The GDN Doing Research programme management team are pleased to announce the second in their two-webinar series hosted here at Research to Action.

On Wednesday the 13th July at 2pm BST, a host of guest speakers from across the Doing Research programme will be discussing the role of funding in Social Science Research.

Entitled, “Funding for Social Science Research: Curse or Blessing?”, the webinar will be moderated by Megan Lloyd Laney and feature a panel including Ramona Angelescu Naqvi, the Director of Programmes at GDN; María Balarin Bonazzi, Senior Researcher at the Group for the Analysis of Development (GRADE); Dr. Inaya Rakhmani, Head of the Communication Research Centre, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Indonesia; and Alex Ademokun, a research specialist and advisor in the Evidence into Action team at DFID.

Among all the enabling factors that contribute to the production of research in developing countries, funding is critical.

But funding alone does not solve all the problems related to the poor state of social science research. Funding sources and how funds are allocated are important to understand, because they have consequences for the types of research produced and for whom, as well as for policymaking. Those incentives can be beneficial, but can also create a number of perverse effects on researchers and their research environment.

This webinar will focus on some key questions, these will form the basis for discussions between panelists and attendees:

1. What types of incentives should be addressed by funding for social science research?
2. How to hold accountable and transparent both the funders and the recipients, while safeguarding researchers’ autonomy?
3. Is the current funding system appropriate to foster the development of a strong local research environment?