The Competitiveness and Innovation Division (IFD-CTI) of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), together with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Center for Economic Research (CINVE), has launched a call for proposals for research projects aimed at improving understanding of innovation and productivity in the service sector in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).
This call for proposals has two components: (a) A quantitative analysis on service innovation and productivity based mostly on innovation surveys or similar datasets and (b) An analysis of case studies on service sector innovation and impact evaluations. The first component will produce: four country papers on the determinants of productivity and innovation in services and it will be financed by the IDB. The second component will have two subcomponents: four case studies service innovation and four policy evaluation studies about the impacts of productivity enhancing public or private interventions in services, and will be financed by the CINVE-IDRC.
Teams can choose to present proposals for every component (i.e., quantitative analysis and case study) and subcomponents or just one of them. A panel of experts may eventually choose one or more according to strict eligibility criteria. Eligibility will be based on the scope of the project, quality of the proposal, capabilities of the research team, novelty of the case studies and impact evaluations and the feasibility to affect public policy. Indeed, it is expected that the research findings generated by this project will have policy impact and will advise policy makers on the design of successful innovation policies with the aim of improving the service sector performance in the LAC region. Hence, proposals that have government support or a clear link with innovation support institutions will be preferred (for example, by including officers from innovation agencies, business organizations, or research councils among the research teams).
Proposals must be submitted before May 14, 2012 (COB 6:00 p.m. ET USA) to the following e-mail addresses: innoserv@iadb.org and innoserv@cinve.org.uy.
For detailed information on the call for proposals visit Innovation and productivity in the service sector.