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
Within this call to increase demand for vaccination services, and thus increase the number of children vaccinated globally, we are looking for innovative ideas in the following specific areas (please specify whether your concept applies to the first, or second challenge, or both):
(1) Novel approaches for providing practical knowledge about vaccines and vaccination services to caregivers, which may include:
- Familiarizing caregivers with information on where and when routine and/or campaign services are provided
- Educating caregivers about how many times a child should be vaccinated and the importance of timely vaccination. Please explain how a proposed intervention would very tactically increase the knowledge of when a child needs to be brought in for his or her first, subsequent, or campaign-related vaccination. (Suggestions may include helping caregivers plan for completing subsequent visits.)
- Addressing common concerns (multiple injections, post-vaccination discomfort) that may result in missed opportunities for vaccination
- Empowering caregivers to ask for full vaccination services
(2) Novel ideas for improving the convenience and/or caregiver seeking of vaccination services; these may focus on:
- Approaches that use human-centered design to improve the convenience of accessing services from a caregiver perspective
- Approaches that minimize wait time for caregivers, such as scheduling appointments, providing information as to wait times, and/or providing information regarding stock availability (may be linked to electronic registries)
- Approaches that reduce the “cost” of seeking services (i.e., time, lost wages, transport cost, discordance with social norms, etc.) while increasing the “benefit” (appreciation of vaccines, integrated services.) (Please exclude direct monetary incentives)
- Approaches that provide a “nudge” for seeking vaccination services and translating intention into action. (Please do not submit proposals based on SMS reminders given their current emphasis/on-going support in operational research.)
New approaches could substantially reduce the cost of manufacturing microbial biotherapeutics. Biology offers hope that a lower cost solution is possible: the gastrointestinal tract of humans and animals can be considered a living “bioreactor” that is capable of taking in food and producing highly complex microbiota. In other fields, such as vaccine and biologics manufacturing, new integrated and portable systems have substantially reduced the cost of goods. In the food industry, microbial consortia are commonly manufactured at scale within fermented products such as yogurt and kombucha. In wastewater treatment, sludge reactors can stably host a high degree of microbial diversity. Wholly new manufacturing strategies that take into account the underlying biology and ecology of gut microbial communities could yield substantial advances in the arena.
How can we find solutions to make it easier to access safe, clean water and sanitation services for the urban poor?
We seek digital technology-based solutions that promote access to essential resources and services (clean water, sanitation) and can make a difference in reducing morbidity and mortality to promote healthy, safe, and productive lives. We know that technology does not automatically or inevitably improve people’s lives; creative solutions must be contextually grounded and designed in response to on-the-ground needs of women, children, and families living in challenging urban environments.
We seek new approaches for strategic prioritization of agricultural development policies. We specifically encourage approaches that not only help countries prioritize agricultural development policies, but also inform long-term strategic planning. Proposals must closely align with the goals of the Gates Foundation’s Agricultural Development team. Although proposed solutions may be generated from ideas and contexts outside of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), all solutions must be relevant, transferrable, and applicable, in our SSA focus countries: Nigeria, Tanzania, and Ethiopia. These approaches could include one or more of the following:
- Building a more robust approach to the challenge of policy prioritization using – but not limited to – modeling, e.g., creating a new “package” or “blend” of complementary practices that maximizes current tools to expand their use in data-scarce SSA contexts
- Improving how modeling is currently done, including new innovations around the cost-benefit analysis element of modeling
- Exploring alternative analytical approaches to the policy prioritization challenge outside of modeling altogether
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. Farmer-facing applications must be able to integrate into country-level extension services (no single-disease based apps) and must be able to function without requiring a smart phone or reliable internet connectivity. Successful proposals will address data requirements and plans for data acquisition. 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.
Within this call to promote the effective use of timely and relevant data to drive programmatic performance, and thus increase the number of children vaccinated globally, we are looking for innovative ideas in the following areas:
- Innovative ideas for improving the measurement approaches for immunization data (e.g., process, equity, coverage indicators) with a focus on data use by program managers, triangulation across data sources, and methods to measure and quantify data use. We are interested in approaches to measure through both routine systems as well as periodic systems.
Or,
- Innovative ideas that improve service delivery and experience for caregivers and/or healthcare workers during the vaccination session.
Eligibility
The foundation is unable to make grants directly to individuals.
The majority of our funding is proactive and made to U.S. tax-exempt organizations that are independently identified by our staff. (Tax status definitions)
Please keep in mind that although your project may appear to fall under the guidelines of what we fund, the area of funding may not accept unsolicited proposals. (Glossary of terms)
Please check our list of organizations that may be able to provide you with additional guidance or support.
Examples of areas the foundation does not fund:
- Direct donations or grants to individuals
- Projects addressing health problems in developed countries
- Political campaigns and legislative lobbying efforts
- Building or capital campaigns
- Projects that exclusively serve religious purposes
Deadlines
| Internal Deadline for Review | Please contact Heloise Emdon |
| cuResearch Checklist Deadline | November 7, 2018 |
| Full Application Due | November 14, 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.