Announcements

We are pleased to announce that The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is inviting grant proposals for the following Grand Challenges initiatives:

Grand Challenges: Voices for Economic Opportunity seeks to elevate new and diverse voices that can help broaden the conversation about the issues underlying economic mobility in the United States and generate deeper awareness and actionable understanding. Application is open to U.S.-based investigators. Initial grants of USD $100,000 will be awarded, and applications are only two pages, with no preliminary data required. Applicants can be at any experience level; in any discipline; and from any type of organization, including colleges and universities, government laboratories, research institutions, non-profit organizations and for-profit companies.

Highest priority will be given to proposals that:

·         Highlight barriers to economic mobility as well as the impact of biases, intersectionality, and ideas around deservingness related to race, gender, ethnicity, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, age, physical and mental health, ability, and geography

·         Highlight the voices of individuals experiencing poverty

·         Highlight ideas for distributing these perspectives

The Grand Challenges initiative has awarded grants to 180 investigators in 30 countries, targeting 30 key challenges in global health and development to date.

Grand Challenges Explorations: Innovations for Improving the Impact of Health Campaigns seeks innovative solutions that accelerate the improvement of coverage, reach, efficiency, and effectiveness of campaign-based delivery of health interventions. Initial grants of USD $100,000 will be awarded, and applications are only two pages, with no preliminary data required. Applicants can be at any experience level; in any discipline; and from any type of organization, including colleges and universities, government laboratories, research institutions, non-profit organizations and for-profit companies.

Criteria for success include solutions that

·         Are transformative, novel, or innovative. These interventions will significantly change the way in which campaigns are planned, conducted, or evaluated by proposing new ways of working, leveraging lessons from other sectors, or increasing transparency and effectiveness.

·         Could be used by various health campaigns beyond the campaign in which the innovation is originally conceptualized or tested, such as for immunization (measles, yellow fever, meningitis, etc.), neglected tropical diseases (trachoma, onchocerciasis, schistosomiasis etc.), nutrition (vitamin A, deworming), malaria (bed net distribution, seasonal malaria chemoprophylaxis), and polio.

·         Could be used in various low- and middle-income countries beyond the country in which the innovation is originally conceptualized or tested.

·         Can be designed, tested, and scaled as a "best practice".

·         Can be applied in low- and middle-income countries.

·         Are cost effective.

The Grand Challenges Explorations (GCE) initiative has awarded grants to 1485 investigators in 71 countries, targeting a diverse set of global health and development challenges.

Please register before your submit your application here: https://gce.gatesfoundation.org/_layouts/GCE/Pages/login.aspx

In addition, they highlight a request for proposals from their partners:

Opening Influenza Research, a partnership between the Flu Lab, the Center for Open Science, and PLoS, seeks to promote the availability of negative results, null results, and replications of important findings. Application deadline is November 30, 2019.

·  The Flu Lab partnered with the Gates foundation on Ending the Pandemic Threat: A Grand Challenge for Universal Influenza Vaccine Development, which was launched in 2018 and has awarded seven grants to date.

Visit the site: https://gcgh.grandchallenges.org/

Physical Address: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation 500 5th Ave. N Seattle, WA, 98109, United States 

 Mailing Address: PO Box 23350 Seattle, WA. 98102