Deadline: August 23, 2013
The Global Financial Inclusion Fund (GFII) at Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) invites Expressions of Interest (EOI) submissions from teams of researchers and practitioners to conduct rigorous research on identifying innovative products and programs that enhance poor households’ access to and usage of improved financial tools, products, and services. IPA seeks submissions for new research projects under the GFII Competitive Funds.
This Call for Expressions of Interest includes both: The Citi IPA Financial Capability Research Fund (FCRF) & The Yale Savings and Payments Research Fund (YASPR). The FCRF will give award up to $730,000 and the YASPR fund is expected to award up to $380,000 in new grants.
The initiative is focused on three key areas of research within the financial inclusion domain:
- Savings
- Payments
- Financial Capability
Research Funds
GFII manages two research funds to address these evidence and innovation gaps: the Yale Savings and Payments Research Fund supported by theBill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Citi IPA Financial Capability Research Fund supported by the Citi Foundation.
Eligibility
- Each application must be presented by a team consisting of:
- one or more researchers involved in the design of the intervention and responsible for carrying out a rigorous evaluation of the program and
- one or more practitioner institutions from the financial sector who will partner with the research team on the proposed intervention.
- Researchers must be affiliated with a research institution or a university and either hold a PhD or be a current PhD candidate in a relevant social science or engineering discipline, such as economics, statistics, sociology, anthropology, psychology, public health, education, or computer science.
- Applicants must demonstrate experience in field research and randomized trials.
- Submissions to the competitive funds will be assessed under two project categories. All submitted projects must demonstrate a clear hypothesis and a rigorous study design for a randomized evaluation.
- Innovative research projects building on existing field experiments will also be accepted under each category.
Please direct all questions to [email protected].
For more information, click here.
