Resources for applicants

When evaluating any proposal, reviewers look for several key elements. The proposal should contribute new insights to the existing literature by addressing a research question in a specific setting. Additionally, it should have a robust research design with a clear identification strategy to assure reviewers that the results will be reliable once the project is executed. The research question should be policy-relevant and outline how the project can directly impact policy through engagement with policymakers, including dissemination strategies. The proposal budget should also be reasonable for the scope of the project, ensuring good value for money.

J-PAL's guide on how to write a competitive proposal: This open access document is useful for writing a successful grant application. While it uses RCTs as its example, its main principles are broadly applicable to most research designs, and the IGC encourages a variety of approaches to empirical research.

Focus on research design:

Research design is an important evaluation criterion and essential for the credibility and relevance of any economic development study. A robust design encompasses methodologies that safeguard against both external threats (for example generalisability to wider contexts) and internal threats (such as causality between variables). Moreover, a clear and logically sequenced methodology ensures that both researchers and stakeholders can easily comprehend and replicate the study.  Proposals should guard against biassed or spurious interpretations and prioritise methodologies that provide clear, valid and actionable insights.

Below you will find a selection of successful research proposals from past applicants. These proposals are examples of rigorous and thoughtful research methodologies and were ranked highly by our evaluators on the quality of their research designs.

We encourage all applicants to review these proposals as valuable examples of strong research designs that can help inspire your research plans. Please note that some details in the proposals have been anonymised for data protection purposes.

Proposal 1: Competition and Market Access in Online Freelancing Markets: Evidence from Country X

Proposal 2: Illicit Financial Flows: Evidence from Country X

Proposal 3: Firm adaptation and production networks: Structural evidence from extreme weather events in Country X

Proposal 4: Revealed greenness and response to climate change information: Evidence from cocoa farmers in Country X

Demo application: This pdf gives a birds-eye-view of the whole Call for Proposals application. Potential applicants can use this to get an overview of the fields that will be required without having to first fill out each page on the online form.

Demo budget: This is an example of a competitive budget that adheres to IGC policies with added annotation. Further details on budgets can be found in the Application guidelines.

Achieving policy impact is central to IGC's mission and each proposal should demonstrate how the research can directly influence policy. Most of our successful projects that achieve impact have researchers who looked at how they will engage with policymakers from the outset. This policy engagement toolkit details how IGC supports policy engagement, pathways to policy influence, and drivers of policy impact.

Policy memos on climate priorities: IGC countries outline their respective climate priorities in these policy memos, addressing a range of critical issues, such as renewable energy, agriculture, land use, and green industrialisation. The memos detail the specific policy challenges, identify relevant data sources, and highlight key stakeholders involved in the process.