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Darwin Initiative Round 29
Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs
The Darwin Initiative is the UK’s flagship international challenge fund for biodiversity conversation and poverty reduction, established at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. The Darwin Initiative is a grant scheme working on projects that aim to slow, halt, or reverse the rates of biodiversity loss and degradation, with associated reductions in multidimensional poverty. To date, the Darwin Initiative has awarded more than £195m to over 1,280 projects in 159 countries to enhance the capability and capacity of national and local stakeholders to deliver biodiversity conservation and multidimensional poverty reduction outcomes in low and middle-income countries.
British Academy Coherence & Impact - Challenge-led grants: Early Childhood Education
DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
The projects funded under this programme aim to provide critical knowledge to inform policy-making in the education and broader learning domain, while recognising the necessary interplay of education with health, nutrition, gender equality and other disciplines and sectors.
British Academy Coherence & Impact - Early Careers Research Network
DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
This programme of activities is tailored for early career researchers in the UK and the Global South to develop research partnerships, strengthen capacity and build research skills related to joint UK-Global South research agendas.
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.
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.
The effectiveness, mechanisms of change, and acceptability of Family Focused PsychoSocial Support (FFPSS) for at-risk adolescents in Lebanon
DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
This mixed-method study is an international collaboration between the American University of Beirut and War Child Holland, supported by project partners the Danish Refugee Council and Terre des Hommes Italy, the Ministry of Public Health Lebanon, UNICEF, and international expertise from University College Dublin, the Boston College School of Social Work, and Queen's University Belfast. The study aims to develop and test a culturally and contextually sensitive Systemic Family Intervention Module for at-risk adolescents that can be run alongside existing focused psychosocial programmes in Lebanon. Focused psychosocial support aims to promote wellbeing and resilience and to reduce mental ill-health in young people at risk of child protection violations, including gender-based violence, child marriage, and child labour. One in five children globally live in conflict affected areas, and these children experience a high incidence of mental disorders. The global burden of disease for mental disorders is 5 times higher in conflict-affected areas than the global average. Young people are affected not only by the violence, loss, and insecurity of war, but the systemic impact on their living conditions, access to school and health care, structural discrimination, and gender-based violence, as well as their caregivers trauma, stress, and compromised parenting capacity. The devastating impact of war, conflict, and extreme adversity on the mental health and wellbeing of children and adolescents has been extensively researched, but with continuing challenges in improving the quality and scope of interventions for these populations. The treatment gap in low resourced settings is as high as 90%, with major barriers of limited infrastructure and trained specialists. As a strategy to close this gap, psychosocial support interventions as part of a stepped care coordinated approach have been developed and widely implemented. There is a small but growing evidence base for psychosocial interventions in conflict and humanitarian emergencies, however adolescent mental health and family-based interventions are drastically under-researched and under-resourced. Nurturing family environments are essential for healthy child development, and parenting and systemic family interventions in other populations and country settings show strong effectiveness for both mental health and protection outcomes. This study therefore aims to develop and evaluate a Family Systemic Intervention Module to use alongside UNICEF Lebanon's focused psychosocial support programme, to enhance current humanitarian programming and addressing a significant weakness of the current evidence base for at-risk adolescents and their families in conflict-affected contexts. Findings will inform the Mental Health System Reform in Lebanon led by the National Mental Health Programme of the Ministry of Public Health. Lebanon is a middle-income country, home to an estimated 1.5 million refugees in a population of around 5.9 million. The majority of refugees come from Syria, as well as almost half a million Palestinian refugees. Almost 60% of Syrian refugees are living in extreme poverty, unable to meet basic survival needs, whilst 30% of Lebanese host communities also live below the poverty line. The many social and economic pressures facing these populations increases the risk of child protection issues, through sexual and gender-based violence, domestic violence, child marriage, child labour and recruitment intro armed groups. In 2015, a 5-year Mental Health and Substance Use strategy for Lebanon 2015-2020 was launched with the aim of reforming the Mental Health System, and whilst much has been achieved, there remains a gap in the provision of family systemic interventions. Lebanon is therefore an ideal location for this study because it has both large vulnerable populations in need of focused support, as well as political will to integrate learning into the national mental health strategy.
Protracted Displacement Economies
DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
Around the world refugees and displaced people remain in limbo, unable to return home, unwanted where they are living and facing increasing difficulties to go anywhere else. The majority of refugees in the world have been in these situations for more than five years, a threshold usually referred to as 'protracted'. As crises become prolonged, the limitations of the humanitarian response have long been recognised as insufficient and inadequate. Refugees and Internally Displaced People caught up in these protracted situations often speak of watching their lives 'draining away'. The model of support offered to displaced people is known by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) as 'care and maintenance' but perhaps more accurately by advocates of a radical change to this policy as the 'warehousing' of refugees. Global policy interest is shifting from short term humanitarianism to longer term development focused responses to protracted displacement. This was most recently indicated by the Global Compact on Refugees, in December 2018. The Refugee Compact introduces positive language around the long-term self reliance of refugees. This project responds to this renewed political will to find new solutions to protracted displacement and builds on a large body of research and advocacy work in this area. The project investigates the replacement of the care and maintenance model with a new approach: the protracted displacement economy. The protracted displacement economy introduces two key innovations that will contribute to this original analysis as well the potential for impact. First, it is a whole of society approach. The focus is not just on displaced people but the 'displacement affected community', that includes the heterogeneous 'host' population, amongst others. The second key innovation is a fundamental shift in the understanding of the transactions that drive the protracted displacement economy. Financial transactions are the stuff of most economic analysis, yet key human interactions and exchanges or gifts, collective organisation, care work and mutual aid are largely non-financial. Research will involve ten countries, five pairs of countries each separated by an international border: The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)/Uganda, Ethiopia/Somalia, Lebanon/Syria, Myanmar/Thailand, Pakistan/Afghanistan.These ten countries encompass the most serious protracted displacement crises in the world. Research will be conducted with partners in one of each pair of countries and will be attentive to the cross-border dynamics of the protracted displacement economy. International partners are: The University of Kinshasa (DRC), The University of Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), the NGOs Basmeh & Zeitooneh and Sawa (Lebanon), the think tank Covenant Institute (Myanmar) and the University of Peshawar (Pakistan). In each of these five countries, three locations will be selected for empirical research, including at least one urban neighbourhood and at least one camp in each country. Over three years, these 15 locations will be involved in community discussions, large scale surveys and qualitative interviews. Key stakeholders in this process from further afield will be involved in regular meetings so that every stage in the research is informed by relevant expertise. The project will introduce the completely new approach of video narratives, training groups of people in each location to produce five minute videos of the protracted displacement economy that will then be dubbed and shared across all research sites. These films contribute to a wide range of innovative outputs that highlight the operation of the protracted displacement economy. Displaced people develop their own economic activities, including non-financial practices such as sharing and mutual aid as well as entrepreneurial activities. With time, community organisations begin to thrive. The project aims to support this process so that displaced people are able to look to the future with hope.
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.