Innovation Challenge Fund (ICF) d.com



Innovation Challenge Fund (ICF)Concept Note Template 1.Name / Organisation Professor Madhushree Sekher, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India.2.Email address / Phone numbermadhusekher@tiss.edu+91-9960747051?3.Title of ProjectSafe Travel in Public Spaces (STePS)4.Application for ICF Cluster(Please delete one)Future Mobility, MaharashtraSafety and convenience 5.Co-Members of the Consortium *(Type – Indian Academia, Indian Business, International Academia, International Business, Indian non-commercial organisation, International non-commercial organisation, Other - specify)* Information not mandatory for the concept note stage.#OrganizationType1.Tech Savytur Varenyam Business2.Birmingham City University Academia3.Ronkel Media, Education and Research Institute Business4.6.If you do not already have agreed consortium members, please indicate here the kind of partners you would like to hear from. N/A7. Are you content for us to publish your concept note on our web platform in order to encourage potential consortium members to reach out to you? Yes8.Funding Requested (up to ?250k)?250,0009.Co-funding provided (if any) and sourceNo (If yes then provide source and amount)10.Please summarise your Innovation Challenge Fund research project in one sentence. 350 character limitSafe travel in public spaces (STePS) responds to COVID-19. Taking a whole journey approach STePS will identify and co-produce bottom up tech solutions to gender-based social distancing on buses. Working with residents as citizen scientists STePS aims to reduce digital and economic exclusion and increase safety for women and men.11.Please describe your project further. What problem does your pilot seek to address? Who are the potential beneficiaries and other stakeholders? What are the inputs and activities, and what are the outputs? What does success look like after 12 months of funded research? How will your solution reach the market place? 2500 character limitDuring COVID-19 bus journeys and routes have been reduced and hygiene, cleaning and social distancing regimes introduced. Safe Travel in Public Spaces (STePS) aims to understand if, and how social distancing on buses has increased women’s feelings/experiences of safety? How could tech-enabled solutions contribute to increased feelings of safety and empowerment for women? This is in a context of a shrinking economy, competition for jobs and limited passengers on buses that inadvertently increase feelings of risk. Travel by public transport is a gendered experience. From leaving home, waiting, travelling and reaching a destination can entail risk, uncertainty, negative attitudes and behaviour including abuse, harassment and deadly violence as highlighted by the New Delhi ‘Nirbhaya’ case. Pre-COVID-19 research in India report over 80-95% women experiencing sexual harassment on public transport and not reporting and often the harassment not being noticed by passengers. Feelings of shock, shame and embarrassment prevent women from reporting or asking for help. Perpetrators have had opportunity and anonymity to sexual harass particularly in crowded spaces where the victim cannot move away. Travel by bus is an essential mode of transport for low and middle income households. Women use buses more frequently and are more dependent than men on public transport, especially from lower-income groups. In Mumbai, women made 45% more trips by bus than by train, increasing to 67 per cent for households with incomes less than Rs 5000 per month and 46% of women reported facing sexual harassment inside buses compared to 17% inside trains.Inputs and activities include multi-disciplinary local and trans-national research team, residents as citizen scientists, stakeholder engagement (including Maharashtra Government’s COVID-19 transport taskforce), place-based participatory action research leading to tech enabled solutions for increasing safety/security on buses in the era of social distancing. Initial rapid assessment of research on abuse/harassment on public transport and impact of COVID-19 will lead to development of a tech-enabled tool for citizen scientists to use that will be refined and developed through the 12 months. Outputs include behavioural and attitudes measurements of gender safety on buses, toolkit and training resources for bus operators, community and gender-based resources and a tech-enabled solution from the pilot project exploring gender-specific social distancing on buses. Beneficiaries include users of public transport, local bus companies, employers, families, communities and the local economy. Success will be measured by completing a participatory project with an agreed tool that benefits the safety and economic well-being of women. Solutions will be pushed to market and community through stakeholder engagement with support from, for example, International Association of Public Transport, India (UITP). 12.What is ‘technological’ about your proposed solution and why might this be appropriate to the challenge areas?1000 character limitSTePS is solution focused led by a team of experts in social, behavioural and tech-enabled research. The project aims to identify the cultural, behavioural and technological barriers that impact on women participating equally and feeling safe leading to co-developed tech. This is more so in the COVID-19 era as we build back better. There is a gender based digital exclusion in India as 75% of women have no access to smart technology and 51% have no access to a mobile phone. Smart technology is not equally distributed and this requires attitudinal and behavioural shifts for gender parity to be achieved. The socio-technological challenge is to problem solve the everyday gendered journey experiences by understanding from the bottom up through citizen science:The whole journey experience of women and men using buses as a primary transportHow tech-enabled tools are used/know to report/alert someone when feeling vulnerable and what tech enabled response could be created How tech can create behavioural/attitudinal and cultural change that leads to feelings of safety, and encourages bystanders to intervene How to enhance gender based digital inclusion13.Is your proposed solution a response to the impacts of COVID-19, or an effort to contain the pandemic? If so, please explain. 1000 character limit STePS responds to the impacts of COVID-19 on the gendered economy, gendered employment and the gendered experience of public transport as an aggravating condition. The UN’s recent policy brief on ‘The Impact of COVID-19 on Women’ has highlighted ‘a pandemic amplifies and heightens all existing inequalities. These inequalities in turn shape who is affected’. In Mumbai, 46% of women reported facing sexual harassment inside buses before the pandemic. The economic crisis has impacted adversely on women and the competition for both jobs, earning a living and travel on buses (which are running to a reduced capacity and practicing social distancing) could worsen feelings of safety and security, lead to exclusion, being forced not to board a bus, to give priority to men or worse violence in an entrenched patriarchal society.14.Does your proposed solution contribute to combatting climate change or promoting a greener planet? If so, please explain. 1000 character limitOur proposal directly contribute to combatting climate change. During the pandemic demand and availability of public transport dropped dramatically. As the pandemic becomes part of the lived experience and the economy reopens, some citizens may opt for fossil-fuel/energy intensive transport modes to reduce the perceived risk of covid-19 and increase feelings of safety. If the perceived risk of contracting Covid-19 on public transport outweighs the safety risk associated with public transport people may switch transport modes. Known as ‘dread behaviour’, there is evidence from some countries car purchases and travel have increased to limit the perceived risk on public transport. This behaviour change could be permanent increasing congestion, pollution and health problems. STePS aims to increase trust in the safety, personal and hygienic, of public transport and ensure that the public maintain or increase their faith in bus travel to avoid ‘dread behaviour’ being a permanent change. 15.How is your proposal relevant to the development challenges of India? 1000 character limitBuilding back better means putting gender equality at the core of India’s development goals. India is home to 600 million women. Even pre-pandemic their labour force participation had declined to 25% of the workforce with overwhelmingly engagement in informal employment. Covid-19 has hit the retail, hospitality and the service industry and male migrants have been forced to return from employment in towns and cities. All these will impact on economic opportunities for women. Limited access to and safety on public transport further reduces women’s labour force participation. The UN identifies benefits from the economic empowerment of women, including economic growth, reducing poverty, increased agency, voice and participation. The McKinsey Global Institute estimates gender inequality in labour markets will cost USD 28 trillion to the global economy by 2025 and in India there could be up to a 60% increase in GDP by achieving gender equality in employment. 16.What consideration have you made of gender in developing your concept? Could your project address gender inequality or other kinds of inequality? 1000 character limitGender relations and the impact of structural inequality on the socio-economic empowerment of women is central to this project. Taking an intersectional approach STePS will bring to the fore class, caste, the marginalised, the poorest third of Indian society and the urban-rural division/inequality. STePS is premised on working with women and men to co-produce a tech-enabled solution to a pre-existing problem (sexual harassment and violence on public transport) and focusing it through a contemporary lens of covid-19 (social distancing, economic uncertainty and safety). Guided by the World Health Organisation’s views on gender equity and the research process we offer an evidence-based proposal that responds to a demonstrable social and economic need; the project aims to reduce disparities and promote equity between women and men; the research will be co-produced at all stages with the primary beneficiaries; the gender composition of the team will be appropriate to the research tasks. Notes: Please be kindly reminded of the primary criteria: relevance to the environmental and/or C19 agenda. See boxes 13 and 14. Except box 5, all boxes require mandatory response.In the interests of fairness, proposals that exceed the character limits will not be considered. ................
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