Call for Proposals for Research 2009

The Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion at the University of California, Irvine is soliciting proposals for original scholarly research on    the use of money as a means of saving, storing, and transferring value among the world’s poorest people. By money, we include both traditional and nationally-issued money and technologically-mediated instruments and systems, as well as systems based on personal relationships and social networks. Examples of the range of media we are including under the rubric of money are: livestock, land, gifts of labor, jewelry and other valuables, cash, coin, checks, cards, mobile phones or other electronic devices, and rotating savings and credit associations or similar arrangements.
 
Research proposals are especially welcomed that focus on one or more of the following broad topics:

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  •  How are established institutions and new organizations promoting innovative savings models for the poorest people in the developing world? How have they devised those models and how are they disseminating them? What successes and setbacks are they experiencing? What do these innovative savings models look like “on the ground,” that is, how are people actually interpreting them and using them (or not using them), and why?
  • How might existing or traditional methods of saving and storing wealth be scaled-up to provide savings alternatives for more people in a manner that is safe, secure and comprehensible to people who are used to traditional methods?
•  Savings

• Fraud 
  • What practices exist now among the world’s poorest people to protect against theft, fraud, and other forms of risk? How do the very poor cope with the dangers of handling and holding on to traditional currency objects? Research foci here might include rotating savings and credit associations, storage practices, concealment practices, and long-distance relationships involving transfers of wealth.

• Financial literacy
  • Studying financial literacy within the parameters of the relationships or interface between customers and institutions: How much do people understand financial institutions and vice versa? What do institutions do to make themselves available? What is it that is standing between people and institutions that prevents access and usage?

•    Social payments
  •   What objects, relationships, social practices, or intangibles are used to fulfill the basic functions of money as a means of exchange, store of wealth, measure of value, and method of payment? How are these objects, relationships or social practices understood and used among the world’s poorest people?
  • What social factors go into the creation and use of value and wealth? How do social payments such as tribute, marriage or death payments affect people’s understanding and use of money, other wealth goods, and relationships? What is the role of sharing and pooling in managing money? And how are new technologies transforming all of these above kinds of payments?

•      New Technologies     
  • What is the impact of new technologies on saving, storing, and transferring wealth? New technologies might include: mobile banking, card-based systems; the sharing of technology; informal means of distributing the kinds of savings, transfers and exchanges that such technology makes possible; the adoption of new money or financial technologies.

The Institute is also interested in proposals for research aimed at impacting the design and implementation of new systems for increasing financial inclusion among the world’s poorest people. We are looking for proposals that have the potential for transformative interventions, new thinking and unexplored possibilities. The Institute seeks proposals from researchers in the developing world associated with an organization or institution such as a university that can accept a transfer of research funds.

Please see http://www.imtfi.uci.edu/imtfi_cfp2009 for the link to proposal details, format, and guidelines.

You may also download the CFP 2009 flyer to post at http://www.imtfi.uci.edu/files/imtfi/docs/CFP%202009%20poster.pdf.

Deadline for submission: October 1, 2009. Decisions will be announced by January 9, 2010.

Proposal submission: Proposals may be emailed, FAXed or mailed via any postal service or courier to:

Institute for Money, Technology, & Financial Inclusion
University of California, Irvine
School of Social Sciences
3151 Social Sciences Plaza
Irvine, CA 92697-5100
tel:(949) 824-2284
fax:(949) 824-2285

Questions may be emailed to imtfi@uci.edu. Telephone inquiries: +1-949-824-2284.
Information on existing awards may be viewed at: http://www.imtfi.uci.edu/imtfi_fundedprojects2009