CARISCA invites research proposals from KNUST faculty members, postgraduate students and other African scholars (partnering with a KNUST faculty) for funding to undertake high-quality and impactful research projects. The aim of this funding opportunity is to promote innovative and collaborative research that contributes to advancing knowledge and addresses pressing developmental challenges in various fields of knowledge. The Center is, therefore, only interested in proposals that clearly tackle local issues and seek to research development challenges that confront African businesses and society.
Research Areas:
Proposals are welcome in the following research areas (but not limited to):
- Digitalization, technology, and supply chains
- Entrepreneurship and supply chains
- Innovation and supply chain disruption
- Supply chains, agri-business, and food security
- Engineering for supply chain resilience and sustainability
- Health and pharmaceutical supply chains
- Artificial intelligence, big data, data science, and supply chains
- Transport and logistics engineering and management
- The human side of supply chains (including improving human rights compliance in supply chains, and addressing issues of slavery and child labor in supply chains)
Eligibility Criteria
- The principal investigator must be full-time faculty at KNUST. Proposals with postgraduate students, early career researchers, and scholars from other African countries (excluding Ethiopia, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, Tunisia and Zimbabwe) as co-investigators are highly encouraged.
- Each proposal should have a maximum of four authors.
- Because CARISCA is seeking to expand its reach across the African continent and globally, preference will be given to proposals that include scholars and researchers in other African countries.
- Each proposal should demonstrate a clear research problem, research objective, scope of research, areas of contribution to scholarly knowledge, methodological rigor, and potential impact on the African business community and/or broader society.
Grant Details
- CARISCA has up to U.S. $50,000 to advance research with this initiative and intends to fund three or four research projects. Each proposal can apply for up to U.S. $15,000. CARISCA reserves the right to award more, less, or no research proposals.
- The selected proposals must complete their research by September 30, 2024. Hence, it is important that each proposal has a clear timeline for the completion of the research.
- The funding is intended to cover only direct research expenses such as data collection, training of field workers, data analysis, software purchase, and compensation for research assistants.
- Grants cannot be used for expenses incurred before the application is awarded, conference-related expenses, and any form of compensation/honorarium for the applicants.
Deliverables
At a minimum, the deliverables required for all successful awardees are as follows:
- A research project management plan will need to be submitted before research begins.
- A first draft of the paper, or preliminary findings will be shared with the CARISCA team once the first round of analysis is completed.
- A final research report covering all the evaluation areas (see below).
- White paper or policy brief.
- Submission of a research article to at least one academic journal listed in the CABS Academic Journal Guide.
Evaluation Criteria for Proposals:
Each of the criteria below will be evaluated on the extent to which each criterion is met. If a proposal does not meet any of the criteria for a given bullet below the proposal will be given zero points for that section of the evaluation.
- Articulation of a major research problem and/or gap in existing body of knowledge (15 points)
- Clarity and significance of the research problem or gap.
- Identification of local issues and developmental challenges in African businesses and society.
- Research objectives and/or questions (15 points)
- Clearly defined and achievable research objectives or questions.
- Alignment with the identified research problem or gap.
- Review of relevant literature stream (10 points)
- Thoroughness of literature review.
- Identification and discussion of key theories, models, and empirical studies.
- Justification for proposed methodology (15 points)
- Comprehensive justification for research setting, data collection strategy, and analysis techniques.
- Addressing ethical considerations and data management plans.
- Demonstration of originality or potential for advancing scholarly knowledge (10 points)
- Uniqueness of the proposed approach or contribution to the existing body of knowledge.
- Potential impact on advancing scholarly knowledge.
- Articulation of implications for policy and lessons for practitioners (15 points)
- Clear articulation of how the research findings can inform policy decisions.
- Relevance and applicability of research outcomes to practitioners.
- Demonstration of value for money as captured in proposed research budget and research timeline (include a GANTT chart) (15 points)
- Justification and reasonableness of budget allocation.
- Clear and realistic GANTT chart demonstrating the research timeline.
- Application Procedure (5 points):
- Adherence to submission guidelines.
- Clarity and completeness of the proposal structure.
Total Score: 100 points
Additional Evaluation Criteria:
- Additional factors, including geographic diversity, research team diversity, financial considerations, and USAID regulatory considerations (including but not limited to environmental and gender review, OFAC status, etc.) will be considered and factor into final proposal selection.
Application Procedure
- Interested faculty members should submit a detailed research proposal (not exceeding 10 pages, inclusive of all references and appendices) to CARISCA through mmagbodzi@carisca.knust.edu.gh by Friday, February 16, 2024.
- The proposal should include an appendix of 2-page CVs of the principal investigator (a KNUST Faculty) and other members of the research team. The CV does not count towards the word/page limit of the proposal.
- The proposal should be structured as follows: title, abstract, research problem, research objectives/questions, proposed methodology, expected areas of contribution to knowledge, policy and practice, expected deliverables, detailed budget breakdown and timelines (GANTT chart).
- All proposals must have a disclaimer on how gender, environmental, and ethical considerations (including if any human-centered research will be conducted) will be accounted for in the course of conducting the proposed research.
- More specifically, please answer the following questions:
- Are you planning to conduct primary data collection?
- Is all of this work to be done on campus?
- Are you planning to interview people?
- Is this project working with agriculture?
- More specifically, please answer the following questions:
All research that is funded by USAID and CARISCA is public information and final deliverables (data and reports) will be uploaded to a public database.
About CARISCA
The Centre for Applied Research and Innovation in Supply Chain-Africa (CARISCA) trains, generates and translates supply chain management research and innovations into positive development outcomes for Ghana and across Africa. CARISCA forms part of the Building Research and Innovation, Generating Evidence, and Training (BRIDGE-Train) program of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which harnesses intellectual, research, community engagement, and capacity-building expertise of higher education institutions to address some of the world’s most complex development challenges.
Through a partnership between Arizona State University and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and University Technology (KNUST) in Ghana, CARISCA leverages local and international networks of governmental, civil society, and industry partners to connect African researchers, practitioners, businesses, and policymakers to supply chain assets around the world. CARISCA seeks to strengthen local capacity to improve supply chains by increasing their efficiency, effectiveness, and inclusiveness.