The monopoly power, or excessive market power, of the world’s largest corporations, has expanded rapidly over the last few decades, increasing in terms of revenue, market capitalisation, and asset ownership.
The Competition Policy and Power Research Fund aims to promote research that will help combat excessive market power by bridging gaps in current knowledge and supporting practical advances and innovations in the use of competition and anti-trust tools.
In this inaugural Call for Proposals, we seek applications from civil society and academic organisations for research grants on competition policy and concentrated corporate power. The proposed projects should show how the research can concretely advance the anti-monopoly agenda.
Read the full Call for Proposals (French and Spanish versions available below)
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Call for proposals – Competition Policy and Power Research Fund (pdf, 170.22 KB)
Applications from all countries and regions are welcome, and we will seek to award research grants to a broad diversity of applicants.
Grant awards will be up to a maximum of USD 60,000, although we do not expect all proposals to reach this amount. We encourage proposals that seek smaller amounts of funding for specific research initiatives.
All applications should be submitted by 30 April to competitionfund@somo.nl. The application form can be downloaded at the bottom of this page. We encourage applicants to follow word lengths for each section strictly. All successful applicants will be invited to present their research at an international conference to be held in 2025.
Selection criteria
We will prioritize proposals which meet the following criteria:
- Clarity on how the research will advance policy reform and/or regulatory enforcement and/or advance the anti-monopoly agenda.
- Innovative, novel approaches to addressing monopoly power.
- Interdisciplinary, multi-country research team.
- A clear plan for how the research will reach relevant stakeholders.
- Proposals that include roles for and build the capacity of early career researchers.
- ABOUT
- SOMO investigates multinationals. Independent, factual, and critical, we have a clear goal – a fair and sustainable world in which public interests outweigh corporate interests.
- Since 1973, as the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations, we have been working towards transforming the economic system by restraining corporate power and advocating for social justice.
- We carry out action-oriented research to expose the impact and unprecedented power of multinationals, and to reveal the underlying structures that underpin them.
- We are a knowledge and research organisation based in Amsterdam, but we never work alone. Partnerships and alliance-building are in our DNA. Cooperating with hundreds of organisations around the world, we ensure that our influential research lands where it has the most impact – from communities and courtrooms to the desks of civil society organisations, media, and politicians.
