CALL FOR APPLICATIONS:
TRAINING & RESEARCH GRANTS
FOR TRANSFORMATIVE GENDER RESEARCH
for JUNIOR FACULTY
SEPTEMBER 5, 6, 7, BEIRUT, LEBANON
SPONSORED BY THE OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE (AMMAN, JORDAN)
We are now accepting applications for the training workshop in transformative gender research. The workshop especially invites JUNIOR FACULTY (and PhD students) in Arab universities who are interested in gender research in their own communities. The training will take place over a two-year period. The first workshop is in Beirut, September 5, 6, 7, 2014 (See below the format for this workshop). After the workshop, selected participants will be invited into a two-year mentoring program. Each participant will be assigned a mentor to work on developing their proposal over a several month period. The second workshop will train participants in transforming their research proposals into concrete research activities, focusing on research methods and design. Each participant will be trained to apply for funding to do research, with a maximum budget of $4-$5,000. Successful proposals will be funded by the project. The participants will work with their mentors as they gather the data and analyze the data. The third workshop, in the second year of the project, will focus on data analysis. This is followed by work with mentors on analyzing and writing up the research. The fourth and final workshop will include a conference in which the participants may present their research in report format to a public audience.
This project is being run by professors and researchers with many years of research and funding on gender issues in the Arab region: Distinguished Professor Suad Joseph of the University of California at Davis; Director Lina Abou-Habib of the Collective for Research and Training on Development – Action (CRTD-A) in Lebanon; Assistant Professor Lena Meari, at the Social and Behavioral Science and the Institute of Women’s Studies at Birzeit University; Lecturer and Research Associate Zeina Zaatari at the University of California in Davis; and Lecturer Islah Jad at the Women's Studies Institute and Cultural Studies Department of Birzeit University.
Application Deadline is August 20th, 2014
NB: Participants need to have a working knowledge of English as most presentations will be in English. Applications should be in English. If selected into the mentoring program, trainees can work in Arabic.
PROJECT GOAL: YOUNG GENDER SCHOLARS & TRANSFORMATIVE RESEARCH
This project is directed at working with young gender scholars at Arab national public universities to train and mentor them over a two-year period to design, execute, and bring to implementation policy-oriented research in and for their localities – research which has the potential to problem-solve realities on the ground; training which fosters the social engagement of young gender scholars and mentors them for evidence-based leadership and planning. The goal is capacity building for transformative gender research. The aim is to work with gender scholars early in their career so that the training is productive for them, as well as training them to carry out research that is itself socially useful. In the process, the project supports national universities in becoming sites of leadership for social change.
Year Two:
Year Two will focus on training in methods, data gathering, and getting to know the “field”. This will include outreach and close work with local gender related NGO’s and thought-leaders in the community. The gender researchers will be funded modest budgets to launch their research. Each gender researcher will be required to submit a budget for their projects. They will be trained in designing budgets and budget management; human subjects protocols; data gathering; data analysis during data gathering; checking for validity of data and whether data is actually answering the question posed. Following data gathering the focus is on training for data analysis, writing research results and presenting and disseminating research results for academic, public, and policy oriented audiences.
Below is a template for the launching workshop training and Year One work:
A. Pre-Workshop:
1. Participants are to read the following documents BEFORE the workshop http://sjoseph.ucdavis.edu/Faculty_Workshop/index.htm
a. Components of a Humanities & Social Science Research Proposal
b. Ten Tips for Proposal Writing
c. The Art of Proposal Writing
http://sjoseph.ucdavis.edu2. All workshop participants should be comfortable in English speaking and writing
3. Core participants are to write a one page abstract and send to Suad Joseph (sjoseph@ucdavis.edu ). mailto:sjoseph@ucdavis.eduThe abstract is to answer these questions:
a. What is the question you wish to answer?
b. What is your tentative answer to the question?
c. How have others answered this question?
d. Why are those answers inadequate?
e. Why is your answer to this question better than other answers?
f. What is the value added by answering this question?
B. Workshop Structure:
Day 1 10am-2 pm Presentation for larger audience on proposal writing
2pm-3pm Lunch break (lunch provided)
3pm-5pm Organize the structure of workshop
Day 2, 3 10am - 1pm Lectures on gender research
1pm-2pm Lunch provided
2pm-4pm Writing Groups (all participant presents to their writing group daily)
4pm-6pm Each Participants presents their preliminary proposal draft.
C. Overview:
The structure of the workshop includes an intensive lecture which presents all the components of a research proposal in condensed form to a broad audience. The remaining days focus on a smaller cohort of gender researchers. In advance of the workshop, participants will be required to read key documents on Dr. Suad Joseph’s website on proposal writing: http://sjoseph.ucdavis.edu (The key documents are available in Arabic and English). For the intensive workshop, in-depth lectures will be presented on each component of a research proposal & participants will present their assignments. In the afternoon, participants will work in “writing groups” on assignments. Each writing group will identify a team leader to coordinate their schedules for the workshop. Each participant will make a presentation every day to the writing group and share their assignments for feedback. On the last day, each participant will make a presentation of their proposal to the whole workshop.
Below is a template for the Workshop which is open to the larger academic, NGO, and local community leaders. Time for questions and answers is built in. It lays out the work of Year One of the project.
I. Introduction to Workshop: Suad Joseph, UC Davis
II. Funders: Their Objectives & Their Resources
Creating relationships with funders
Types of Grants: Individual, collaborative, institutional
Government and international agencies; Research agencies, institutes and centers
Action agencies; Private Foundations, donors, gifts; Information sources
Target Audiences – academic, institutional, public officials, students, community
III: The Effective Research Proposal
A. What is the question? What are the goals? (What is a researchable question?)
(Statement of the problem, objectives, the abstract, project target audience)
B. What is the answer? (Hypothesis) & Why is this the best answer? (Theory)
C. How have others addressed the question? Why project is worth funding?
(Literature review, need statement, significance statement, bibliography)
E. What have you already done & can you do this project? (Project feasibility, preparatory research, preliminary results, vitae, formal approvals, research permits, access, contacts, skill)
F. Is the project feasible? How will you answer the question? (Methods & design). How much will it cost? How long will it take? (Budget & timetable)
G. Other Components (facilities, infrastructural support, human subjects review, institutional commitment, statistics, intellectual property )
IV. Why proposals fail (How to increase your chances on first submission. How to do second submission. Review Process, Getting feedback)
PROJECT PERSONNEL :
PI: Dr. Suad Joseph completed her PhD in Anthropology at Columbia University. She is General Editor of the Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures (Brill 2003-2007) and EWIC Online (2009 -). She is editor and co-editor of 8 books, and author of over 100 articles. She founded the Middle East Research Group in Anthropology (the Middle East Section of the American Anthropological Association); the Association for Middle East Women's Studies; the Arab Families Working Group; and a Consortium of 5 universities in Egypt, Lebanon, and Palestine, with UC Davis where she is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Women and Gender Studies and is the founding Director of the Middle East/South Asia Studies Program at UC Davis. She co-founded the Association for Arab American Studies and the Association for Middle East Anthropology. She was recognized at UC Davis for service by receiving the Graduate Mentor; the Distinguished Scholarly Public Service Award; Chancellor's Award for Diversity and Community; and the UC Davis Prize for Undergraduate Teaching and Research. She was President of the Middle East Studies Association of North American -11. She has received grants from the Ford Foundation, the Henry Luce Foundation, the International Development Research Center, the Population Council, UNICEF, the Swedish Institute of Alexandria, the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Education, the Open Society Institute and other funders. She has taught proposal writing and research design for over 30 years. (http://sjoseph.ucdavis.edu )
Lina Abou-Habib is the Director of the Collective for Research and Training on Development – Action (CRTD-A), a regional organization working in research, programme interventions, campaigning and lobbying on gender equality and social justice in the MENA region. Ms. Abou-Habib has been involved in the design and management of research and development programmes in the Middle East and North Africa region on issues related to gender and citizenship, economy, trade and gender and leadership. Ms. Abou-Habib has collaborated with a number of regional and international research and development agencies, including The Royal Tropical Institute, IDRC, UNIFEM, ILO, ESCWA, UNDP, UNRWA, EMHRN, WB, as well as public institutions, in mainstreaming gender in development policies and practices and in building capacities for gender mainstreaming and for initiating research initiatives on gender equality. Prior to that, she was the Programme Coordinator for Oxfam GB in Lebanon. Ms. Abou-Habib is a programme advisor for the Women’s Learning Partnership and the Global Fund for Women and is on the editorial board of Oxfam’s journal, Gender and Development. Currently, she is coordinating CRTDA’s Arab Women’s Right to Nationality Campaign as well as the Regional Equality without Reservation Coalition. Lina has served as both Secretary and President of the Board of Directors of the Association of Women’s Rights in Development (2008-2012). She is currently a doctoral candidate at the Auckland University of Technology.
Dr. Islah Jad is a lecturer on gender issues and politics at the Women's Studies Institute and Cultural Studies Department of Birzeit University in the West Bank. She joined Birzeit in 1983, and is a founding member of its women’s studies program. She has written books and papers on the role of women in politics, Palestinian women and the relationships among them, Islam, and NGOs. Dr. Jad is also a consultant on gender issues to the United Nations Development Programme and is co-author of the UN's Arab Development Report on Women's Empowerment. Dr. Jad received her Ph.D. from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London in 2004.
Dr. Zeina Zaatari is a lecturer and research associate at the University of California in Davis and is an independent consultant focusing on gender and sexuality in the Middle East and North Africa. Previously, she worked as the Regional Director for the MENA Program at Global Fund for Women, (2004-2012). She earned her PhD in Cultural Anthropology with an emphasis in Feminist Theory from the University of California at Davis. Her publications include “Desirable Masculinity/Femininity and Nostalgia of the “Anti-Modernity”: Bab el-Hara Television Series as a Site of Production” in Sexuality and Culture (2014), “Re-Imagining Family, Gender, and Sexuality: Feminist and LGBT Activism in the context of the 2006 Invasion of Lebanon” co-written with Nadine Naber in Cultural Dynamics (2014), “Arab Feminist Awakening: Possibilities and Necessities” in Arab Feminisms: A Critical Perspective (2014 & 2012). She currently serves as Secretary of the Board of the Association for Women’s Rights in Development, the Associate Editor for the Middle East and Europe at the Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures and is a core group member of the Arab Families Working Group.
Dr. Lena Meari is an Assistant Professor at the Social and Behavioral Science and the Institute of Women’s Studies at Birzeit University, Palestine. She received her PhD in Cultural Anthropology with a Designated Emphasis in Feminist Theory and Research from the University of California, Davis. Her dissertation, titled “Sumud: A Philosophy of Confronting Interrogation,” investigates transforming colonial relations in colonized Palestine from the perspective of the interrogation encounter. She taught several courses, including Anthropology of the Middle East at the University of California, Davis, as well as Critical Theories in Gender and Development and Qualitative Research Methods for graduate students at Birzeit University. She was the first recipient of the Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Columbia University.