Apply! WASH Research Awards

Research organisations are invited to submit proposals for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Research Awards under the Water for Women Fund.

The Water for Women Fund commenced on 14 December 2017. It is a flagship program in Australia’s engagement in WASH and is part of Australia’s commitment to the High Level Panel on Water. The Fund will invest AUD $110.6 million over five years to December 2022 to improve the health, gender equality and well-being of Asian and Pacific communities through inclusive, sustainable WASH projects.

Deadline
27 February 2018

Types of Proposal
Two types of proposals for WASH Research Awards will be sought under the Fund:
-WASH sector research addressing key knowledge gaps (Type One award)
-Research closely linked to Civil Society Organisation (CSO) implementation and outcomes of the Water for Women Fund (Type Two award)

Objectives
-The WASH Research Awards aim to contribute to the goal of ‘improved health, gender equality and well-being of Asian and Pacific communities through inclusive, sustainable WASH.’’
-The WRAs will support that goal by contributing to the Water for Women’s fourth end-of-program outcome:
-Strengthened use of new evidence, innovation and practice in sustainable gender and inclusive WASH by other CSOs, national and international WASH sector actors
-This key outcome in turn is supported by the Fund’s intermediate outcome of:
-Documentation and sharing of gender and socially inclusive evidence and effective practices with other CSOs, national and international sector actors
-The three key strategies that will support these outcomes include:
-Quality research engagement, partnerships and networks
-Quality research capacity building
-Quality research management processes and outputs.

Priority Themes
-Gender and social inclusion and WASH
-Safely managed water and safely managed sanitation and hygiene (both urban and rural contexts)
-Achieving SDG6 – integration of water resources management (WRM) and WASH, disaster risk reduction (DRR) and WASH, climate change adaptation (CCA) and WASH and water security
-Strengthening sector systems
-Cross-sectoral WASH and its impacts: particularly health, nutrition, food security and education

Funding
Applicants may apply for between AUD100,000 and AUD400,000 per year of Australian Government funding for up to three years at differentiated levels of funding over the course of the research project.

Eligibility
-Organisation Eligibility
-Applications must meet each of the following eligibility criteria:
-Applications must be submitted by research organisations or institutions (and not by individual researchers);
-The Principal Investigator must nominate an organisation with which he/she is affiliated to administer the grant and provide support;
-The Funding Round is open to all Australian and international not-for-profit institutions or organisations where research is a core component of the organisation’s mandate and where the organisation has demonstrated capacity to carry out quality research and manage grant funds according to DFAT’s policies;
-The administering organisation must have access to a recognised Ethics Approval process;
-Project teams, administering organisations and partners funded by DFAT must demonstrate that they are ethically sound and, where applicable, seek ethics approval from their nominated administering organisation.
-Ethics approval requirements in the research project target location (country/countries) must be taken into consideration and met;
-Demonstrated alignment with one or more of the five priority themes.
-Organisations submitting applications must not have any reason preventing them from operating in Australia, Asia and the Pacific.
-Consortia are eligible and must have a clearly identified lead organisation.
-Consortium applications must be accompanied by a separate letter from each partner providing information about itself, noting the relationship between the Lead Organisation and partner organisation(s) and expressing the intent to collaborate.
-The Lead Organisation in a consortium will be accountable for all funds. The Grant Agreement shall be signed with the Lead Organisation, and the Lead Organisation is responsible to the Fund Coordinator on behalf of DFAT for the performance of the consortium under the Grant Agreement to achieve the objectives as required.
-Organisations may be involved in several consortia and proposals.
-The Fund Coordinator, in consultation with DFAT, reserves the right to reassess any proposal if, following submission, the membership of the successful consortium proposal changes, including the withdrawal of consortium member(s).

Application
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