STEG Larger Research Grants 2026: Win up to £100,000 for Structural Transformation Research in Africa

If you study why some economies change shape while others stall, the STEG Larger Research Grants (LRGs) are the sort of prize you notice. These grants provide awards up to £100,000 to support research on structural transformation and economic growth — the long-run shifts in where people work, what they produce, and how productive they are. If your work asks big comparative questions about low-income countries, or drills into household-level or sectoral processes that drive growth, this call is for you.

Think of this grant as project fuel. It can pay for research assistants, buying or collecting data, travel to field sites, and even teaching buyouts so investigators can focus on the work. The funders want proposals that speak to policy as well as theory — studies that help governments, donors, or other stakeholders make smarter decisions. If your plan connects well with one of the six STEG research themes and includes a clear path to publishable outputs or policy engagement, you’ll be in the running.

This article will walk you through everything you need to know: who is eligible, what gets funded, how reviewers judge proposals, and concrete advice you can use while writing. I’ll also give a realistic timeline you can adopt and a checklist of required materials so you don’t miss a bureaucratic detail at the last minute. Read on like you mean to win.

At a Glance

What This Opportunity Offers

STEG’s LRGs are substantial small-to-medium grants. At up to £100,000, these awards are large enough to fund a focused multi-year research project but small enough that reviewers expect a tight scope and quick delivery. Unlike tiny seed grants, STEG expects outputs: rigorous analyses, working papers, and contributions to policy debates and academic understanding of structural transformation.

Money is flexible in useful ways. You can pay research assistants, buy microdata or satellite imagery, hire local enumerators for fieldwork, and request teaching buyouts so the principal investigator has protected time to write. Travel budgets are allowed even when projects rely primarily on secondary data — the funders recognize that site visits often strengthen interpretation, build local partnerships, and help with dissemination.

Beyond cash, successful STEG grantees typically gain visibility within a network of economists and development researchers. That network can lead to co-authorship, data-sharing, or invitations to workshops where you can present early findings. If you build a dissemination plan (policy briefs, meetings with ministries, or short videos), the grant can catalyze real-world change rather than just another paper on a shelf.

Finally, the program explicitly encourages collaboration between researchers in higher- and lower-income countries. That matters: proposals that include strong local partnerships tend to produce richer data, more nuanced interpretation, and greater policy uptake.

Who Should Apply

You should apply if your research targets the processes that change economies over time — for example, why workers move from farming to manufacturing, how firm dynamics shape productivity, or how public investments affect long-term growth. STEG is looking for projects with strong empirical grounding and clear policy relevance.

Principal investigators must have a PhD or be enrolled in a PhD program. Co-investigators do not have formal qualification requirements, but most teams include people with PhDs or active graduate researchers. The funders evaluate the entire team’s capacity; if you lack a particular skill (e.g., structural modelling, geospatial analysis, or complex survey design), bring a co-investigator who has it. Don’t try to fake a method you can’t defend.

Examples of strong fits:

• A comparative study of labour transitions across several African countries using panel household surveys and firm-level data.
• A project measuring agricultural productivity gaps using satellite-derived inputs and small-scale farmer surveys.
• An analysis of trade costs within a region and how those costs shape industrial clustering and firm growth.

If your work is narrowly theoretical without empirical plans, this isn’t a fit. If you plan only literature review or a general conceptual paper, consider smaller fellowships or writing-up grants. STEG wants projects that can produce measurable evidence and inform policy conversations within a 1–3 year timeframe.

Note the geographic/collaboration nuance: applicants are global, and collaborative proposals that include partners from lower-income countries are encouraged. However, due to current sanctions and policy constraints, proposals including researchers based at Russian institutions cannot be accepted at this time. Build your team with transparency and clear division of roles.

Research Themes Explained

STEG lists six themes; good proposals speak directly to one or more and explain why the theme matters for Africa or other low-income contexts.

• Data, measurement, and conceptual framing: Work that improves how we measure growth, productivity, or structural change — e.g., new methods to estimate employment in the informal sector.
• Firms, frictions, spillovers, and industrial policy: Studies on firm dynamics, market failures, and policies that might boost productive investment.
• Labour, home production, and household-level transformation: Research on how labour allocation inside households evolves with growth, including unpaid care work.
• Agricultural productivity and sectoral gaps: Projects examining why agricultural productivity lags and what closes the gap to industry or services.
• Trade and spatial frictions: Analyses of transport costs, regional integration, and how geography affects industrial concentration.
• Role of the public sector: Studies of government interventions — investments, regulation, or institutions — that influence structural transformation.

Pick one theme and make the link explicit. Don’t assume reviewers will infer why your topic belongs.

Insider Tips for a Winning Application

1. Start with a crisp, short “so what” statement. Reviewers read hundreds of proposals; the opening paragraph must make clear what you will answer and why it matters for policy in low-income settings. One or two sentences that explain the central contribution will pay huge dividends.

2. Build a tight roadmap from question to evidence. Describe the empirical strategy clearly: what data you’ll use, why it identifies causal effects (if appropriate), and what robustness checks you plan. If you’ll use an instrumental variable, regression discontinuity, or difference-in-differences, explain why those strategies are credible in your context.

3. Show you can actually get the data. Money for data purchase or collection is available, but reviewers want assurance you can access the datasets or secure field permissions. Attach letters of support from local partners or confirm availability of proprietary datasets if possible.

4. Budget like an economist, not a dreamer. Break down costs by line item and justify each expense. If you plan a teaching buyout, explain percentage time and institutional approval. If travel is expensive, explain why it is essential—e.g., to pilot a survey or run interviews that improve coded variables.

5. Make policy relevance concrete. Don’t write vague claims about “informing policy.” Identify the specific policy actors (ministry, regulator, donor) and how your findings can plausibly influence decisions—timelines, program design, or resource allocation.

6. Include a realistic timeline and deliverables. STEG funds expect outputs. Give months for data cleaning, analysis, drafts, and dissemination events. If you plan a policy brief or stakeholder workshop, include it in the timeline.

7. Get local co-authors and letters of support. A partner at a local university or research institute lends credibility and improves data collection logistics. Letters should be specific: confirm access to data, offer logistical support, or pledge institutional time.

8. Prepare a data management plan early. Explain how you will store, anonymize, and share data. Funders value ethical plans and a pathway to making non-sensitive data available for replication.

9. Pilot any novel tools before applying. If you’ll use mobile surveys, remote sensing, or machine learning pipelines, run small pilots to demonstrate feasibility. Attach pilot results or screenshots in an appendix if allowed.

10. Read feedback from prior rounds. If STEG posts reviewer comments from past competitions, study them. They reveal common weaknesses and what reviewers reward.

Those ten tips are not bureaucratic niceties — they mirror what reviewers judge when deciding which proposals are credible, feasible, and worth funding.

Application Timeline (Work Backwards from 02 February 2026)

Use this timeline as a template and add institution-specific deadlines (many universities require internal sign-off earlier):

• November – December 2025: Finalize research question, core methods, and list of potential co-investigators. Reach out to local partners and begin drafting letters of support.
• December 2025: Develop detailed budget and draft data management plan. Start institutional approvals for teaching buyouts or IRB/ethics review if required.
• Mid-January 2026: Circulate full draft to 2–3 trusted reviewers: one specialist, one applied/policy-oriented researcher, and one non-specialist. Incorporate feedback.
• Late January 2026: Final check with your sponsored research office for compliance, overhead calculations, and signatory requirements.
• At least 48 hours before deadline (by 31 Jan 2026): Submit to avoid last-minute portal problems. Applications submitted after 23:59 BST on 02 Feb will be rolled to the next LRG round.

Give each stage buffer time. Online portals crash, institutional approvals get delayed, and co-authors reply slowly. Plan for the worst and you’ll likely finish on time.

Required Materials

STEG’s online form will ask for a set of standard documents. Prepare these in advance and keep editable versions for last-minute changes.

• Project proposal (detailed description): A clearly structured narrative of objectives, methods, timeline, and expected outputs. Aim for clarity and economy—every paragraph should move the logic forward.
• Budget and budget justification: Line items for personnel, travel, data purchase, equipment, and indirect costs. Explain why each item is necessary and whether costs are one-off or recurring.
• CVs or biographical sketches for PI and co-investigators: Focus on relevant experience and publications. Shorter, targeted CVs are better than long unfocused résumés.
• Letters of support or institutional commitments: Especially from local partners or data-providing organizations. Specificity matters—letters promising “general support” are weak.
• Data management and ethical considerations: Explain anonymization, storage, and access plans. If human subjects are involved, outline IRB/ethical review timelines.
• Dissemination plan: How you will share results with academics and policy audiences. Include workshops, policy briefs, or targeted meetings.
• Any pilot data or appendices: If you have preliminary results or pilots, include them in an appendix to boost credibility.

Make sure file formats are acceptable (PDF is safest) and that filenames are clear. Draft everything in Word or Google Docs so you can convert easily.

What Makes an Application Stand Out

Reviewers look for three interlocking features: strong question design, credible methods, and clear policy relevance. Proposals that stand out usually combine these with evidence of strong project management.

A standout application will present a precise hypothesis and a path to test it. Rather than proposing “to study productivity,” a top proposal will say “to estimate the contribution of input X to productivity in sector Y using panel survey Z and method Q.” Clarity here signals you’ve thought through the work.

Feasibility is decisive. You may have a brilliant idea, but if data access is uncertain or your timeline is unrealistic, reviewers will flag it. Show pre-arranged data access, existing partnerships, or pilot results. Explain how potential bottlenecks will be handled.

Policy traction helps. Propose a clear set of deliverables tailored to policy audiences: a one-page brief for ministry officials, a short workshop in-country, or a dashboard with accessible indicators. These make reviewers imagine the research being used, not left unread.

Finally, value for money matters. With limited funds, reviewers want to see that the budget actually advances the research and won’t just cover travel for convenience. Tiny budgets that promise too much look suspicious; overly expensive budgets that don’t justify costs also fail. Aim for balance.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

1. Overambitious scope. Asking for £100,000 doesn’t mean you should propose a continent-wide study with multiple complex causal identifications. Aim for a focused question you can complete on time.

2. Weak budget justification. Vague line items like “fieldwork” without details prompt rejection. Explain sampling, per-unit costs, and contingency plans.

3. Poor local engagement. Projects that ignore local institutions or fail to secure letters of support often struggle with logistics and policy uptake. Build respectful partnerships early.

4. Ignoring ethics and data sharing. Not describing how you’ll protect respondents or manage sensitive data is a red flag. Prepare an ethical plan and indicate any IRB timelines.

5. Jargon-heavy writing. If reviewers can’t follow your argument without a specialist glossary, they’ll penalize it. Explain methods simply and avoid acronyms the first time you use them.

6. Submitting at the last minute. Portal issues, missing signatures, or corrupted files doom otherwise excellent proposals. Submit at least 48 hours early.

Address these mistakes directly in your draft: include contingency plans, explicit letters, and plain language explanations.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Can a PI be based anywhere? A: Yes. Applicants are global, but the PI must hold a PhD or be enrolled in a PhD program. Collaborations across higher- and lower-income countries are encouraged. Note current restrictions concerning researchers based at Russian institutions.

Q: Are interdisciplinary teams allowed? A: Absolutely. Structural transformation is inherently interdisciplinary. Teams that combine economics with political economy, geography, or agricultural science can be strong — as long as roles and contributions are clear.

Q: Can funds be used to buy proprietary data? A: Yes. The grant explicitly allows data purchase. Explain why the dataset is necessary and include price estimates in the budget.

Q: Do I need prior pilot data? A: Not strictly, but pilot data strengthens feasibility claims. If you lack pilots, provide a clear plan and contingency measures to show you can collect or access data quickly.

Q: What outputs are expected? A: STEG expects rigorous research outputs. Typical deliverables include working papers, policy briefs, and presentations. Propose a clear dissemination plan.

Q: Is overhead allowed? A: Institutional overhead policies vary. Consult your sponsored research office early to include correct overhead and approvals.

Q: Will I get reviewer feedback if rejected? A: Many competitions provide summary comments. Use feedback to revise and resubmit in the next LRG round.

Q: How competitive is the program? A: The announcement doesn’t publish a success rate. Treat it as competitive: craft a strong, feasible, policy-relevant proposal.

How to Apply

Ready to apply? Follow these concrete steps:

1. Visit the official STEG application page and read the full guidance: https://steg.cepr.org/funding/how-apply-online
2. Draft your project narrative, budget, CVs, and letters of support early.
3. Contact institutional offices for approval and teaching buyout confirmations.
4. Upload materials before 23:59 BST on 02 February 2026. Submit at least 48 hours early to avoid technical issues.
5. After submission, prepare to follow up with dissemination plans and IRB approvals if needed.

Apply here: https://steg.cepr.org/funding/how-apply-online

Take the application seriously — not as a bureaucratic hoop, but as a structured argument convincing experts that your project matters, is doable, and will use the funds wisely. If you build a focused question, demonstrate data access, and show how your results will inform policy, you’ll give reviewers every reason to fund your work. Good luck.