Participant Institutions/ Countries
All young researchers and academics working in OSSREA member countries of the region and holding at least a Master’s degree are eligible to apply.

OSSREA’s Role in Project/ Programme
This is one of the core programmes of OSSREA. OSSREA announces the annual competitions using its web site, posters, and newsletter, and by disseminating the information though the OSSREA Liaison Officers and Executive Committee members based in the various universities to ensure wider publicity for the research competitions.

OSSREA also selects a jury comprising three reputed scholars from the region for each competition and these will in turn select the best fifteen proposals from among the applications submitted for each competition. The winners are invited to the OSSREA Secretariat in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to fine-tune their project proposal by participating in a mandatory workshop. During the workshop the winners will sign a project agreement with OSSREA to carry out the proposed research project. OSSREA will release the grant fund to the winners in phases.

Funding Sources
Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency (Sida/ SAREC), Norwegian Agency for Development Co-operation (NORAD), The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ford Foundation.

Project/ Programme Outputs
Up to May 2003, a total of 367 researchers were awarded research grants under this programme. The average award ranges between four and six thousand US dollars. At the end of the one-year research period, grantees are expected to submit a research report of a standard comparable to a Master’s thesis. Those reports which independent reviewers deem to be original and recommend for publication will be published under OSSREA’s research report series. Until April 2003, OSSREA has published 27 Social Science and 19 Gender Issues Research Reports.

Project/ Programme Life-span
The Social Science Research Competition was launched in 1988 while the Gender Issues Research Competition was launched in 1989. Since then, both competitions have been running without interruption.