer-term effects on education and earnings in adulthood. We will use descriptive and statistical analyses of secondary data collected through representative country surveys and research studies. As an established group of multi-disciplinary and multi-country experts and collaborators, we build on prior success in sourcing and analysing data from 91 LMICs by including early education and expanding to 137 countries. Global data, presented along the continuum of the early years, breaks down the false dichotomy between ECD and ECE, between care and education, and between learning at home and in formal programmes, and supports multi-sectoral actions along different stages of the life-course. We will expand our global analyses of threats to ECD by examining gender, location and wealth, services and family supports for young children, and policies that create facilitating environments for families and children. We will, for the first time, link indicators of the structural quality of ECE (eg teacher-child ratios) to contexts and child outcomes in LMICs. Process quality (eg teacher- and caregiver-child interactions), on which there is as yet no global data, will be studied through case studies in 5 countries, one in each of five regions of the world. We will source data on government, development assistance and household expenditures on pre-primary education; extract further country micro-data on contexts in which young children develop and learn; update nationally representative data on young children, services and policies to the most recent survey dates available, and develop new composite indicators of barriers and accelerators of young children's learning and development. Through partnerships with regional networks of ECD-ECE government and stakeholder teams, the project will help to build research capacity in ECD-ECE, and increase the use of data for decision-making, action and monitoring in 20 countries. We will use the results to provide evidence-based support to engage international human rights law, especially the right to education and the rights of the child, in advancing progress towards achieving the SDG goals of universal access by 2030. This research will address the gap in the evidence base for a unified approach to ECD and ECE. The findings will support the development of the right to education by providing a holistic approach to guide early development and educational interventions. It will demonstrate the strength of interdisciplinary work in cross-fertilizing data analysis and legal research in building strong foundations for translation into policy and regulatory change. Given the evidence on the critical roles of ECD-ECE on learning and wellbeing in the short, medium and longer term, the project has important implications for development and welfare in countries on the DAC list. This large-scale global approach is critical to support and guide policy and investments.
UKRI COVID-19 Grant Extension Allocation (CoA) - University of Oxford
DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
The UKRI COVID-19 Grant Extension Allocation (CoA) provided organisations with resources to sustain UKRI grant-funded research during the period of pandemic disruption and its immediate aftermath. Some of the funding was directly used supporting the following ODA-eligible grants at University of Oxford: NE/P006779/1; NE/P00041X/1; MR/P011128/1; NE/P002218/1; EP/R007632/1; ES/S00081X/1; MR/M007367/1; MR/R013365/1; MR/S001964/1; MR/P020593/1; ST/R002754/1; MR/R020345/1; MR/R018391/1; MR/T003553/1; ST/S002952/1; MR/R006083/1.
OODA GCRF and Newton Consolidation Accounts Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
The GNCAs represent an additional allocation from BEIS designed to reinvest in excellent UKRI Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) and Newton Fund programmes and enable them to maximise development impact. This involves instances where funding can be utilized to 9 original grant objectives affected by the ODA review, or opportunities for new follow-on, knowledge exchange or impact activities. In either case, the funding is targeted to support research along the route to achieving economic or social impact in countries on the OECD DAC list.
OODA GCRF and Newton Consolidation Accounts University of Leeds
DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
The GNCAs represent an additional allocation from BEIS designed to reinvest in excellent UKRI Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) and Newton Fund programmes and enable them to maximise development impact. This involves instances where funding can be utilized to 9 original grant objectives affected by the ODA review, or opportunities for new follow-on, knowledge exchange or impact activities. In either case, the funding is targeted to support research along the route to achieving economic or social impact in countries on the OECD DAC list.
OODA GCRF and Newton Consolidation Accounts Royal Veterinary College
DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
The GNCAs represent an additional allocation from BEIS designed to reinvest in excellent UKRI Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) and Newton Fund programmes and enable them to maximise development impact. This involves instances where funding can be utilized to 9 original grant objectives affected by the ODA review, or opportunities for new follow-on, knowledge exchange or impact activities. In either case, the funding is targeted to support research along the route to achieving economic or social impact in countries on the OECD DAC list.