University of Antioquia, Colombia
Research assistant – Latin America
Laura Jiménez Ospina is the research assistant for Creating Safer Space activities in Latin America. She supports the Colombian work packages teams in data collection, data processing, and report writing.
Individuals of any nationality are normally welcome to apply for funding. What matters is the nationality of your employer, not your own personal nationality.
For example, you cannot be the Principal Investigator on a project if you are a citizen of the Philippines, but an employee of a Canadian university. This is because a university in Canada is not eligible to be the Lead Organisation for the project.
But if you are a Canadian citizen working for a university in the Philippines, you are eligible to apply for funding.
Applicants are required to send us an application form and specific supporting evidence. The application must be completed in full, and all requirements must be met. Please send the application form and the supporting evidence to creating-safer-space@aber.ac.uk by midnight (UTC) on 15 April 2022.
The Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) contains detailed guidance on how to answer each question on the application form. We reserve the right to reject applications that do not meet the requirements or that have not been received by the stated deadline.
Applications should normally be submitted in English. We expect English-speaking Co-Investigators to help with translation or proof-reading, where this is possible. Applications in Spanish are also welcome, but please contact creating-safer-space@aber.ac.uk at least one month before the application deadline, so that we can make the necessary arrangements for Spanish-speaking reviewers.
Please be aware that writing a grant proposal takes a long time. It normally takes at least two months, but we recommend that you start as soon as possible to increase your chances of success. Please subscribe to our newsletter to find out about workshops on how to write grant applications.
We would like to support potential applicants to connect with each other. Creating Safer Space hosts regular events, such as research cafés and training workshops. These present a good opportunity to meet others in the field. Events are advertised on our website and via our newsletter.
There is no requirement for Principal or Co-Investigators to speak English, but we will unfortunately not be able to provide the same level of service to speakers of other languages.
The grant is administered by Aberystwyth University in the UK, and information about grant conditions, contracts, and reporting requirements will be provided in English. We are happy for you to contact us in other languages, and we will use Google Translate to translate your messages. We cannot be held responsible for any misunderstandings that arise from mistranslations, but we will do our very best to address any misunderstandings that do occur.
Applications can be submitted in English or Spanish only.
Assessment of applications
The Creating Safer Space network is committed to assessing grant applications fairly, to ensure the best projects are funded. When you have submitted your application, the Creating Safer Space administrative team will check the application to ensure it meets the stated criteria (e.g., in respect to eligibility, allowable costs, supporting documents and word limits).
The application will then be reviewed by an Assessment Panel. Before the panel meeting, 2 panel members (for the Small Grant) or 3 panel members (for the Large Grant) will assess the application against the criteria summarized on page 7-8. The panel members will assess the application independently of each other, so as not to influence each other’s scores. Each panel member will give the application a score between 1 and 6, where 1 is ‘unfundable’ and 6 is ‘exceptional’. The Assessment Panel will then meet online to discuss the suggested scores, to agree on the final grade, and to rank applications in order of funding priority.
A final decision is made by the Executive Committee of the Creating Safer Space network. The Executive Committee will not re-rank proposals, but it will decide how many projects to fund. It will also decide whether to fund the most highly ranked proposals overall, or the most highly ranked proposals for each core country (Colombia, South Sudan, Myanmar and the Philippines) to ensure a balanced portfolio of projects.
Setting up projects
We will inform you of the outcome approximately 6 weeks after the application deadline. Unsuccessful projects will be welcome to request feedback. Successful projects will be informed of the next steps, which are also described on our website. It normally takes approximately 4-5 months to conclude the required contracts and to undertake other start-up requirements. The start dates for each grant are listed on page 5.
During projects
Grant holders will be expected to provide regular progress reports, to participate in workshops to share project findings, to contribute to network-wide dissemination and knowledge exchange activities, and to contribute to the Creating Safer Space network in other ways. We are particularly keen to encourage grant holders to use participatory and creative research methods in their Creating Safer Space projects and their wider work, and grant holders are expected to participate in training, collaboration and exchange workshops and to engage with mentoring initiatives.
You can apply for more than one grant, but you must have the capacity to deliver all projects that are awarded funding. Please consider your time commitments carefully.
The process of applying for a grant also involves a significant time commitment. Two rushed applications are much less likely to be successful than one fully developed application.
In spring 2021, the UK government reduced its budget for Official Development Assistance (ODA). As a result, our funders, the Arts and Humanities Research Council and UK Research and Innovation, had to cut funding to all ODA-funded projects, including the Creating Safer Space network.
The UK government has recently communicated to our funders that “legal commitments for existing projects from 2022/23 will be met”. Our funders have confirmed that “our current understanding is that we will be able to support projects still running for the remainder of their grant period and that no further cuts will be applied” (see the full statement for more information).
Our funder has invited us to launch a funding competition, and we are doing this on the assumption that the UK government does not change its mind. In the unlikely event that further cuts are announced, we will let applicants know through our newsletter and through our website.
We only provide funding for discrete projects, with specific aims and outcomes. We will not provide additional funding for on-going projects.
You are welcome to build on existing research, but please demonstrate how the project is different from or enhancing any previous work. For example, is the new Creating Safer Space project expanding on an idea explored in a previous project?
In the first instance, please consult the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). If you still have questions, please contact creating-safer-space@aber.ac.uk. We look forward to hearing about your projects!
All projects must include some elements from the arts and humanities. This can consist, for example, in the involvement of researchers, approaches or methodologies from relevant academic disciplines (like history, social anthropology, law or media studies), the use of arts-based or other creative research methods for data generation and dissemination, or the involvement of project partners with arts and humanities expertise.
Please see the AHRC Research Funding Guide for information about what disciplines are included within the arts and humanities (pp. 86 – 96).
We particularly encourage the use of arts-based and creative research methods, and provide training videos with examples on how to conduct such research. We also advertise training events through our newsletter.