Research & Action Grants for Disaster Risk Reduction

Description

Goal and Objectives

ProVention Research and Action Grants were designed to engage enthusiastic young students and professionals in developing countries in creating innovative links between research and action in disaster risk reduction. Selected teams were invited to seek ways to cut across professional disciplines and to exchange knowledge and engage stakeholders from scientific and academic, civilian, public and private sectors. Launched in 2003 and repeated in 2005 and 2007, the Programme funded innovative projects to reduce disaster risks in developing countries proposed and implemented by Southern researchers and practitioners under 35 and guided by experimented mentors.

Partners

The Research and Action Grants for Disaster Risk Reduction was launched by the ProVention Consortium in 2003, under the name "Applied Research Grants Programme". It was administered in association with the University of Wisconsin Disaster Management Center (UWDMC) with regional partners:

Each academic centre provided oversight of the Programme, administers the grants and guides the research.

Programme timeline

  • 1st round of grants launched in December 2003, projects started in June 2003 and ended in January 2004 (grant period: 6 months)
  • Webconferences among grantees took place in April and May 2004. After a series of peer reviews, 15 projects were selected as representative of the most innovative and sustainable activities and presented at a Global Symposium for Hazard Risk Reduction at the World Bank headquarters in Washington, DC in July 2004.
  • 2nd round of grants launched in March 2005, projects started in September 2005 and ended in June 2006 (grant period: 9 months)
  • Webconferences and regional symposia: July - December 2006
    • Meeting of young researchers from Africa and the Middle East, Johannesburg, July 10th, 2006 (see workshop report)
    • Webconferences organised in Europe & Central Asia and in Latin America & Carribean, October 2006.
    • ProVention Consortium-ADPC Workshop, Bangkok, 6-8 December 2006

  • Round 3 timeline
    • Deadlines for proposal submission: July 25th, 2007. (Request for Proposals [word file, 0.3MB])
    • Research and Action Grants Award Announcement: October 2nd, 2007
    • Project Implementation and Dissemination Phases:

      Project implementation started in December 2007 and continued through 2008 with grantees disseminating their project results between September 2008 and February 2009.

      Throughout the programme, an asynchronous online community website was made available to all grantees, for them to ask questions, promote dissemination and scholarship opportunities and share knowledge with their peers and programme staff.

      The University of Cape Town organised a regional workshop in Uganda in May 2009, in conjunction with a PeriperiU meeting, for young researchers to present their findings to colleagues across Africa. The workshop provided an opportunity to strengthen the quality of the final reports and the dissemination of the findings and a platform for emerging risk researchers to identify teaching, learning and applied research priorities. ADPC ran another regional workshop in Bangkok at the end of 2009.

      In 2009, several regional centres also ran a bonus round for the most deserving projects and organised additional regional events, webconferences and regional publications.

      Former and current grantees have also contributed to the 2008 ProVention Forum in Panama – particularly to the session on “Developing a new generation of disaster risk reduction champions” – and helped organise a series of field visits that was part of the 2009 ProVention Forum in Istanbul.

Outputs & events

Grant projects

In 2003, the Programme's panel of experts selected 65 proposals from 27 countries. In 2005, 54 projects from 34 countries were successfully selected for funding. In October 2007, 90 projects from 41 countries were selected among 261 proposals received. For more information about these projects, please see www.proventionconsortium.org/grant_projects.

Round 1 publication

Round 2 publications

Round 3 publications

For round 3 publications, please contact project partners directly, and/or visit their websites.

Links