In 2003, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched Grand Challenges in Global Health, which came to include multiple funding partners. This initiative focused on 14 major scientific challenges that, if solved, could lead to key advances in preventing, treating, and curing diseases of the developing world. Seeking to engage the world’s most creative minds, Grand Challenges in Global Health awarded 44 grants totaling over $450 million for research projects involving scientists in 33 countries. Funding included an additional supporting project addressing ethical, social, and cultural issues across the initiative.
Opportunities
The goal of this topic is to solicit innovative tools and technologies for crop pests and disease surveillance over large geographic regions in low-income countries. We are looking for tools and approaches that have the potential to transform crop pest and disease surveillance globally, with a focus on low-income countries. Ideas that result in increased coverage of geographic area will be prioritized over ideas that increase diagnostic accuracy. Ideas that are applicable or adaptable to multiple crops and diseases/pests will be prioritized over ideas that are specific to only one crop or pathogen. Because we are focused on low-income countries, successful proposals will take into account small-scale, difficult-to-reach, intercropped farming systems with multiple pests and diseases. Preliminary data is not required, but proposals should clearly demonstrate how the idea is an innovative leap in progress from current practices with the potential to be transformative at scale.
To be considered, proposals must closely align with the goals of the foundation’s Agricultural Development team. As such, we are looking for proposals that:
- Offer an innovative and transformative solution for surveillance and early detection of crop pests and diseases;
- Offer potential for dramatic cost reductions or increases in efficiency or precision compared to current strategies;
- Be amenable to integration into a national or regional pest and disease surveillance and response system for crop plants;
- Have potential applicability to at least two of the following crops: maize, wheat, rice, millet, sorghum, cassava, sweet potatoes, yams, bananas, beans, cowpeas, chickpeas, and groundnuts;
- Convey a clear potential for achieving broad geographic scale.
The purpose of this call for proposals is to promote new and novel approaches to analyzing data related to social programs and public health in Brazil to produce novel insights which can be used to improve maternal and child health in Brazil and around the world. Applicants may choose to work with large datasets available to them or to collaborate with Center for Data and Knowledge Integration for Health (CIDACS) to explore their linked anonymized dataset (100 million Brazilian Cohort), which integrates information from the Cadastro Unico (CADU) with the live births system (SINASC), the mortality system (SIM) and Bolsa Família program (BFP) – see Appendix A for more information about data access through CIDACS.
We seek proposals designed to answer critical scientific questions related to maternal and child health and development outcomes. Proposals should use innovative data analytics and modeling approaches that can be applied to the CIDACS linked datasets or to other relevant data sets that applicants can access. Proposals should be based on these linked datasets or existing primary data in Brazil and yield actionable results with a potential to significantly impact public health policy.
Campylobacter spp. Transmission Dynamics in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LOI)
In spite of mounting evidence regarding the burden of Campylobacter-attributed diarrhea as well as growth-faltering, we know little about from what, how, and where children contract infection. What role do domestic animals, which are known reservoirs of Campylobacter, play in transmission? Does infection result from fecal contamination in the environment and how long does Campylobacter survive in the environment? Are undernourished children at greater risk of contracting or transmitting infection? Do older siblings or adults in the household transmit infection to neonates and younger children? In particular, half of the children below 6 months of age—who are not yet mobile—were infected in the MAL-ED study (Amour et al. 2016), leading us to ask if human-to-human transmission is more prevalent in these settings compared to high-income settings.
Proposals responsive to this call will generate data to understand the sources of Campylobacter infection in children in LMICs, and the dynamics of transmission in LMIC communities of interest. Analyses of these data are expected to address the question of whether a human vaccine for Campylobacter is a necessary and appropriate strategy in spite of the complexities associated with auto-immune responses to Campylobacter antigens. Alternatively, are an avian Campylobacter vaccine, sanitation and hygiene measures, or behavioral interventions that promote the segregation of young children from domestic birds and animals—alone or in combination—effective in preventing Campylobacter infections in children?
Affordable, Accessible, and Appealing: The Next Generation of Nutrition (Round 21)
Lack of availability of affordable nutritious foods, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, is a major issue. In the U.S., the average fortified infant cereal is relatively affordable, at 3.7x the cost of our staple grain food product (bread). In India, that ratio is 11.1x and in Nigeria, 30.3x.3 Beyond the products themselves, ensuring access to nutritious foods through the distribution and retail channels that reach low-income consumers is a challenge. Lack of knowledge about nutritious food choices, or low appeal of those food products, further compounds the problem.
We desire to advance innovative technologies to enhance the availability and accessibility of affordable, nutritious foods for low-income consumers, working within the key constraint that these innovations must be relevant to market-based food systems in low and middle-income countries. Overall, our target population is young women, mothers, and children from 6-23 months of age. Accordingly, the proposed technologies funded must not undermine exclusive breastfeeding in the first six months of life.
Innovations in Immunization Data Management, Use, and Improved Process Efficiency (Round 21)
Immunization represents one of public health’s most valuable and cost-effective interventions, and delivers positive health, social, and economic benefits. Globally, an estimated 2-3 million child deaths and 600,000 adult deaths are prevented by vaccination on an annual basis. Vaccination has been shown to contribute to improved childhood physical development, higher educational outcomes, reduced poverty and household spending, and enhances equity (Deogaonkar et al. 2015; Verguet et al 2013). Furthermore, the return on investment (ROI) of money invested in immunization programs is significant: recent research has demonstrated that every USD $1 invested in immunization results in at least USD $16 in net health and economic benefits; when accounting for the economic benefits of living longer, healthier lives, this figure increases to $44 of net benefit (Ozawa, et al, 2016).
Successful proposals will include:
- A clear hypothesis underlying the proposed approach to improve immunization programs and/or improving the user experience of beneficiaries;
- Details on the design and pilot testing of the approach in their application.
- A plan for evaluating the effectiveness of the approach for improved measurement of the immunization program and/or improving the user experience of beneficiaries;
- Outline of the design of the proposed approach/intervention.
Eligibility
We accept applications from both private and public organizations. You must be affiliated with an organization to apply — we are unable to make grants to individuals. See the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s exclusion criteria for more information on what we do not fund.
Full Details
Deadlines
| Internal Deadline for Review | Please contact Heloise Emdon |
| cuResearch Checklist Deadline | April 25, 2018 |
| Full Application Due | May 2, 2018 |
Submitting Your Application
- Applications will be submitted via cuResearch, through which Departmental and Associate Dean’s approval must be provided to complete the online application process.
- More information on cuResearch can be found here.
Internal Contacts
If you would like assistance with proposal development and/or a substantive review of your proposal, please contact the appropriate Research Facilitator.