Social Inclusion Research Fund : Mid-Term Review

The Fund has been established on a two-legged approach; funding knowledge production on causes and effects of social exclusion and ways to manage diversity while promoting researchers belonging to the social excluded groups on the one hand. On the other hand, research and cooperation between Norwegian and Nepali research institutions was funded.

The three main objectives of SIRF are:
1. Produce high quality and critical research on causes of social exclusion in Nepal and ways to accommodate and manage diversity
2. Make social science research more relevant to excluded and disadvantaged groups and their agendas
3. Ensure that research contributes more effectively to policy debate and a deliberative democratic process

Interesting Findings based on the programme period 2006 - 2007

• The programme is characterised as a highly relevant and timely initiative due to a political and social situation in Nepal which is excluding a majority of the population from decicion-making processes and major public arenas from state administration, universities to civil society institutions.
• The review team found a high degree of achievement in the programme with regards to the set-up of the "Social Inclusion Research Fund" (SIRF) and implementation of main activities such as the call for proposals, screening, and selecting proposals, contracting with research and training institutions for supervising and guiding the students in their work. This is largely due to a strong focus on institutional competence- and capacity development in the implementing organisation.
• Within the two first years, SIRF, by its Secretariat and the Interim Screening Committee has completed two cycles of calls for proposals, short-listed, selected, and finally, awarded 25 research fellows and 149 apprenticeship grants through a rigorous process of three peer reviews per proposals. The completion rates and quality of the research outputs - when they become available in mid-2008 and onwards, will determine how successful the grants have proved.
• SIRF has succeeded in including excluded groups of Janajatis, Dalits, and Madheshis, but there are still major challenges of ensuring that Madheshi Dalits and females are included.
o The programme has promoted excluded groups in academic research: 27%, 15% and 11% of the merits-based Research Fellows are Janajatis, Madhesis and Dalits respectively, while for the Apprenticeships which are ear-marked for excluded groups, 42, 20, and 19 percent of the AGs are Janajatis (hill), Dalits (hill) and Madheshis respectively. 23 percent of the Research Fellows are women while 40 percent of the AGs are women.
• Links with civil society, policy makers and representatives of the excluded groups were found to be weak and not fully developed and formalised.

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