The The Strengthening Information Society Research Capacity Alliance (SIRCA) Program establishes and brings together the endeavors of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC, Canada) and the Singapore Internet Research Centre (SiRC, Singapore) to identify future research leaders, particularly emerging researchers who are relatively new to ICTD/Information Society research and to facilitate their development through the support of research grants.
These researchers would benefit from concerted capacity building exercises including a mentorship arrangement where it creates opportunities for mentorship between established researchers and grant recipients. This grant focuses on social science research, in particular, the relationships between ICTs and information society.
Description:
Proposals for research projects on Information Societies and Information & Communication Technology for Development carried out in the Global South will be accepted.
SIRCA aims to improve the inter-disciplinary research skills of emerging scholars in open development and entrepreneurship, governance, learning, and science spaces in the Global South. Learning from the experience of building capacity in the Information Society/Information & Communication Technology for Development field in Asia, SIRCA II will include researchers from Africa, Latin America as well as Asia, in order to address the very lack of scholars from developing regions.
Objectives:
- Build scientific and critical research skills and capacity among emerging researchers (PIs) in Africa, Latin America and Asia;
- Create opportunities for mentorship between established international researchers (Collaborators) and grant recipients (Principal Investogators or PIs);
- Provide spaces at a regional and international level for PIs to share experiences and knowledge in face-to-face settings; and
- Provide training to PIs on key information society’s issues.
- Establish network connections between African, Latin American and Asian researchers; and
- Disseminate findings locally and internationally in order to strengthen the body of methodologically sound, inter-disciplinary and theoretically-based research.
The program will be managed by the Singapore Internet Research Centre, based at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa, and the Instituto de Estudios Peruanos (Institute of Peruvian Studies – IEP), Peru. The SIRCA II Programme will be supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada.
Last date for registration: October 14, 2011
Last date for proposal submission: November 1, 2011
Contact details:
Singapore Internet Research Center
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
31 Nanyang Link, WKWSCI Building
Singapore 637718
Tel: (65) 6790-6394
Fax: (65) 6792-7526
email: sirca@ntu.edu.sg
Website: www.sirca.org.sg/