Call for Proposals: formative and feasibility research studies
LANSA invites high quality research proposals by August 21, 2015.
Applications that propose new and innovative interventions in any area of agriculture for nutrition and / or to test the feasibility of scaling-up such innovations are invited. LANSA is particularly interested in interventions that recognise the importance of on-going environmental changes (including climate and water resource scarcity).
The Responsive Window facility seeks to engender a wider sense of engagement among national and regional stakeholders in the core challenge of improving the impact of agri-food systems, policies, programmes and interventions on nutrition. This is LANSA's second responsive window call and focuses on research Pillar 3, which aims to define a suite of interventions in agriculture that have the potential to have positive impacts on nutrition outcomes, especially in women and children.
LANSA had recently requested ideas to support the Call via an online consultation hosted by United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition and many ideas received here has helped frame the responsive window call. This Call for Proposals is specifically designed to attract applications for the conduct of high quality formative or/and feasibility research, and is open until August 21, 2015.
Four excellent studies were funded under the First Call for Proposals after a competitive process and the grantees are now partnering directly with LANSA in delivering regionally-relevant research outputs.
LANSA is a research programme consortium (funded by the UK’s Department for International Development) that seeks to address the following core question: “How can South Asian agriculture and related food policies and interventions be designed and implemented to increase their impacts on nutrition, especially the nutritional status of children and adolescent girls?” The programme covers four countries in the South Asian region: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan.
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LANSA announces four successful policy related research bids
Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia (LANSA) announces four successful research grants that will contribute to LANSA’s enabling environments research theme. The winning bids are from the Public Health Foundation of India, OKAPI, School of International Development - UEA and University of Southampton.
“I am delighted with the high quality of the four winning proposals. They will help to improve our understanding of how to develop enabling environments for agriculture and agri-food systems to effectively play their part in addressing undernutrition”, explained LANSA’s Co-Research Director, Stuart Gillespie. “Our consultations with stakeholders in the region informed our policy related research priorities, so we fully expect there to be lots of interest in the research findings generated by these projects.”
LANSA is led by MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, and its partners include BRAC, Collective for Social Science Research, the Institute of Development Studies, International Food Policy Research Institute and the Leverhulme Centre for Integrative Research on Agriculture and Health. The consortium is funded by the UK’s Department for International Development.
The research priorities outlined in the call for proposals were generated by stakeholders, in consultations held in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan in April 2014. The Call for Proposals announced at the end of April attracted 94 bids from across the region.
The successful research proposals are:
The research projects are all set to get underway later in 2014. Updates about the ongoing research and research outputs will be posted on LANSA’s website.
For more information about LANSA contact Sangeetha Rajeesh at sangeetha.lansa@gmail.com
7 November 2014
Call attracts almost 100 bids
The Call for Proposals announced at the end of April has attracted 94 bids. The bids received cover research in Afghanistan (1), Bangladesh (18), India (26) and Pakistan (31). It also includes 14 bids for multi-country studies.
Concept notes are currently being screened by a review team with members drawn from the LANSA consortium. Shortlisted applicants will hear by the end of July 2014 if they are to be invited to prepare detailed research proposals. These detailed research proposals will need to be in by the 15 September.
Timetable
The timetable for the selection process is detailed below:
- Shortlisted applicants will be invited to prepare detailed research proposals by 31 July;
- Deadline for detailed research proposals is 15 September;
- Proposals will be reviewed by an internal review team and an external panel, using a standard scoring system by 30 September;
- The winning research proposals will be announced by 15 October;
- Contracts will be passed with lead organizations by 31 October;
- Studies will start on 1 November 2014.
