SUMERNET 4 All Small Grants: Call for Proposals

SUMERNET is a regional research network and knowledge-based policy research programme. The ongoing phase of the programme SUMERNET 4 All aims to “improve policies and practices in reducing water insecurity by conducting collaborative research, engaging in the policy process, and promoting scientifically sound research and innovation, incorporating gender and social equality, human rights, conflict sensitivity, environmental integrity and poverty reduction in the Mekong Region.”

Between 2019-2023, SUMERNET is providing financial and technical support through six types of grants to network members and collaborators that can contribute to this mission.

SUMERNET Small Grants

The Small Grant is one among six types of grants of SUMERNET intended to support SUMERNET members and other partners in conducting various smaller-scale activities that improve the influence of SUMERNET research as listed below.

Background

Total funds available in this round is 500,000 SEK (~US$ 55,000). The budget for each grant is between 30,000 SEK and 50,000 SEK (~3,300-5,500 US$/grant). Depending on the quality of applications and their proposed budgets, up to 10 applications can be granted in this round. Individuals as well as organizations are eligible to apply. Funds need to be spent within a period of 6 months upon signing the granting agreement.

Recipients of previous or current SUMERNET grants[1] are eligible to apply if proposed activities are not already covered by other grants of SUMERNET and they demonstrate the capacity to perform the activities specified in the application, without impacting earlier committed work with SUMERNET.

Small grants must be used for the activities that address at least one of the following S4A research themes:

1. Water access, rights, and allocation in times of water scarcity
2. Governance and management of water-related disaster risks
3. Transboundary interactions with water systems

Scope

The small grants can support the following types of activities:

1. Hosting events for policy engagement, transdisciplinary dialogues, and knowledge-based policy development
2. Participating in relevant academic, policy, media, or capacity building events to communicate research results
3. Engaging in events, consultations, and activities with key stakeholders such as policy makers, members of marginalized groups and/or women’s associations
4. Exchange visits with other projects or teams for enhancing collaboration
5. Activities or events to support proposal development with participation of different organizations, individuals, or countries  
6. Support the production of academic or non-academic[2] communications materials based on past or ongoing research, studies, or assessments to influence regional policy and practice or raise public awareness on water insecurity topics
7. Monitoring and evaluation of the outcomes and impacts of past projects funded by SUMERNET in previous phases
8. Developing innovative communication tools and/or web or mobile applications and/or games related to water security, governance and management of water related disaster risks for dissemination to specific target users or wide public
9. Activities focusing on raising public and/or stakeholder awareness to reduce water insecurity related issues through innovative communications tools, web or mobile applications and/or games
10. Enhancing the partnership, capacity, and networking of young professionals through joint activities that are part of SUMERNET Youth Network

Selection criteria

Successful applications must fulfill the following criteria:

Required:

• Focus on reducing water insecurity for all, particularly, for poor, marginalized and socially vulnerable groups of women and men in the Mekong Region
• Proposed activities are in line with the scope and mandate of S4A small grants
• Consider gender and social equality, conflict sensitivity, pro-poor and rights-based approaches are mainstreamed into the design and implementation of the proposed activity
• Have significant potential to lead to bigger impact in the future (e.g., impact on policy, practice, public awareness, additional funding could be secured, demonstrate the changes from past research inspire other network members or researchers, expanded partnership, increased cooperation)
• Plan for realistic activities that could be implemented even though the pandemic constraints may continue in the region 
• Ability to manage the project and complete the activities within six months
• The Lead Applicant must be a SUMERNET member residing physically in one of five Mekong countries (Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam). Applicants can apply to become a member, either before or on the date of proposal submission by filling in this online form
• Young professionals[3] are also eligible to be the Lead Applicant or Co-lead Applicant. However, if they are under 25 years old, they need to have one or more experienced expert(s) to serve as their Co-lead Applicant or mentor to support the implementation of small grant activities. Their application will be assessed separately.

Desired:

• Applications led/co-led by women and involving female team members, young professionals and boundary partners are strongly encouraged.
• Applicants from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar are encouraged to apply. For applicants from Myanmar, support can be offered only to CSOs and NGOs representatives
• Engagement with Chinese researchers and organizations are encouraged, however due to funding regulations, SUMERNET cannot provide the fund to the applications from China. Therefore, any engagement with Chinese researchers will need to be covered by co-funding from other sources.

Expected outputs

• Grant Utilization Report (SUMERNET Secretariat will provide a template)
• Documentation as evidence of implementation of activities. Depending on the nature of funded activities, this may include, but is not limited to, copies of publications, news articles, minutes of meetings, photos of the event, final project proposals developed, blog, infographics, films, games, animations, stories of changes resulting from past research, etc.
• A financial report listing the expenditure items with supporting documents corresponding to the expenditures. Proportion of expenditures between personnel fee and direct costs should be set reasonably based on the nature of the activities proposed under the grant.  For the applications from the organizations, their normal overhead rate of the organization should be applied (if any). This must not be higher than 15% of total grant received in any case. For individual grant, no overhead is allowed.

Timeline

All activities and reports must be completed within 6 months.  

Application instructions

Interested applicants must submit an application using the SUMERNET online submission platform at: https://sei.submittable.com/submit/229715/sumernet-4-all-call-for-proposals-on-small-grants-for-2022 along with CVs of Lead Applicant and team members (if any). Template of the activity proposal can be downloaded below. Email submissions will not be accepted.

If Lead Applicant or Co-lead Applicant are young professionals with age under 25 years, the CV of more senior expert(s) as Co-lead Applicant or mentor should be provided.  

For the applications on behalf of the organization, we will consider the applications only from the Lead Applicant (LA) who are eligible to receive grants through their institutional bank accounts. To increase the possibility for funding access to wide network members, we will not consider the applications from the LAs from the organizations that are currently leading the implementation of more than two granted projects (that are yet to be completed) under SUMERNET 4 All in this time round. They can be members of other applications if interested.

Important dates

• 15 August 2022: deadline for submission
• 16 - 26 August 2022: proposal review
• 29 August - 2 September 2022: SUMERNET SC endorsement
• 12 - 14 September 2022: announcement of results
• 15 September - 14 October 2022: Contracting and onboarding
• Around 15 October 2022: activity starting date

For further inquiries please contact:

Ms. Unchulee Lualon

Programme Coordinator

Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) Asia Centre

Phone: +66 (0)2 0730040-44

Email: unchulee.lualon@sei.org