The U.S. Overseas Cooperative Development Council (OCDC), brings together nine organizational members committed to building a more prosperous world through cooperatives. Its mission is to champion, advocate, and promote effective international cooperative development. The RG is a division of OCDC that is spearheading the implementation of OCDC’s USAID-funded initiative, Cooperative Research, Education & Dissemination (CRED). The main goal of the Research Group, under the CRED umbrella, is to create greater support for international cooperative development. The RG achieves this goal through rigorous research that bridges to action, supporting the adoption and application of evidence and knowledge by cooperative development organizations (CDOs), cooperatives, policymakers and others to strengthen the use and impact of cooperatives as a locally-owned vehicle for broad-based economic growth, sustainability and self-reliance in USAID-assisted countries. CRED is structured around three central and mutually reinforcing pillars of research, education and dissemination. CRED’s strategy is to undertake activities and develop products that will increase both the effectiveness and uptake of cooperative development. CR2 is designed to contribute to all three pillars by rigorous research generated evidence, collaborative learning and broad sharing of its outcomes among the networks of the participating organizations and the RG’s stakeholder community. Annual Program Statement Description This Annual Program Statement (APS) is issued to enable the RG to advertise, receive and consider partnership opportunities and to make subawards in an open, fair and competitive manner for the collaborative research opportunities detailed in this announcement. The APS enables the RG and select, prospective partners to co-create research partnerships around shared objectives and to align effort, resources and risk. The unifying theme of the APS is to develop knowledge and understanding about cooperative resilience. The RG defines “resilience” for purposes of this APS to include two elements:

• The ability to withstand external economic and other shocks due to the cooperative business model and the defining characteristics of cooperatives, including adherence to the international cooperative principles
• The ability to support its members and its community in time of crisis

The RG envisions that CR2 will achieve two aims:

1. It will provide a means to investigate aspects of the research topic areas that are important to the applicant’s organization. The research outcomes will have practical application and enhance the impact of the applicant’s work while also contributing also to the globally shared knowledge base of cooperative development, and
2. It will provide a body of evidence and insights about the resilience of cooperatives (components, challenges, and necessary conditions) as related to selected research topic. The RG will analyze the outcomes of all research activities funding under this APS through the lens of resilience with the aim of creating a nuanced, multi-faceted picture of cooperative resilience

The RG invites the creativity and insights of the applicants as they conceptualize their approach to this challenge and will prioritize proposals that address topics within the RG Research Agenda as outlined in the APS and align with a consideration of resilience. Full APS here. Answers to Questions Submitted on the APS here.