Research Agreements

In order to ensure that the research is completed as desired by the social entrepreneur, a research agreement is developed and agreed to by the two parties.   NEON Regional Coordinators negotiate the research agreements for you based on your research application.  Once an agreement is reached with a researcher it is posted on the web site and can be viewed only by the person requesting the research.  You can contact the NEON Regional Coordinator to modify the ageement until you are satisfied.  Basic research projects are fixed priced for each region so that you know the price when you apply for the research.  Advanced research projects are quoted individually based on your application. The research does not begin until both parties agree to the terms.  NEON also provides management of the payment for the research so that the social entrepreneurs know that the research will be done before payment is made and the researcher is ensured that they will be paid for their work.  This means that the social entrepreneurs do not have to deal with the payment process which may involve payments to other countries.

Power Mundo's research agreement included both secondary and primary research in the cook stove market in Ghana.  They wanted to sell their new fuel efficient, non-polluting cook stove to communities in Ghana.  But first they needed to understand the market.  The researcher completed a report within six weeks that described: sources of energy for cooking, cooking energy requirements of the average household, penetration of fuel types in urban and rural communities, cooking space requirements, sources of cooking fuel, household expenditure on fuel, and average household income in rural and urban communities.  In the primary research, the researcher visited several cook stove manufacturers to understand the current competition.  Power Mundo was extremely satisfied with the results.  The entire cost of this research was covered by a grant from NEON.