As part of its capacity building effort, ERF held its first training workshop on “Writing Winning Research Proposals and Papers,” in Cairo, from 3rd -5th  August 2008.

The main objectives of this workshop were to train researchers on how to:

• Identify research questions that are both relevant to policy making and contribute to the generation of new knowledge, and
• Select and adopt appropriate analytical methodologies to tackle these questions.

The idea for the workshop was triggered by a subset of the proposals submitted to ERF in the context of the 15th Annual Conference (to be held in Yemen, November 23-25, 2008). This subset consisted mainly of papers in the areas of international economics and microeconomics. It was noticed that while some of these proposals addressed interesting policy questions but fell short in their methodological approach, others used strong analytical tools but did not ask very innovative questions. Thus it became apparent that both groups could benefit from interaction and exposure to the thinking of the others, under the guidance of well-established researchers. Hence, the concept of the workshop was born.

The workshop was led by two experienced economists: Marcelo Olarreaga, University of Geneva and Çağlar Özden, World Bank. Nine trainees were selected from the pool of researchers who submitted proposals for the ERF 15th Annual Conference. The meeting was held at the ERF premises in Cairo, August 3-5, 2008.

The workshop lasted 3 days. The first day was devoted to presentations made by Dr’s Olarreaga and Ozden on research methodologies and two case studies. Over the following three days, each participant presented his/her proposal, and received comments by one of the other participants. Further comments and recommendations were then given by the leaders of the workshop and the rest of the group.

To download the trainers’ presentations, click below:

- How do we do research in economics? by Çağlar Özden
- How do we do economic research, write it, and present it? by Marcelo Olarreaga

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