Research Commissioning Centre
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) Research Commissioning Centre (RCC) has been established to commission and manage research to enhance development and foreign policy impact.
Led by the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie), the University of Birmingham, and an unmatched consortium of UK and global research partners, the RCC aims to commission different types of high-quality research in FCDO’s key priority areas.
About the RCC
The RCC provides support to FCDO teams for commissioning and delivering high-quality and impactful research. It addresses challenges associated with research bureaucracy, as highlighted by the Independent Review of Research Bureaucracy, by providing a streamlined process for commissioning and delivering FCDO-funded research.
How we work
The RCC aims to reduce administrative burden, accelerate access to world class academics and strengthen the ability to deliver rapid and responsive research commissioning, all with a focus on impact. The RCC will start with a limited number of projects in the proof-of-concept phase, and then scale up significantly within a few years. A central role of the RCC will enable stronger coordination across FCDO research and investments, including identifying opportunities for cross-sectoral research. Inclusion and equitable partnership principles will be at the heart of the RCC to drive high-quality and impactful research.
How to apply
If selected, RCC funding recipients will be required to comply with several guidelines and policies to ensure high standards of research and programme delivery. Shortlisted funding recipients will be assessed for compliance during the due diligence process. Potential funding recipients are encouraged to familiarise themselves with the following resources, which will be used throughout the delivery of RCC-funded projects.
- FCDO Programme Operating Framework (PrOF)
- FCDO Risk Register Template*
- 3ie Safeguarding Policy
- 3ie Fraud & Anti-Corruption Policy
- 3ie Transparent, Reproducible, and Ethical Evidence (TREE) Policy
- 3ie Direct Cost Policy (also included in the budget template)
- 3ie Indirect Cost Policy (also included in the budget template)
Note: In case of any discrepancies between the FCDO’s PrOF guidance and 3ie’s policies, the PrOF guidance will prevail.
*Applicants are not required to fill in the risk register template at the Calls for Proposals stage. This resource is included for information only.
Research programmes
Understanding the impacts of El Niño and the Indian Ocean Dipole in the Indo-Pacific
As part of an RCC-commissioned project, 3ie is leading the development of a systematic review to examine the evidence on the effects of El Niño and the positive Indian Ocean Dipole on health, economics, conflict migration, food and security across low- and middle-income countries in the Indo-Pacific Region. The protocol for this review and additional information on this project is available here.
Related events
Early Market Engagement – Evidence on evidence use programme: The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s (FCDO) Research Commissioning Centre is delighted to announce an early market engagement session for an upcoming commission. The evidence on evidence use programme aims to enhance understanding of the use of evidence in policymaking by interrogating the underlying factors that influence government decision-making and evaluating interventions to support evidence use. The call is open to conduct research in low- and lower-middle income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, with a particular focus on economic decision-making for national economic growth. Read more
Upcoming opportunities
In this section, we will provide information about upcoming opportunities, also known as prior information notices, coming from the RCC. These opportunities will cover a range of development and diplomacy topics. If interested, please sign up to the mailing list for more updates and to track the opportunity.
Private sector-led digital agriculture extension for smallholder farmers: a literature review and programme assessment
The Technology and Innovation Unit at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) is looking to commission a 12-month study of the impact of FCDO's funding of the GSMA Mobile for Development (M4D) programme since 2013. The purpose of the programme is to bring together the mobile ecosystem and the development sector to drive digital innovation, fostering sustainable business models and significant social and economic impact for low-income communities in developing countries. The programme’s objective is to improve climate resilience, livelihoods and access to opportunities for women and underserved groups, as well as mitigating climate change. This is being achieved by unlocking mobile-enabled innovation that delivers on the Global Goals while also improving people’s access to and use of digital and mobile services.
Independent evidence on digital advisory services in low- and middle-income countries (L&MICs) across Asia and Africa is limited and self-reported impact needs to be scrutinised more rigorously. Most evaluations look at the “reach” of these models, and existing studies are weak on evaluating their actual impact on smallholder farmers’ livelihoods, incomes and climate resilience, especially in the long term. For this project, we envision the funding recipient to: 1) undertake a literature review, 2) formulate the research questions, and 3) undertake a study of GSMA projects, assessing impact and collecting data in target countries among participants.
Evidence on Evidence Use Programme
While the case for evidence use in policymaking is difficult to refute, with more than 40 years of research and drive to increase evidence uptake in policy, barriers to evidence use remain and governance around evidence use remains weak. Barriers are particularly strong in low- and lower-middle-income countries. Most of the current research on the use of evidence in policymaking has engaged in a limited manner with the political and institutional nature of decision-making. Improving the use of evidence in policy will require the establishment of principles of what would constitute good evidence to inform policy, along with good use of evidence within a policy process.
We will issue a call for proposals for research to understand and generate evidence on the barriers, facilitators, politics, institutional factors around evidence use and to identify effective policies, interventions and institutions that have helped bridge the gap between evidence and policy. This will focus on evidence use and uptake within developing countries, with a particular focus on evidence use within policymaking for economic development.
RCC partners
