Sustainability

Call for Proposals: Southern Perspectives on Transformational Interventions and Leadership

OSUN is seeking research proposals for a new project on “Southern Perspectives on Transformational Interventions and Leadership” that is coordinated by BRAC University in Bangladesh and its partners. Project research will focus on Southern initiatives and leaderships that have sought or are seeking transformations in the lives of their communities and peoples and will be used to generate case studies, courses, and other intellectual outputs.

This program is anchored in the premise that the Global South has witnessed many large-scale impactful and transformational interventions that have challenged prevailing political and economic structures as well as conventional wisdom around progress and development. Such mobilizations have generally been triggered by deep-rooted aspirations for fundamental changes in the living conditions of the poor and the marginalized. However, these transformative initiatives remain, for the most part, absent from the global discourse on development and change.

The project seeks to rectify some of these knowledge imbalances by including Southern perspectives on the South’s contribution to global solutions that lead to transformational change. In addition, the project will critically analyze organizational leaderships to determine the elements that assist in successfully mobilizing people on a mass scale, and the reasons for the failures of many such engagements.

Project leaders seek researchers and practitioners who can contribute to generating information and analysis of Southern developmental and transformational experience. A modest sum of $3,000 in funding for research and documentation will be provided for selected short proposals from academics, researchers, practitioners, and graduate students, both in the North and the South. Successful applicants will be expected to carry out research on Southern initiatives and leaderships that have sought or are seeking transformations in the lives of their communities and peoples.   

The project leaders are interested in organizations that have:

• been operational for at least 10 years
• designed activities to address structural impediments to participation of the marginalized
• succeeded in, or attempted, transformational impacts seeking to improve the conditions of their members
• developed or are developing systems that can be replicated on a larger scale

The project leaders are interested in leadership stories that include:

• Origin story: What motivated them and how did they begin? 
• Learning: Who did they learn from? 
• Continuous learning: What mistakes did they make and what did they learn from them?
• Systems:  How did they develop the program design and its intervention and monitoring systems? 
• Mobilization and motivation: How did they reach their constituency and how did they mobilize and motivate them? 

Next Steps
The Program will convene a small group of experts from the OSUN community to vet the research proposals and monitor their progress. The group of experts will work together to distill knowledge from the research to curate teaching materials, case studies and methodologies through integrating learning inside and outside of the classroom. The group will use these to co-create teaching and learning hubs across OSUN and other partner institutions.  

Project leaders intend to publish the research reports and hold an online conference for an analytical discussion of the findings. A white paper will be prepared which identifies and articulates a Southern narrative on transformational change and the type and role of leadership associated with it.  In addition, the project will develop a Network Collaborative Course on “Southern Perspectives on Transformational Interventions and Leadership.” 

Questions? Write to Samia Kalim

Deadline to apply is Sunday October 15

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Cross Reference: Call for Proposals,Opportunities,Sustainability