Small Grants Program (1998 - 2002)

The PRGA Small Grants program sought to build capacity for applying participatory research (PR) and gender analysis (GA) appoaches to ongoing research. The funded projects contributed methodological and organizational innovation to the field of PR and GA and rigorous evaluations of the impacts of applying participatory and equity-enhancing approaches, with special attention to the effects on poor, rural women. Projects analyzed the outcomes of these methods in comparison to conventional research methods, and evaluate the effects on the research process itself.

Eligibility for small grants required partnerships among two or more different types of organizations. The program has helped foster research partnerships among IARCS, NARS, NGOs, universities, and grassroots organizations in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The PRGA Small Grants program was launched in 1998 and continued until 2002. The program cofunded 27 research projects in different parts of the developing world. Fifteen focused on research relevant to participatory plant breeding and twelve on natural resource management. The average award was for $50,000, with cofinancing of 150% from other sources.

Evaluation Criteria

Minimum Criteria: these to referred to basic requirements for each proposal; for example, that it included multiple partners; that a budget was specified for each partner; that the work involved groups of farmers, rather than individuals; and that it had a detailed gender and user-differentiated research component.

Desired Criteria: these referred to the potential research excellence of the proposal. Criteria were wide-ranging and included: the potential for the proposal to build on farmer skills, the potential to make a significant methodological contribution, and the potential to provide impact data on the efficacy of participatory methods.

The grant proposals were evaluated independently by three external reviewers including a social scientist with strong participatory and social analysis skills.

Guidelines for PPB Small Grants | Detailed Evaluation Criteria | PPB Grant Awards since 1998 | PPB Small Grant Reports | PNRM Small Grant Reports

Support to Graduate Students

Three doctoral students are currently co-funded by the PRGA. Their research focuses filling key gaps in the PPB and PNRM fields.

About PPB Students | About PNRM Students

Completed Dissertations:

Probst, K. 2002. Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation: A Promising Concept in Participatory Research? Lessons from two case studies in Honduras (Kommunikation und Beratung Bd. 49), 2002, XII + 220pp. ISBN 3-8236-1386-3.

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