Research Fund

• Applications are open to all LSE staff at Assistant Professor/Assistant Professorial Research Fellow level or above, whose continuous employment demonstrates a substantial long-term commitment to the School, and who would be employed by the School for the duration of the grant. 
• Applicants are expected to remain employed during the project period.
• The funds must be used specifically to facilitate new or on-going research in relation to Southeast Asia. Funds will not be provided for work already done.
• Eligible expenses include: research related travel, research assistance, translation and, in exceptional circumstances, research materials (books, secondary sources and access to primary data).
• Ineligible expenses include: conference attendance, salaries, physical infrastructure, vehicle purchase, rent, permanent resources, large equipment, institutional overheads and endowments.

• An interim report detailing activities undertaken so far must be submitted to seac.admin@lse.ac.uk at the midway point of the project period, the specific date to be mutually agreed between the awardee and the Centre. SEAC reserves the right to reduce or withdraw the award if no report is received by the deadline.
• A concise final report, including a statement of final spending, must be submitted within three months of the end of the project period. A SEAC post-grant report template will be provided by the Centre.
• Each grant recipient is required to produce at least one Working Paper as part of the SEAC Working Paper Series, in addition to an op-ed or blog post, and to present their research at a public lecture/seminar hosted by SEAC.
• Successful applicants are expected to participate actively within the SEAC community, including lectures, seminars, workshops and conferences.
• Successful applicants are expected to publish academic outputs, which are to acknowledge SEAC’s contribution and following the Centre’s guidance which will be provided in the award confirmation letter.  

TO APPLY

Applications should comprise the applicant’s short form CV (max. 4 pages) along with the SEAC Research Fund Application Form which comprises:

PROPOSAL (1500 words max)

• Research question, including context and aims
• Contribution to the literature and research on Southeast Asia
• Theoretical framework and methodology
• Outline of activities and a clear timeline
• Anticipated outputs

BUDGET

• Any staff costings should factor in additional costs arising from pay awards implemented by LSE and employer on-costs.
• Salary costs should be obtained from the Research Division.
• Goods and services imported from abroad are usually subject to VAT of 20%, and this should be included in the budget.

Proposals are to be submitted electronically by 1 January 2025 to the Centre Manager: seac.admin@lse.ac.uk  

Applications will be assessed independently by a Review Panel of LSE SEAC Associates.  The Committee will assess proposals based on the following:

• Originality, significance, and rigour of proposed the research
• Feasibility (on-time completion and delivery of proposed outcomes)
• Value for money

• Decisions will be made by mid-February 2025, with funding available for projects to start from 1 March 2025.
• Funds will only be accessible after SEAC has received the signed award letter from the successful applicant.
• Grants must be used solely for the purposes set out in the award letter, though an investigator may transfer a maximum of £1000 between budget category headings without approval to SEAC. Requests for virement in excess of this amount should be addressed to the SEAC Centre Manager.
• SEAC requires successful applicants to comply with LSE’s Research Ethics Policy. You should consult the LSE’s guidelines and submit the Research Ethics Review checklist within 2 weeks of the award date.
• Projects are expected to be completed by the end of July 2026. Extensions may be granted with prior approval from the SEAC Centre Director.

Economic geographers have long sought to explain the development of new, innovation-based industries. To do this, they have drawn particularly on the US technology sector, in general, and the concentration of digital technology industries around Silicon Valley in particular. The result has been a series of seminal studies about the emergence and development of clusters of innovative activity (e.g. Saxenian 1994; Kenney, 2000; Storper et al., 2015). The ‘Silicon Valley model’ has inspired policymakers across the world who have used a similar toolbox but, often, achieved very different results (Lerner, 2009; Klinger-Vidra, 2018).

However, the focus on the Silicon Valley model ignores other examples of success in the development of innovation-intensive industries (Breznitz, 2021). For example, the Singaporean ride-hailing company Grab had the largest NASDAQ IPO of any South East Asian company. But the story was very different to that of Silicon Valley, as the Singaporean government – through Temasek, a state fund – was a major early investor, and the entrepreneurs involved were highly networked into the ruling party. Yet there has been little work on the development of the digital tech sector in Singapore.

This project would address this gap with a detailed case study of the development of Singapore’s digital technology sector, understood as firms which use digital tech as part of their growth – this would include Singaporean firms such as Trax (computer vision), Patsnap (internet software), Hyalroute (fibre), and Matrixport (Fintech). Funding from SEAC would help us investigate the political economy of the development of Singaporean digital tech, the wider policy lessons of the approach, and the problems it raises.

Professor Neil Lee, Principle Investigator

Professor Neil Lee is Professor of Economic Geography in the Department of Geography and Environment. He joined the Department in 2013, having previously run a research team in a think-tank. He convenes the Cities, Jobs and Economic Change theme in the International Inequalities Institute and is Director of BSc Geography with Economics. 

His research considers economic development, innovation, public policy, and inequality. Recent studies have included work on institutions and economic development in Africa and China, regional inequality and political polarisation in Europe and the United States, and innovation policy in Kuwait. Current projects include a major ESRC funded project constructing new measures of regional inequality and a book, due 2023, on innovation and inclusive growth.

 

Augustin Boey, Co-Investigator

 

Widespread burning of tropical peatlands is now considered to be an annual event in equatorial southeast Asia. The fires cause poor air quality (‘haze’), affecting the health of millions and lead to diplomatic disputes between places that burn and the places downwind that suffer in the smoke. Our project focusses on the emerging social construction of the ‘haze season’ in Singapore.

Seasonality is a conceptual tool for societies to make sense of their surrounding physical environment. The expectation of recurring seasons allows people to organise their livelihoods around these environmental changes. Through analysis of traditional and social media, and surveys, we aim to investigate the emergence of the haze season and how it has been defined by society. Our research seeks to evaluate the extent to which a new seasonality may lead to normalisation (e.g. desensitisation) of the phenomena and how this has impacted haze mitigation efforts (e.g. activism) and adaptation behaviours (e.g. wearing masks, staying indoors).

Dr Thomas Smith, Priciple Investigator

Thomas Smith is Assistant Professor in Environmental Geography at the Department of Geography & Environment, LSE. Tom is a geographer and environmental scientist, specialising in interdisciplinary approaches to understanding the role of biomass burning in the Earth system. Tom enjoys highly collaborative field and lab research focussing on smoke emissions from wildland fires. He is particularly interested in tropical peatland environments and the complex interactions between agricultural practices, peatland degradation, peat fire emissions characteristics and their associated impacts.

Felicia Liu, Co-Investigator

Felicia Liu is a PhD candidate at the Departments of Geography at King's College London and the National University of Singapore. Her research interests cover climate finance, corporate sustainability and the nexus of climate science production, communication and policy-making. Her doctoral thesis studies the development of climate finance in three Asian financial centres; Hong Kong, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Prior to commencing her PhD, she has conducted research in regulating sustainability reporting in Hong Kong and Singapore. On top of her graduate research, she is also engaged in research related to the governance of nature-based carbon sinks in Southeast Asia. Felicia is a part of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre Early Career Researcher Network.