The Micro-Grant Research Fund is a new initiative launched by the Executive Director of UN-HABITAT, Dr. Anna Tibaijuka on 11 May 2010. The Fund promotes innovative research in the area of sustainable urban and regional development leading to the publication of working papers, as part of UN-HABITAT’s Micro Research on Sustainable Urbanisation series. The Fund supports researchers and practitioners to conduct research on sustainable urbanization. It particularly encourages young researchers and those from the developing countries to pursue their research on topics related to sustainable urbanization and human settlements, which include housing and land, economic development and finance, urban planning and management, environmental issues, infrastructure, social development, information and monitoring, disaster and risk management.
The Monitoring and Research Division (MRD) of UN-HABITAT accepts research applications for financial support from the Fund all the year around. Young researchers and those from the developing countries dealing with sustainable urbanization issues in developing countries are particularly encouraged to apply for grants. Successful applicants are required to produce a research paper to be published as part of UN-HABITAT’s Micro Research on Sustainable Urbanization series. There are two categories of grants. One is young researcher scholarship which is open to those under 35 years old and each young researcher scholarship is limited to a maximum of US$ 5,000. Another is micro research grant which is open to everyone and each micro research grant is limited to a maximum of US$ 10,000.
Candidates who apply for either type of micro research grants are required to submit an application package which includes a detailed research proposal, a detailed CV and a support letter from the candidates’ affiliated organizations.
The research proposal should be in the following format:
1. Addressing the rationale and importance of the research topic
2. Providing a summary description of major contents of the research topic
3. Proposing an indicative outline of the research
4. Stating the innovation of the research (describing the main innovative aspects of the research)
The Selection Criteria will be based on:
1. The quality of the research proposal
2. Academic qualifications and research experiences of the candidates
3. The geographic distribution of research topics and candidates
4. For scholarships, the applying individual must be sponsored by an academic or research institution who should confirm in writing that:
- The applicant is a currently enrolled student at the sponsoring institution
- The sponsoring institution has arranged adequate faculty member(s) to supervise the planning, execution and reporting of the research and
- There are mechanisms in place to ensure the grant provided is used for the intended purpose.
Once the candidates’ applications are approved by UN-HABITAT, the grants to the candidates will be channeled to the sponsoring institutions which will then distribute to the individual winning applicants in their institutions.
The full application materials (including research proposal, CV and support letter) in MS Word format should be emailed to the following email address via attachments: grace.nduru@unhabitat.org (cc copy to Beatrice.bazanye@unhabitat.org )
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