Newsletter

STEG Newsletter - March 2022

31 March 2022

Dear All,

With spring well under way, new funding calls, projects, and events are fast approaching. Check out all the opportunties arising below!

Fourth Small Research Grants Call and Third PhD Research Grants Call will be opening in the next week. Find out more on the funding opportunities below!

Funding decisions have been made on our Second Ideas for Transformation Call. Discover the funded projects in this newsletter!

The Ninth Workshop on Structural Transformation and Macroeconomic Dynamics is taking place 30 to 31 May. Read more on the programme and registation below!

ACET has hired a new research fellow funded under the STEG programme. Find out who is joining the ACET team!

Final decisions on our Third Small Research Grants Call and Second PhD Research Grants Call will be announced in the first week of April. The Second Larger Research Grants Call is currently under evaluation.

Lastly, make sure to get all the dates for upcoming calls and events in your calendar!

Best,

The STEG Team

New Funding Calls

The Fourth Small Research Grants Call and Third PhD Research Grants Call will be opening in the first week of April.

Small Research Grants (SRGs) of between £10,000 and £25,000 are our primary research funding vehicle. SRGs can fund research assistance, data collection and/or purchase, travel to field sites, and potentially research stipends/teaching buyouts (if sufficiently justified). While PhD students/candidates are eligible to apply to any SRG funding call, they can also apply to the call exclusively for PhD students. PhD Research Grants are similar to SRGs except funding is only available up to £15,000.

Research may focus on one or more of our research themes or other areas of interest that do not fit cleanly into any of the themes but are centrally relevant to STEG. STEG is also focused around three cross-cutting issues: gender, climate change and the environment, and inequality and inclusion. Research proposals speaking to these issues will receive particular consideration.

Please note that an important criterion for funding of proposals is the relevance to policy in low-income countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Proposals focused on middle- and/or high-income countries need to make a clear case for the relevance of the research to policy in specific low-income countries.

Find out more about our Small and PhD Research Grants here.

New Ideas for Transformation

A further five Ideas for Transformation have been funded in our recent funding round, the Second Ideas for Transformation Call:

Rexford Akrong - Voluntary Sustainability Standards, Participation in Global Value Chains, and the Livelihoods of Mango Farmers and Farmworkers in Ghana
Isha Gupta - The Rise of Business Services and Structural Transformation in India, Kenya, and South Africa: the Role of Female Labour Supply
Benon Kwikiriza and Brian Tushabomwe - Remote Digital Groundwater Monitoring: Policy Challenges for Structural Transformation (Uganda)
Jude Kenechukwu Ngene, Christian Nwani, and Felix Obioma Oguamah - The Inclusion of Eziama Amechi Idodo In Transport Planning and Policy to Support Women’s Entrepreneurship (Nigeria)
Faissal R. Ouedraogo - Women’s Empowerment through Solar Multifunctional Solar Platforms (Burkina Faso)

Further information on these projects will soon be announced on the STEG website.

IX Workshop on Structural Transformation and Macroeconomic Dynamics

The Ninth Workshop on Structural Transformation and Macroeconomic Dynamics, part funded by STEG, will be held this year in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy on 30 and 31 May.

The workshop on Structural Transformation and Macroeconomic Dynamics was created in 2012 with the idea of bringing together experts in the field of structural change who, at the time, did not have a dedicated conference at which to meet. Since then, the field has expanded substantially, and the workshop has been organised regularly on an almost annual basis, bringing together many of the leading experts in the field. Most of the editions have been organised in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy, with three notable exceptions: Surrey (UK), 2012, Paris (France), 2014 and Kent (UK) 2016. This year the workshop reaches its ninth edition and is held at the University of Cagliari on 30 and 31 May.

The complete prgoramme of presentations can be found here. Please feel free to share this with your networks.

Registration to attend will open soon. Keep up to date on the STEG website here.

ACET-STEG Transformation Fellow

Habtamu Edjigu has been hired as a Transformation Fellow at ACET funded under the STEG programme.

Habtamu’s research experience and areas of professional interest include trade, market integration, and firm dynamics. He is also an impact evaluation expert and has been actively engaged in designing experimental and quasi-experimental studies. Before joining ACET, Habtamu has been working at the World Bank as a Young African Fellow and consultant. In the World Bank, he has participated in several projects such as Industrialization for Jobs in Sub-Saharan Africa, Market Integration in the Horn of Africa, Challenges and Promises of the AfCFTA, and Economic Diversification in the Central African Republic. Habtamu has also been teaching trade and development courses in various universities, including the University of Haramaya (Ethiopia), the University of Copenhagen (Denmark), and the University of Adelaide (Australia).

Habtamu holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Adelaide (Australia) an MSc in Economics from the University of Copenhagen (Denmark), and BA in Economics from Haramaya University (Ethiopia).