REQUERIMIENTOS DE NEGOCIO

Fund ID: S6696

Status: Open for Applications

Last updated: Not specified

Grant support for innovative early stage projects that foster scientific and

technological innovation in global health research. Proposals are invited biannually in specific priority areas; the second 2019 priority topic is 'Innovations for Improving the Impact of Health Campaigns'.

Fund Information

Funding body: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF)

Maximum value: 1,100,000 USD (€ 1,000,000)

Application deadline: 13-11-2019 Extended Description

Founded in 1997, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is a charitable organisation that seeks to improve the health and wellbeing of people in developing countries and within the US, and works to ensure that all people lead healthy, productive lives.

The Grand Challenges Explorations grants are awarded biannually for innovative early stage projects that foster scientific and technological innovation in global health research. The Foundation issues an invitation for applications in a number of areas which are strategically aligned to their priorities. The invitation clearly defines the problems that the Foundation is seeking solutions for and applications for grants outside these areas are not accepted. Areas covered by the invitations to date include: infectious disease control, family health, sanitation, agriculture and communications/big data.

Grants are given in two stages:

• Phase I: for projects of 18 months in length that seek to collect data to establish proof of concept.

• Phase II: approximately 10% of Phase I projects are subsequently funded for up to two years to develop the concept to an implementable solution.

Innovations for Improving the Impact of Health Campaigns

Proposals are sought for innovative solutions that accelerate the improvement of coverage, reach, efficiency and effectiveness of health campaigns. Specifically, the Foundation is seeking innovations in approaches, practices or tools that dramatically improve the planning and microplanning, implementation and operations, and monitoring and evaluation that will lead to improved effectiveness of campaigns.

Countries rely on routine health systems and campaign-based delivery to extend the reach of important health interventions such as accelerated disease control and delivery of life- saving health products and services. Many programmes, including immunisation, neglected tropical diseases, nutrition, malaria and polio, regularly rely on such campaigns to manage the spread of disease and achieve large scale health impact.

Campaign-based delivery of health interventions is typically time-limited, targeted and implemented at scale. All countries utilise health campaigns in some capacity and campaigns have shown to be an effective way of driving health impact.

However, the performance of campaigns is variable and campaigns often do not realise their potential impact. Campaign evaluations show that they consistently miss a subset of populations, resulting in reduced equity and coverage of the health intervention. Although many campaigns experiment with or implement innovations to increase effectiveness, these innovations are rarely evaluated and disseminated.

The Foundation believes there are opportunities to dramatically improve the way health campaigns realise impact to achieve higher coverage of health interventions, better identify and reach the highest risk populations and improve the efficiency of campaign resources. Through this funding call, the Foundation is especially interested in novel approaches that draw on innovation from large-scale delivery models outside of the health sector, which may include interventions used in the private sector. In order to contribute to the development and spread of campaign best practice, a solution should be applicable to campaigns beyond the context in which it is originally tested (eg applicable in multiple lower- to middle-income countries and/or applicable across multiple types of health campaigns such as immunisation, malaria or nutrition).

Eligibility Criteria

Applications are invited from any private or public organisation worldwide, including academic institutions, non-profit organisations, for-profit companies, international organisations and government agencies. Individual applicants must be affiliated with an organisation as they cannot receive grants directly.

Value Notes

Grants of up to $100,000 for 18 months are available for Phase I projects. Successful projects may then apply once for a Phase II grant of up to $1 million to fund projects for a further two years.

Phase I project funds may be used to cover the full direct costs of the project. Funding is available for equipment as long as the cost of each item is less than $5,000.

Depending on the quality of proposals received, the Foundation anticipates funding approximately 50 awards per round.

Restrictions

Under Round 24, funding is not available for:

• Projects with no clear innovation for improving the planning, implementation or evaluation of health campaigns.

• Interventions that are better classified as technical assistance or campaign

implementation (eg focused on the delivery or improvement of a single campaign).

• Proposals seeking to apply existing tools in ways that do not transform the current practices used for campaign-based delivery.

• Projects where the solution is to leverage one health campaign for co-delivery of other goods or services (eg using an NTD campaign to deliver vaccine reminders).

• Incremental improvements or small, non-transformative operational improvements

(eg use of mobile data collection instead of paper-based collection) with no clear link to dramatically improved campaign effectiveness.

• Proposals focused on improving access to existing tools or technologies.

• Innovative ideas without a clearly articulated and testable approach.

• Approaches not directly relevant to low-income settings.

• Approaches for which proof of concept cannot be demonstrated within the scope of the Phase I award.

• Secondary analysis of existing studies or systematic reviews unless there is a clear way in which the analysis can be scaled and will fundamentally change practice.

• Proof of concept studies that do not clearly consider the current context of available financial systems and infrastructure for resource poor health settings. For example, ideas that are tested using expensive devices or require government-issued IDs in a country where few people have them, or to populations which require hospital deliveries in settings where this is not the norm.

• Approaches that circumvent the public sector completely.

• Approaches which would require a donor's long-term financial support to sustain.

Previous Successes

Grand Challenges Explorations Round 22 grant recipients (announced June 2019) Fifty-nine researchers from 26 countries on six continents have been awarded initial grants under the Grand Challenges Explorations initiative.

Successful projects include:

• Say Hello to Bablibot (Babybot): A Vaccines Chatbot

• Eyes in the Sky: National-Scale Monitoring of Crop Threats

• Low-Cost Water Pollution Spectrometer for Monitoring Map

• PERSO-MAP: Persona Map for Community Worker Decision Support

• An Enzyme-Embedded Hydrogel Bioreactor System

• Pathogen Discovery in the Context of Childhood Mortality and Encephalopathy

• Resolving the Agricultural Policy Impasse in Tanzania

• Transforming the Fecal Sludge Emptying Business

• Using Birth Registry Data to Increase Timely Vaccination

• Novel Radial Gradient in Fibrous-Bed Bioreactors with Cellulose Hydrogel Application Procedure

There are two application rounds per year (usually opening in March and September). Proposals for Round 24 should be submitted by the deadline of 13 November 2019 (11.30am, PST).

Applicants must complete the downloadable application form and submit their idea through the Foundation's online portal. Proposals must be written in English.

Useful links Grand Challenges

https://gcgh.grandchallenges.org/

Grand Challenges Explorations (Round 24)

https://gcgh.grandchallenges.org/challenge/innovations-improving-impact-health- campaigns-round-24

Grand Challenges Explorations FAQs

Grand Challenges Grant Opportunities

https://gcgh.grandchallenges.org/grant-opportunities Addresses and contacts

For further information on how to obtain this grant locally, please contact the following: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF)

500 Fifth Avenue North Seattle

WA 98109

Tel: (206) 709-3100

E-Mail: [email protected] Calls and deadlines

Information on future calls is indicative only and may be subject to change. Round 24 Deadline

Application start

date: 18-09-2019

Application end date: 13-11-2019

CDMRP CRRP Rapid Development and Translational