Leveling the Funding Field for Researchers from Latin America

The Problem

Researchers from low-to-middle-income Countries (LMIC), such as most countries in Latin America, often face more challenges in raising international funding than those from High-Income Countries (HIC). Language barriers and cultural differences increase the distance between most Latin American researchers and funders in HIC.

Consequently, inclusive and well-intentioned funders, such as CZI or Wellcome Trust, although willing to work with diverse research communities, do not fund as many proposals from LMICs as they would like. Often, applications submitted by researchers at LMICs are not seen as competitive enough per the funders’ requirements, even when the contents are fully aligned with the funding goals.

Furthermore, grant writing training is rarely available in Spanish, and it does not address cultural and mindset differences essential to successfully navigating the international funding scene. Moreover, we know of no grant writing training provided mainly by researchers working collectively from Latin America and with a record of successfully obtaining international funding, who can become role models for the trainees.

Vision to Address the Problem

Our vision is that any researcher in Spanish-speaking Latin America has access to a friendly and collaborative community of peers who freely share high-quality knowledge, contacts, and advice, allowing these researchers to increase their participation in international funding.

We aim to

• Open access to specialized fund-raising skills, including implicit knowledge, by developing a curriculum that meets Spanish-speaking Latin American researchers where they are;
• Teach this curriculum for free because fees, even minimal ones, can be barriers in Spanish-speaking Latin America;
• Teach how to teach this curriculum, exponentiating its dissemination speed;
• Build and steward a safe and inclusive community of practice for Latin American researchers so they can feel safe working in a collaborative and abundance mindset rather than a competitive and scarcity mindset.

Prior Work

The development of this project started during 2023 Q1 when MetaDocencia realized the need to democratize fund-raising knowledge in the Spanish-speaking Latin American research community. Concomitantly, researchers approached MetaDocencia seeking capacity building to follow MetaDocencia´s steps and learn how to generate well-funded projects rooted in Latin America. During 2023 Q2, NumFocus consulted MetaDocencia to recommend participants for their DISC Unconference 2023. There, thanks to NumFocus support, two MetaDocencia team members, and CZI Open Science and OLS, two of MetaDocencia´s partner organizations, together with other persons interested in this project, gathered in person and co-created an initial curriculum for this project.

Work Packages to Advance this Vision

A non-exhaustive list of work packages to advance this vision:

1. Iteratively develop a curriculum to teach a mix of traditional and implicit knowledge required to raise funds for research successfully;
2. Develop an inclusive community of practice where researchers feel safe sharing funding information and helping each other with fundraising and teaching effectively what they know; and
3. Develop and teach an abridged version of the curriculum in item 1 twice in person to disseminate and preliminary test the entire curriculum while growing the community of practice.
4. Teach the full curriculum developed in item 1 online. The first training will consist of one pilot cohort of Spanish-speaking researchers from Latin America willing to give feedback on the first version of the curriculum and become multipliers for this knowledge. Subsequent cohorts will follow, including continuous curriculum improvement iterations.
5. Develop additional research-driven curriculum modules that effectively teach new topics or serve other learner personas, including administrators and research officers at Latin American academic institutions, non-profit and grassroots organizations, and others.
6. Develop guidelines for effective and non-extractive HIC-LMIC international research collaborations that complement the Work Package 1 curriculum.
7. Extend the community of practice in item 2 to include researchers with the most barriers to obtaining funding, institutional research officers, non-profit and grassroots organizations based in Spanish-speaking Latin America, and international funders from all geographic regions.
8. Organize and host Spanish-English online bilingual events of interest to the Latin America researcher community, including “ask me anything” and networking sessions that connect program officers at recognized funders with our extensive network of Spanish-speaking Latin American researchers.
9. Collaborate with inclusive funders to tailor any activities above these lines to a funder’s needs before, during, or after a request for applications.
10. Design and execute a longitudinal follow-up study measuring the success rate of researchers´ fundraising after participating in this project to measure its impact at five years.

More Information

MetaDocencia is currently working with CZI to fund work packages 1 to 3 during 2024-2025. We are open to continuing to co-create this project with all interested parties. Please contact laura.acion@metadocencia.org if you are interested.