They are designed for institutions who will be able to utilise funds to elevate the role of STEG themes within their research departments and PhD programmes. The partnerships between STEG and these institutions aim to broaden the scope of research conducted and facilitate activities that enable a broader impact from research, thereby enhancing the overall research programme and strengthening the STEG community.

In principle, IPGs cover the same substantive research themes, questions, and methodologies as LRGs and SRGs. However, they are meant for institutions, rather than individual research projects, which have a focused interest in STEG topics and who can leverage STEG funds to lead to a lasting, structural, institutional-level impact.

Funding Information

• STEG IPGs are awarded up to the value of £75,000 for 1 year with the possibility of renewal.

Eligible Activities

• Prospective institutions can propose to use funds for a wide variety of STEG research-related activities, including but not limited to:
  • Graduate student support
  • Internal travel grants for conferences or trips to the field
  • STEG-focused workshops or mini-conferences
  • Data collection, purchase, harmonisation for public use, or
  • Partial funding of post-docs or research staff.

Eligibility Criteria

• They welcome applications to their IPG calls from institutions all over the world, and strongly encourage applications from institutions in lower-income countries, especially Sub-Saharan Africa, and institutions with a focused interest on STEG themes for whom these funds can have a high impact.
• Please note the IPGs are designed for academic institutions or organisations. Applications from other organisations, such as private think tanks or NGOs, will only be considered with a very strong justification for the relevance of their proposed activities to STEG themes and ability to produce quality research outputs or suitable impacts.
• In view of the current political situation and the imposition of economic sanctions on various Russian entities by Western governments, they are not currently able to accept proposals from Russian institutions.
• In order to be eligible to apply, organisations or institutions must comply with and complete the following documents only during the full proposal application stage. These documents are not required for the Expression of Interest. Applications will be considered incomplete and removed from consideration if any documents are missing.
  • Declaration of eligibility form: the legal representative of the organisation or institution must sign a declaration that the organisation or institution:
    • Is not bankrupt or being wound up, is not having its affairs administered by the courts, has not entered into an arrangement with creditors, has not suspended business activities, is not the subject of proceedings concerning those matters, and is not in any analogous situation arising from a similar procedure provided for in national legislation or regulations;
    • Has not been convicted by a judgement for fraud, corruption, involvement in criminal organisations or any other criminal activity or breach of relevant law;
    • Has fulfilled its tax obligations, obligations relating to the payment of social security contributions or obligations relating to the treatment of employees.
    • Legal representative form; this form should be filled and signed by the person legally authorised to represent the organisation or institution. It must be printed on the organisation or institution’s letter head and include an official organisation stamp.
  • Legal status form: a copy of an official document from the organisation or institution (such as a company register) that shows the name of the legal entity, the address of the head office, the registration number given to it by the national authorities. Note: unlike the other three forms, there is no template provided by STEG for this document.
  • Finance identification form (including copies of the most recent bank statement and a copy of the certified annual accounts): this form should be filled and signed by a representative of the organisation or institutions. Note: this does not need to be the legal representative.
• Eligibility, financial and legal documents submitted as part of a proposal may be passed to external advisors by the STEG Programme Team for verification. Applying organisations will be deemed to give their consent for such transmission and external verification through the submission of their proposal.

Evaluation Criteria

• Evaluation of EOIs and proposals are based on the following criteria:
  • Relevance to STEG’s research strategy and themes;
  • Quality and feasibility of proposed activities;
  • Capacity for direct policy engagement and/or policy impact;
  • Value for money;
  • Number of research outputs expected (including quality academic working papers and publications, synthesis and policy papers, or policy briefs);
  • Contribution to capacity building and localisation (including expanding the research community to researchers from developing countries, researchers located in the global south, and other underrepresented groups);
  • Other criteria include numbers of faculty engaged and number of Ph.D. students engaged.

For more information, visit STEG.