Green Industrial Policy in the Age of Rare Metals: A Transregional Comparison of Growth Strategies in Rare Earth Mining (GRIP-ARM) is the name of the ERC-funded research programme (2021-2026), coordinated by Jojo Nem Singh, hosted by Erasmus University and supported by the International Institute for Asian Studies.
GRIP-ARM examines the globalised supply and demand for rare earths – from mining, processing, manufacturing, use and recycling – to have closer scrutiny of mining both as a strategy for industrialisation and as an integral part of contemporary efforts towards a sustainable supply of raw materials. It interrogates the dynamics in rare earth mining that might lend this particular resource a tool for economic development. The proposed research is one of the first systematic, comparative studies on rare earths mining and economic development, bringing political science perspectives in conversation with natural resource geography and international political economy. Using a trans-regional comparison of China, Brazil and Kazakhstan, the GRIP-ARM project will span across five years, starting from 2021. See: www.iias.asia/programmes/green-industrial-policy-age-rare-metals-grip-arm
In 2020, Jewellord (Jojo) Nem Singh was awarded the European Research Council Starting Grant (2021-2026) for his research project 'Green Industrial Policy in the Age of Rare Metals: Trans-regional Comparison of Growth Strategies in Rare Earths Mining'. See: GRIP-ARM final project at a glance (PDF).
In addition, Jojo held two highly prestigious research fellowships, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Fellowship Award at the Freie Universitëit Berlin (FUB) in 2017 and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) at the University of Tokyo in 2016. In 2014, the International Science Council recognised his potential for research excellence by being awarded as a World Social Science Fellow. He held two tenure track posts at the Institute of Political Science in Leiden University (2018-2021) and Department of Geography in the University of Sheffield (2013-2016).
His total grant capture in 2021 is €2,036,828 in his role as principal investigator, international co-investigator and in fellowship awards. He also organised a total of 10 fully funded international workshops in Leiden, Sheffield, Copenhagen and Tokyo. His work has been funded by the European Research Council, UK Economic and Social Research Council, British International Studies Association, Political Studies Association and Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation.
Jojo is the editor of two special issues, Developmental States beyond East Asia (book version with Routledge 2019, 2020) with Jesse Ovadia, and Resource Governance and Norm Domestication in the Developing World with Kate Macdonald. He is also co-editor of Demanding Justice in the Global South: Claiming Rights with Jean Grugel, Anders Uhlin and Lorenza Fontana and Resource Governance and Developmental States in the Global South: Critical International Political Economy Perspectives with France Bourgouin. His work has appeared in Third World Quarterly, Environmental Policy and Governance, Citizenship Studies, New Political Economy, and Annual Review of Environment and Resources, to name a few.