DIEM Open Science Research Small grants program

The Data in Emergencies (DIEM) Open Science Research Grant Program Phase I is implemented in partnership with The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) as well as partners from Tulane University. It was a targeted competitive small grant mechanism that gives funding to university-based researchers within the RAN network, to leverage extensive, real-time field data collected through the FAO interventions and programs to generate actionable knowledge to strengthen resilience of communities and programs implemented by FAO. The mechanism aimed to fund researchers to conduct secondary analyses to assess the impact of shocks and stressors such as conflict, climate extremes, and economic instability, on agricultural livelihoods and food security across about 30 food crisis African countries where FAO is implementing projects.

The core objective was to bridge critical evidence gaps in programming by utilizing the DIEM Information System’s vast datasets, which includes surveys from approximately 400,000 households, and/or supplement with other similar datasets. The key thematic priorities to which the funded awards align with include:

• Assessing the effectiveness of FAO resilience and emergency interventions
• Characterizing disaster trends and cumulative impacts
• Identifying household and community resilience factors
• Exploring advanced analytical applications like machine learning to model shock impacts

The insights generated from these awards intended to directly inform and improve the design, targeting, and implementation of humanitarian and resilience programming by FAO and other development partners. By supporting university-based researchers within the RAN network in Africa, this mechanism explored the analytical depth of the data from the DIEM system, ensuring that decision-making for agricultural support in emergencies is grounded in robust, context-specific evidence.