CALL FOR IDEAS: Young Scholars Matchmaking Workshop

Deadline: January 31, 2022

Workshop Information:

To strengthen the links between young scholars in high- and low-income countries working in the rapidly growing field of entrepreneurship and private markets research, the Private Enterprise Development in Low-Income Countries (PEDL) programme and the DevLab at New York University Abu Dhabi are organizing a matchmaking and project development workshop.

This workshop aims to bring together pre-dissertation PhD students (from year two onwards) from institutions in high-income countries with PhD students and young scholars from institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Young scholars should be no more than three years out of their PhD.

Over the course of four weeks, we will combine online and in-person meetings with the aim of fostering new ideas and developing projects, grant proposals, and, importantly, collaborations across these groups for research on the frontier of private enterprise development in Africa and South Asia. The workshop will begin with a virtual keynote highlighting open questions and opportunities for possible contributions. Participants will then come together for a virtual Ideas Fair, where they will pitch research interests and ideas that are open to collaboration. Based on this initial virtual meeting, participants will be grouped according to their interests. Over the following weeks, groups will collaborate virtually to explore and develop project ideas before coming together for an in-person, intensive Capstone week in Abu Dhabi. Workshop facilitators will help the matched groups to identify, develop and present joint projects that may lead to fundable grant proposals. We expect that small seed grants will be available from PEDL to continue collaboration and develop proposals after the workshop. Learn more.