Digital solutions have contributed significantly to socioeconomic resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic by bolstering health services, social safety nets, and economic activities. Digital solutions can enhance connectivity to various economic activities by fixing some market failures that challenge green and inclusive growth, such as information asymmetry. Thus, digitalization can contribute to green and inclusive growth, though the extent of its capacity to do so remains unclear.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB), Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), and Korea Development Institute (KDI) are seeking research proposals on how digital development can promote environmental sustainability and economic inclusion, with a focus on Asian case studies in sectors including energy, buildings, heating and cooling, agriculture, transport, and trade.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- How digitalization supports green economic growth—ensuring that natural assets continue to provide the resources and environmental services on which social wellbeing depends
- Digitalization’s role in boosting inclusive growth which creates economic opportunities for all and distributes the benefits equitably across society
- The kinds of environmental and social impacts digital solutions can deliver
- Ways to leverage digitalization to foster green and inclusive growth in developing Asia and the Pacific
- Factors that facilitate digitalization
- Why digitalization happens in some places but not others
- Policies for addressing challenges associated with digitalization, such as digital divides, digital governance, and environmental concerns
Submission Procedure
Authors should submit a research proposal in English of at least 300 words via this link by 28 February 2023. The proposal should briefly describe the following:
- Research background
- Research questions
- Possible contribution to research literature
- Possible data and research methodology
- Expected results
- Possible evidence-based policy recommendations
Please list the name, affiliation, position, and email of each author and clearly mark the corresponding author. Authors of accepted submissions will be notified by 15 March 2023. All submissions must contain only original or review work which has not been published, nor is currently under review, by any other journal or other outlets, including working paper series.
Papers should adhere to the ADBI Guidelines for Authors.
Submissions from authors who are citizens of ADB member economies are encouraged.
Arrangements for Selected Papers
Authors of accepted abstracts will be invited to present their research proposals during a virtual brown bag seminar around the end of March 2023. Authors of accepted proposals will be invited to submit the full paper for comments by 31 August 2023 and present their revised work at a hybrid conference around November 2023. The exact dates of these events will be announced later.
Selected full papers will be considered for publication in an ABD-ADBI-KDI joint book.
Project Organizing Committee
- Dina Azhgaliyeva, Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI)
- John Beirne, ADBI
- Yoonee Jeong, Asian Development Bank (ADB)
- Jungwook Kim, Korea Development Institute (KDI)
- Donghyun Park, ADB
- Zhao Pengjun, Peking University
- Dil Rahut, ADBI
- Shu Tian, ADB
- Hyeyoung Woo, KDI
- Haoran Zhang, Peking University
- Contacts
Inquiries may be directed to ADBI’s Dina Azhgaliyeva and Shu Tian.