The Generation of new data
The progress in our understanding of peace and prosperity has been intimately linked to the data available. During the Cold War period the work on explaining interstate wars was fueled by the massive data collection effort on Military Interstate Disputes (https://correlatesofwar.org/data-sets/). In recent years the work on civil conflicts has substantially benefitted from new fine-grained datasets on conflict events at the subnational level (e.g. the Armed Conflict Location Event Data, https://acleddata.com/).
Yet, our understanding of the fundamentals of peace and prosperity is only very partial and much more data work is needed to gain a more robust picture, especially in domains such as geonomics or investment in the context of fragility. One goal of ReCIPE is then to better learn about what exact data gaps are holding us back.
In addition to having the generation of new data as a cross-cutting theme, ReCIPE will seek to have all new data generated with funding from the programme be made publicly available. This will include financial resources available to make all journal articles open access when allowed by the journal.
Gender Equality and Inclusion
Topics related to gender have started to attract attention only recently, and researchers are restricted by gaps in many important data series.
For example, lack of representation of women and minority groups in peace negotiations and settlements has been argued by various policymakers to be a factor contributing to the recurrence of conflict. Currently available data does not, however, allow us to establish a causal relationship between representation and the recurrence of conflict.
A key purpose of the ReCIPE programme is therefore to push forward the collection of comprehensive empirical evidence on what key factors and policies linked to gender equality and inclusion make a difference for promoting prosperity and peace.
Even though a specific theme exists for these topics (Theme 9), the existence of a gender dimension in a grant proposal is very strongly encouraged for projects under all themes.
Climate Change and the Environment
While climate change is a threat to human welfare across the globe, some regions are impacted more than others, in particular those which already have high levels of poverty and which have suffered from endemic armed conflict.
The impacts of climate change are embedded into multiple other subjects. For instance, health or labor market policies need to take into account their potential effect on the environment. Similarly, the threat for future resource competition that drives research on Theme 7 and Theme 8 is exacerbated by climate change.
For these reasons, we have not only devoted a separate theme to climate change and the environment, but also strongly encourage applicants to explain how proposals submitted to other themes have a cross-cutting link with climate change.