Since 2009,  CEGA has provided over $6,000,000 in support to graduate students at UC Berkeley and beyond. These funds are critical to CEGA’s mission in supporting and finding the next great ideas in development research.

Twice a year (Fall and Spring semester), CEGA runs the Development Economics Challenge, a competitive request for proposals from CEGA’s graduate student and affiliate networks. Grants from the competition provide seed funding to junior researchers looking to take a leadership role in designing and implementing field studies that improve the lives of those living in poverty. Through this program, CEGA prioritizes innovative and rigorous research with a pathway towards policy impact.  Importantly, these grants 1) provide researchers with the initial funding required to get their projects off the ground and 2) incentivize researchers to carefully consider and plan for the impact of their findings on policy and decision-making.

About the Development Economics Challenge

Competitions are run twice per year, towards the end of Fall and Spring semester and will be announced on the CEGA website. The competition allocates funding to three groups of researchers:

1. UC Berkeley graduate students
2. Graduate students at CEGA-affiliated campuses*
3. CEGA faculty affiliates

Grants are allocated across two categories:

1.  Travel grants up to $5,000 for scoping and/or short-term fieldwork
2.  Seed grants up to $20,000 for extensive, longer-term projects

*University of California (Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, San Diego), Cal Poly – San Luis Obispo, California Institute of Technology, Claremont Graduate University, Loyola Marymount University, Oregon State University, Stanford University, University of British Columbia, University of Oregon, University of San Francisco, University of Southern California, University of Washington, Washington State University

Testimonials

I firmly believe that CEGA’s no-BS grants are the most impactful money that gets spent on the whole campus. The amount of amazing work that gets done when you just give some easy-to-spend money to some motivated students is incredible. I know that the grants made a big difference in my life.

— Daniel Wilson, Ph.D., Cofounder and CEO, Geocene Inc. (November 8, 2023)

The CEGA grants were extremely helpful early funding for what ended up being a large project 🙂

— Christina Brown, Assistant Professor University of Chicago (November 3, 2023)

The funding helped me build a network and skills in the context of my career. This project ended up turning into my job market paper which has heavily influenced my career in academic economics.

— Jakob Brounstein, Postdoctoral Scholar, Institute for Fiscal Studies (August 22, 2023)

The grant was very beneficial by covering some expenses not covered by other grants. If it were not for the liquidity provided by the CEGA grant, we would have had to halt data collection in a time that was critical for the project. More generally, this grant turned into the job market paper for one of the coauthors, and will likely help him land an excellent academic position. Furthermore, we are planning to submit the paper to a top-5 journal…

— Luisa Cefala, Postdoc, UC Berkeley (October 29, 2022)

Working on this project allowed us to build relationships with several stakeholders in Burundi (the University, NGOs, including our partner One Acre Fund, and some government agencies) which will enable further projects in the future.

— Luisa Cefala, Postdoc, UC Berkeley (October 29, 2022)

The initial money that the team received from CEGA was instrumental in catalyzing an active research agenda investigating labor market dynamics in India.

— Erin Kelley, World Bank (November 3, 2023)

Thanks for the funding! It helped the authors to find academic jobs 🙂 and develop a research agenda.

— Felipe Gonzalez, Senior Lecturer, Queen Mary University of London (September 13, 2023)

CEGA’s funding was catalytic in implementing the studies of social incentives for childhood immunization and prenatal care in Sierra Leone.

— Anne Karing, University of Chicago (December 4, 2023)