
Micro-grants funding round 1
ALIGN hosted two funding rounds in 2018/9: a Research Fund and a Convening Fund. Both aimed to encourage collaboration, knowledge sharing and innovation on gender norms and norm change. ALIGN is building on the success of these rounds by inviting donor support for its re-granting scheme. Drawing on its growing global community, its research portfolio on discriminatory gender norms and its insights on how these can be challenged, ALIGN is well placed to fund rigorous research and ground-breaking events that bring key players together.
Please contact us for further information and keep checking this page for updates. You can also sign up to our newsletter for information straight to your inbox.
About the funds
The Research Fund
ALIGN’s Research Fund supported six small-scale action research or research translation projects which contributed to advancing knowledge and evidence on gender norms across a range of contexts.
Successful applicants were given around nine months in 2018 to carry out projects and their resulting research outputs are now available to ALIGN’s community of practice, and can be consulted below. A video with interviews with three of the grantees, discussing their research findings, can also be found below.
The Convening Fund
ALIGN called for proposals for applications for small-scale research and research translation projects to further learning which closed in January 2018. The six funds award winners which were awarded a total of £90,000, explored a range of themes, from education to media and gender norm change, across highly varied contexts.
The projects included desk-based research synthesising insights on norm change from the Girls’ Education Challenge; an evaluation examining the impact of comprehensive sexuality education on intimate partner violence in Mexico City; studies of the impacts of gender-responsive curricula on gender norms in Peru and Indonesia; a study of the gender and age responsiveness of Indonesia’s adolescent-friendly health services; and action research projects exploring gender norm change through digital media in Somalia.
Fund award winners
Research Fund award winners
ALIGN called for proposals for applications for small-scale research and research translation projects to further learning which closed in January 2018. The six funds award winners explore a range of themes across highly varied contexts.
The first round of ALIGN’s Research Fund awarded a total of £90,000 to explore a range of themes from education to media and gender norm change.
The projects include desk-based research synthesising insights on norm change from the Girls’ Education Challenge; an evaluation examining the impact of comprehensive sexuality education on intimate partner violence in Mexico City; studies of the impacts of gender-responsive curricula on gender norms in Peru and Indonesia; and action research projects exploring gender norm change through digital media in Somalia.
The grant winners are:
Indonesia

This youth-led research examined whether Indonesia’s Youth Friendly Health Services, which are meant to be implemented in health sector community clinics, are truly youth friendly. It explored whether providers do not express negative gender bias toward young people with specific gender related questions or searching information on sexual and reproductive health.
Global

Through a meta-evaluation of Global Education Challenge evaluations and project data on girls’ education projects, Coffey International explored what can be learned about norm change in girls’ education in developing contexts.
Indonesia

This action research intervened through training, mentoring, and implementing gender-equitable schools and teaching practices. The beneficiaries were 15 Islamic secondary schools (middle and high schools) in rural South Malang, Indonesia, an area where government intervention to improve education quality is minimal.
Mexico

The research explored shifts in harmful gender norms in adolescents through a process evaluation examining the link between comprehensive sexuality education and intimate partner violence prevention in Mexico City.
Somalia

This study examines norms that govern the access of young women to education and higher education in Somalia and what can be done to support them. It explores women’s experiences of gender bias and stereotyping in their academic careers. The women communicate online in a Community of Practice forum and through their stories, SIDRA identifies patterns and common issues that illuminate the challenges women face in academia and in research.
Peru

Visionaria (Peru) trains and supports teachers in exploring and facilitating concepts of gender equity and norms, providing an agency-based empowerment curriculum that gives students the opportunity to practice leadership in their communities. Their research uses a community-based and participatory approach, employing photovoice, which promotes the ethical use of photography for social change. It also draws on pre- and post- surveys and focus group discussions to collect data and analyse gender norms held by teachers and students who are part of the programme.
Convening Fund award winners
ALIGN called for applications for its Convening Fund to support global meetings on gender norms in May and June 2018.
The grant winners are:
Laos
The Gender Development Association (GDA) brought together experts from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Viet Nam to share lessons learned and best practices on the promotion of positive gender norm change and the reduction of gender-based violence in the Greater Mekong sub-region. The convening in Vientiane, Laos, incorporated and amplified the voices of youth leaders. It also increased the capacity of participants to develop media campaigns and work specifically with ethnic minority communities to shift gender norms and combat violence against women and girls.
Kenya

Little attention has been paid to the gendered nature of health systems and how these systems can reinforce harmful norms, strengthen patriarchy and work against gender equity. Harnessing the power of the health systems that have contact with most citizens throughout their lives – could generate powerful dividends in terms of social change. KWTRP brought together academics who use gender and intersectional approaches in their studies of the health system and policymakers, practitioners and researchers in Kenya to explore the potential of these approaches.
Rwanda

The ‘Getting Men to Care’ convening assembled key researchers and activists from around the world in Kigali, Rwanda to review existing research, programme and policy experiences on gender norms, workplace, policy environments and community norms that discourage or encourage men’s and boys’ participation in unpaid work. Such work includes domestic tasks and caring for children, elderly and disabled relatives. Given that women’s unpaid work burden remains a key driver of both inequality in leadership and the gender pay gap, understanding how to encourage men’s unpaid work is key to women’s empowerment.
Sri Lanka

Organised by Point of View and the Internet Democracy Project, ‘Imagine A Feminist Internet: South Asia’ was a two-day regional conference of researchers, practitioners and policymakers working on gender, sexuality and technology in South Asia. This conference, which took place in Sri Lanka, challenged gendered norms online, including those related to online violence, sexuality, and privacy and surveillance. It also discussed the concept of a ‘feminist internet’ as a way to challenge and change the daily cycle of gendered norms created and contested online. In doing so, it built on the Feminist Principles for the Internet, developed by the Association for Progressive Communications and its network.
Reflections on the convenings and research
Blog
28 March 2019

Published by: ALIGN
Blog
11 March 2019

Published by: ALIGN
Blog
21 February 2019
Published by: ALIGN
Blog
27 November 2018

Published by: ALIGN
More on micro-granting
2 November 2020

ALIGN's micro-grant scheme provides small funding grants to individuals and organisations with the aim of generating new research, synthesis and brokering to better understand various aspects of gender norms and norm change.
9 June 2021

ALIGN's second round of micro-grant funding focused on research into effective action on the gender norms that underpin gender-based violence in the workplace and features outputs from Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Rwanda, Nepal and Nigeria.
27 April 2022
