ADAPTED

The ADAPTED Consortium

The EJD ADAPTED is a consortium of European Universities, important internationally active European development organisations and think tanks and six African partner universities. Within ADAPTED,

• the European universities – including Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany (coordinator), Erasmus University Rotterdam and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands, Boğaziçi University, Turkey, and Centre National de Recherche Scientifique in partnership with Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, France – will host the ESRs, direct their research, organise training and implement the European Joint Doctorate based on project-specific binational agreements (cotutelles de these),
• the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), the Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungs GmbH (DEG) and the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) host selected ESRs during non-academic secondments and add to the intersectoral relevance of the research done within the consortium while the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI) provides ESRs with advice and training on the dissemination of research output and acts as a global dissemination platform for the ESRs,
• researchers from six cooperating African partner universities, including the University of the Western Cape and the University of Cape Town (South Africa), Bahir Dar University (Ethiopia), University of Development Studies (Ghana), Moi University (Kenya), and University of Douala (Cameroon), will supervise ESRs during field work, provide them with access to local actors and to locally available data sets and link them to the non-academic sector in the fieldwork countries.

The ADAPTED Research and Training Programme

The Overarching Aim of the EJD ADAPTED is to deliver high-level training with intersectoral relevance in

• validating pathways towards poverty eradication,
• analysing interactions between poverty reduction and other policy areas
• and optimising the impact of poverty reduction policies

to high achieving early stage researchers (ESRs) to bridge the existing knowledge gap in understanding poverty dynamics and by equipping the ESRs with a unique skills portfolio that is equally attractive for research institutions, development organisations and internationally active firms.

ADAPTED will implement the empirical components of its research programme with a clear but non-exclusive focus on countries in Sub-Sahara Africa. The EJD’s research programme is organised in three work packages (WP) that address the following broad research areas:

• WP 1: Validating Pathways: We want to investigate how effective different growth- and social protection-oriented policies are in improving poverty-related outcomes, given the large heterogeneity of low- and middle-income countries and the differences in the target groups that these policies are able to reach. (5 PhD positions).
• WP 2: Analysing Interactions: Poverty reduction-related policies are not implemented in a policy vacuum. Usually they are implemented side by side in settings, which are characterised by the existence of a multitude of other policies, which serve purposes other than poverty reduction. We therefore want to study poverty-related trade-offs and co-benefits within different growth- and social protection-oriented policy frameworks on the one hand, and between them and other policies on the other hand for deriving recommendations towards a policy mix responsive to poverty reduction. (5 PhD positions).
• WP 3: Optimising Impact: We want to identify mechanisms that increase the relevance and the quality of delivery of social protection schemes, which allow for an improved coordination of fragmented social policies, and support the design and implementation of poverty reduction-related policies in neopatrimonial environments. (5 PhD positions).

The ADAPTED training programme combines local doctoral training offers at the beneficiary organisations with high-level network-wide training and training through secondments. The programme includes the training of core research skills acquired via the individual research project, modules on advanced research skills delivered by the consortium and transferable skills training offered by local graduate schools and during secondments with practice partners.