Grand Challenges is a family of initiatives fostering innovation to solve key global health and development problems. Each initiative is an experiment in the use of challenges to focus innovation on making an impact. Individual challenges address some of the same problems, but from differing perspectives.

Challenges

Note that this RFP is being launched by multiple partners, across variable geographies, topic areas, and funding levels. Please review the requirements for each RFP to determine your eligibility. The individual RFPs are listed separately <a href="https://gcgh.grandchallenges.org/challenges/JTdCJTIyc29ydCUyMiUzQSUyMmRlc2NlbmRpbmclMjIlMkMlMjJzb3J0RmllbGQlMjIlM0ElMjJkYXRlJTIyJTJDJTIybnVtYmVyUGVyUGFnZSUyMiUzQTEwJTJDJTIycGFnZU51bWJlciUyMiUzQTAlN0Q=/JTdCJTIyeWVhcnMlMjIlM0ElNUIlNUQlMkMlMjJjaGFsbGVuZ2VzJTIyJTNBJTVCJTIyMzI1JTIyJTVEJTJDJTIydGVybXMlMjIlM0ElNUIlNUQlMkMlMjJpbml0aWF0aXZlcyUyMiUzQSU1QiU1RCUyQyUyMmxvY2F0aW9ucyUyMiUzQSU1QiU1RCU3RA==" target="_blank">here</a>. If you are eligible for multiple RFPs, please choose the RFP that most closely aligns with your proposed project.<h2>Background</h2>Climate change threatens hard-earned global health and development progress and puts the health, well-being, and livelihoods of future generations in jeopardy, with a special impact on women. The 2015 Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals signaled a promise from global leaders to act - to limit global average temperature rise to within 1.5°C by 2040 and prevent the worst health and development effects of climate change. While no one is safe from these risks, the people whose health and wellbeing are being harmed first and worst by the climate crisis are also the ones who contribute least to its causes, and who are least able to protect themselves and their families against it - namely people in low-income and disadvantaged countries and communities. In low-income settings, rising heat, extreme weather events, changes in precipitation patterns, climate-related undernutrition, shifts in duration and climate-event-driven surges of malaria and other vector borne diseases such as malaria,&nbsp;foodborne and water-borne diseases, and increased potential for the emergence of novel diseases damage already weak primary health care systems and community structures for health. This compromises accessibility, availability, provision, and uptake of essential health services for the most vulnerable populations. Climate change can also disproportionately affect the health and financial well-being of women and girls: extreme heat increases the incidences of stillbirth, the rampant spread of vector-borne diseases worsens maternal and neonatal outcomes, and gender disparities amplified by climate change can decrease the women's share of economic agricultural gains. Those same changes in climate and weather also negatively impact all aspects of agricultural activities, a major source of income for those in low-income settings.Catalytic research and development (R&amp;D) as well as innovations to scale the impact of existing green technologies are essential to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero and address the unprecedented health, agricultural and environmental challenges posed by climate change, which have an outsized impact on women. It is crucial to understand the emerging problems in health and agriculture, either directly triggered by climate change, or as a result of disruptions (e.g., operational) downstream of crises created by climate change. Consequently, there is an urgent need to invest in creative solutions to help vulnerable populations adapt and build their resilience to the existing and future climate related challenges impacting health and agriculture and build alternative livelihoods. This work will involve making those most affected, especially women, major stakeholders in discussions about how new climate resistant and adaptive innovations will be deployed, as well as giving them a deliberate choice and advantage in the creation of new economic opportunities that result from these investments.In recent years, global leaders, philanthropies, and private investors have begun committing significant resources to climate change mitigation R&amp;D. However, more is needed to unite partners across sectors and accelerate innovations addressing challenges at the intersections of climate, health, gender, and agriculture, particularly for underserved regions and groups.The Grand Challenges family of initiatives seeks to source and seed innovations and accelerate the development of transformational solutions. To this end, Grand Challenges (GC) partners including GC Africa (Science for Africa Foundation), GC Brazil (Ministry of Health of Brazil), GC Ethiopia (Armauer Hansen Research Institute (AHRI)), GC India (Department of Biotechnology of India), and GC Rwanda (National Council for Science and Technology), along with the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation and the Pasteur Network, and supported by Wellcome, Foundation S-the Sanofi Collective, and the Rockefeller Foundation are launching this request for proposals (RFP) to identify and support promising innovations.<h2>The Challenge</h2>This Grand Challenges request for proposals seeks innovative research and pilot/feasibility projects utilizing transdisciplinary approaches to better adapt to, mitigate, or reverse the combined, deleterious effects of climate change on health, women's lives, and agriculture in the geographies of interest. These innovations include early warning and disease surveillance systems to respond to climate-event-driven surges in malaria and other vector borne diseases, as well as improved mapping of expanded vector ranges and vector-borne disease transmission. Preference will be given to innovations that are formulated locally or adapted from other contexts. We are especially interested in 1) locally led, system-level innovations that are scalable and sustainable and 2) cross-cutting solutions at the intersection of multiple scientific and engineering disciplines.This RFP focuses on the topic areas listed below. Under each of the topic areas, we provide examples of innovations we would like to see, but innovators are also encouraged to propose their own ideas related to these topics.Topic Areas:<ol><li>Health Outcomes -&nbsp;including systemic and compounding impacts of climate change on health. We are seeking solutions targeting: &nbsp;<ol type="a"><li>Early Warning and Disease Surveillance: We seek proposals that build resilient systems to mitigate health impact of climate change. Solutions may include accurate surveillance systems for early detection of vector-borne, waterborne, and zoonotic diseases; that predict the impact of climate-related events (heat, flood, population, vegetation, and zoonotic migration), and vectors and diseases introduced to new localities. Where possible, employment opportunities should be created for rural women. (Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa; Brazil)</li><li>Gender Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion: Women are disproportionately impacted by climate-sensitive health risks. Women are themselves a vulnerable group, and they can also fall into many other vulnerable groups. As such, we&nbsp;seek solutions that address the increased risks related to maternal, newborn, and child health. Solutions should address gender disparities in access to food, health care, education, and economic well-being. Also of interest are solutions that address the vulnerability to forms of gender-based violence and post-traumatic stress disorders arising from climate change-driven conflict. (Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa; Brazil)</li><li>Community Health Ecosystems: We are looking for proposals that strengthen the resilience and adaptability of health care service delivery and supply chains to climate related changes. These solutions can include anticipatory action, adaptation of provisions, quality, and accessibility of essential services to vulnerable communities, especially women, capacity building for health care professionals and community health actors. We are also interested in solutions that help individuals and families respond locally to new ailments and challenges brought about by climate-related events. (Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa; Brazil)</li><li>Measurement &amp; Evaluation (M&amp;E): We encourage proposals focused on development of harmonized M&amp;E frameworks and systems for programs that better incorporate climate considerations. (Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa; Brazil) &nbsp;</li></ol></li><li>Nutrition - Undernutrition is a consequence of climate change - and it makes people more susceptible to its effects, particularly extreme heat exposure which poses unique risks for pregnant women, newborns, and infants under 2 years old. We are seeking solutions that address:<ol type="a"><li>Heat stress and nutritional status, in particular gestation weight gain, low birth weight, preterm birth, small for gestational age, early growth faltering (in children &lt;6 months), and child wasting. (Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa; South Asia; Brazil)</li><li>Heat stress and micronutrient status, including anemia and breastmilk quality.</li><li>Improved real-time monitoring and surveillance of wasting and the spatial relationship between climate vulnerability and undernutrition. (Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa; South Asia; Brazil)</li><li>Integration of climate risk into social protection schemes and the inclusion of nutrition products and services as part of an essential nutrition package within social safety net programs. (Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa; South Asia; Brazil)</li><li>Innovation in the composition of specialized nutritious foods (e.g., RUTFs to treat severe acute malnutrition), considering susceptibility of raw ingredients to climate shocks, price volatility, and decreased nutritional quality. (Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa; South Asia; Brazil) &nbsp;</li></ol></li><li>Adaptation Strategies for Agriculture and Income Development, with a focus on women's agriculture livelihoods.<ol type="a"><li>The production of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers is energy-intensive and contributes to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. For every kilogram of Nitrogen (N) produced by synthetic process, 10.1Kg of CO2 is emitted. Biofertilizers present great promise in reducing&nbsp;emissions associated with synthetic fertilizer production and providing nitrogen fixation needed for productive plants. The technological gap in validating this innovation lies in the lack of robust field measurements, which, when addressed by accurately measuring Biological Nitrogen Fixation (BNF), can help develop strategies to reduce GHG emissions, fertilizer runoff, and water pollution. We are looking for in-situ methods for measuring BNF at field level to help validate climate-smart biofertilizers as next generation inputs.&nbsp;Research topics may include novel biosensors, spectral analysis, infra-red, or any other fast and low-cost methodology for measuring nitrogen fixation and release of fixed nitrogen to plants, by free-living, associative symbiotic and non-symbiotic microbes. Research may also comprise innovative methods for proving candidate microbes are indeed drawing nitrogen from the atmosphere for direct or indirect crop benefit, rather than mining the soil. (Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa; South Asia; Brazil)</li><li>Climate and weather information are fundamental for agricultural decision making and become even more essential amid changes in temperature and rainfall patterns. Women are typically underrepresented as users of climate decision support, due to cultural norms or technological gaps, and even more underrepresented as innovators and providers of climate services. We are looking for innovation solutions for scaling access to climate decision support provided by women- and youth-run, micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). This may include women- and youth-run small and medium enterprises (SMEs) integrating climate information services or a climate service provider innovating ways to partner with women- and youth-run SMEs. (Geography of interest: sub-Saharan Africa)</li><li>Women face multiple systemic disadvantages that reduce their capacity to adapt to climate change. We seek proposals on three topics related to women's resilience: (1) Climate-smart labor-saving technologies for rural women that are affordable and accessible with potential for scale, (2) Identifying opportunities for rural women's organizations to influence national climate adaptation plans, and (3) Gender transformative climate-smart innovations for livelihood diversification on and off farm in food systems. Cross-cutting topics of interest include access to capital, upskilling, digital tools, social norms, expanding market access, and support for young women and adolescent girls. (Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa; South Asia) &nbsp;</li></ol></li><li>Knowledge Management and Data Integration of Climate and Health Databases - Many vector-borne diseases may increase in localities that were not prepared for them before the advent of climate-change. We seek solutions that integrate data from climate scientists, disease modelers, and government health officials to help address the rise of specific diseases. Potential areas of interest include, but are not limited to:<ol type="a"><li>Facilitating community participation in/crowd-sourcing data collection to track climate change impact at local level (e.g., changes in weather patterns or detection of invasive vector species) (Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa; Brazil)</li><li>Integrating commercially available databases and local data into early warning systems that can drive decision making, working to ensure sex-disaggregated data when relevant. (Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa; Brazil)</li><li>Researching the relationship between climate change and the spread of vector-borne diseases (e.g., changes to vector populations or disease transmission dynamics) to develop early warning systems to prevent outbreaks. (Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa; Brazil) &nbsp;</li></ol></li><li>Effective Response and Resilient Supply Chains for Crisis Management – Maintaining routine health delivery or non-routine campaigns such as humanitarian aid and vaccination efforts will be an increasingly multifaceted problem as the need for rapid, directed humanitarian aid increases in the face of extreme climate events, examples include changing landscapes for roads and bridges; Internally Displaced People (IDPs) and armed conflicts; and disrupted daily routines for affected populations. We are seeking to implement agile, resilient supply chains that allow for the re-deployment of interventions based on need, e.g., malaria insecticide-treated nets, preventive chemotherapies, etc. against vector-borne diseases. (Geography of interest: sub-Saharan Africa)</li></ol>Funding Level, Period of Performance, and Geography of InterestThe funding level is up to USD $200,000.00, for each grant. The period of performance is up to two years. The geography of interest is outlined within the topic/sub-topic areas listed above. This means that the effort needs to be led by investigators in the specified geographies above. Global collaborators may be included, but at least 80% of the funding must go to an organization within the specified geographies. Application budgets should be commensurate with the scope of work proposed.We are looking for proposals that:<ul><li>Demonstrate that projects are led by (Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMIC)<a href="#_ftn1" title="" id="_ftnref1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a> investigators, local stakeholders, or community-led organizations. Global partners may be included, but proposals must demonstrate at least 80% of the funding is going to an investigator in an LMIC institution within the geography of interest. Teams comprising multiple LMIC institutions will be given preference over applicants from single institutions. We also encourage multi-country collaborations.</li><li>Come from women-led organizations or involve projects led by women and focused on reaching women.</li><li>Articulate how the project will lead to near-term impact and how the impact will be sustained over the lifetime of the project and beyond.</li><li>Articulate the scalability of the solution beyond a small local region or population. Strong consideration will be given to approaches that can scale to multiple geographic areas, demographic groups, etc.</li><li>Demonstrate engagement with local and/or regional communities, decision-makers, and adopters.</li><li>Promote inter-sectoral co-ordination and collaboration.</li></ul>We will not fund proposals that:<ul><li>Do not support communities and countries to adapt and be resilient to the effects of climate change on agriculture, health and gender in the geography of interest.</li><li>Do not demonstrate that the majority of the work proposed will be undertaken by investigators and/or local stakeholders living in the geography of interest.&nbsp;</li><li>Do not plan for or demonstrate a pathway to sustainable impact and scalability.</li><li>Are not linked to or have no plan to engage relevant key stakeholders and decision makers from the affected communities.</li></ul><a href="#_ftnref1" title="" id="_ftn1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> See <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/country/XO" target="_blank">World Bank - Low- &amp; Middle-Income Countries</a> for definitions.

Grand Challenges

Accelerating Catalyzing Solutions for Climate Change's Impact on Health, Agriculture, and Gender

Note that this RFP is being launched by multiple partners, across variable geographies, topic areas, and funding levels. Please review the requirements for each RFP to determine your eligibility. The individual RFPs are listed separately <a href="https://gcgh.grandchallenges.org/grant-opportunities" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">here</a>. If you are eligible for multiple RFPs, please choose the RFP that most closely aligns with your proposed project.
<h2>Background</h2>
Climate change threatens hard-earned global health and development progress and puts the health, well-being, and livelihoods of future generations in jeopardy, with a special impact on women. The 2015 Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals signaled a promise from global leaders to act - to limit global average temperature rise to within 1.5°C by 2040 and prevent the worst health and development effects of climate change. While no one is safe from these risks, the people whose health and wellbeing are being harmed first and worst by the climate crisis are also the ones who contribute least to its causes, and who are least able to protect themselves and their families against it - namely people in low-income and disadvantaged countries and communities. In low-income settings, rising heat, extreme weather events, changes in precipitation patterns, climate-related undernutrition, shifts in duration and climate-event-driven surges of malaria and other vector borne diseases such as malaria,&nbsp;foodborne and water-borne diseases, and increased potential for the emergence of novel diseases damage already weak primary health care systems and community structures for health. This compromises accessibility, availability, provision, and uptake of essential health services for the most vulnerable populations. Climate change can also disproportionately affect the health and financial well-being of women and girls: extreme heat increases the incidences of stillbirth, the rampant spread of vector-borne diseases worsens maternal and neonatal outcomes, and gender disparities amplified by climate change can decrease the women's share of economic agricultural gains. Those same changes in climate and weather also negatively impact all aspects of agricultural activities, a major source of income for those in low-income settings.
Catalytic research and development (R&amp;D) as well as innovations to scale the impact of existing green technologies are essential to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero and address the unprecedented health, agricultural and environmental challenges posed by climate change, which have an outsized impact on women. It is crucial to understand the emerging problems in health and agriculture, either directly triggered by climate change, or as a result of disruptions (e.g., operational) downstream of crises created by climate change. Consequently, there is an urgent need to invest in creative solutions to help vulnerable populations adapt and build their resilience to the existing and future climate related challenges impacting health and agriculture and build alternative livelihoods. This work will involve making those most affected, especially women, major stakeholders in discussions about how new climate resistant and adaptive innovations will be deployed, as well as giving them a deliberate choice and advantage in the creation of new economic opportunities that result from these investments.
In recent years, global leaders, philanthropies, and private investors have begun committing significant resources to climate change mitigation R&amp;D. However, more is needed to unite partners across sectors and accelerate innovations addressing challenges at the intersections of climate, health, gender, and agriculture, particularly for underserved regions and groups.
The Grand Challenges family of initiatives seeks to source and seed innovations and accelerate the development of transformational solutions. To this end, Grand Challenges (GC) partners including GC Africa (Science for Africa Foundation), GC Brazil (Ministry of Health of Brazil), GC Ethiopia (Armauer Hansen Research Institute (AHRI)), GC India (Department of Biotechnology of India), and GC Rwanda (National Council for Science and Technology), along with the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation and the Pasteur Network, and supported by Wellcome, Foundation S-the Sanofi Collective, and the Rockefeller Foundation are launching this request for proposals (RFP) to identify and support promising innovations.
<h2>The Challenge</h2>
This Grand Challenges request for proposals seeks innovative research and pilot/feasibility projects utilizing transdisciplinary approaches to better adapt to, mitigate, or reverse the combined, deleterious effects of climate change on health, women's lives, and agriculture in the geographies of interest. These innovations include early warning and disease surveillance systems to respond to climate-event-driven surges in malaria and other vector borne diseases, as well as improved mapping of expanded vector ranges and vector-borne disease transmission. Preference will be given to innovations that are formulated locally or adapted from other contexts. We are especially interested in 1) locally led, system-level innovations that are scalable and sustainable and 2) cross-cutting solutions at the intersection of multiple scientific and engineering disciplines.
This RFP focuses on the topic areas listed below. Under each of the topic areas, we provide examples of innovations we would like to see, but innovators are also encouraged to propose their own ideas related to these topics.
Topic Areas:
<ol>
<li>Health Outcomes -&nbsp;including systemic and compounding impacts of climate change on health. We are seeking solutions targeting: &nbsp; 
<ol type="a">
<li>Early Warning and Disease Surveillance: We seek proposals that build resilient systems to mitigate health impact of climate change. Solutions may include accurate surveillance systems for early detection of vector-borne, waterborne, and zoonotic diseases; that predict the impact of climate-related events (heat, flood, population, vegetation, and zoonotic migration), and vectors and diseases introduced to new localities. Where possible, employment opportunities should be created for rural women. (Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa; Brazil)</li>
<li>Gender Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion: Women are disproportionately impacted by climate-sensitive health risks. Women are themselves a vulnerable group, and they can also fall into many other vulnerable groups. As such, we&nbsp;seek solutions that address the increased risks related to maternal, newborn, and child health. Solutions should address gender disparities in access to food, health care, education, and economic well-being. Also of interest are solutions that address the vulnerability to forms of gender-based violence and post-traumatic stress disorders arising from climate change-driven conflict. (Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa; Brazil)</li>
<li>Community Health Ecosystems: We are looking for proposals that strengthen the resilience and adaptability of health care service delivery and supply chains to climate related changes. These solutions can include anticipatory action, adaptation of provisions, quality, and accessibility of essential services to vulnerable communities, especially women, capacity building for health care professionals and community health actors. We are also interested in solutions that help individuals and families respond locally to new ailments and challenges brought about by climate-related events. (Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa; Brazil)</li>
<li>Measurement &amp; Evaluation (M&amp;E): We encourage proposals focused on development of harmonized M&amp;E frameworks and systems for programs that better incorporate climate considerations. (Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa; Brazil) &nbsp;</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>Nutrition - Undernutrition is a consequence of climate change - and it makes people more susceptible to its effects, particularly extreme heat exposure which poses unique risks for pregnant women, newborns, and infants under 2 years old. We are seeking solutions that address: 
<ol type="a">
<li>Heat stress and nutritional status, in particular gestation weight gain, low birth weight, preterm birth, small for gestational age, early growth faltering (in children &lt;6 months), and child wasting. (Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa; South Asia; Brazil)</li>
<li>Heat stress and micronutrient status, including anemia and breastmilk quality.</li>
<li>Improved real-time monitoring and surveillance of wasting and the spatial relationship between climate vulnerability and undernutrition. (Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa; South Asia; Brazil)</li>
<li>Integration of climate risk into social protection schemes and the inclusion of nutrition products and services as part of an essential nutrition package within social safety net programs. (Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa; South Asia; Brazil)</li>
<li>Innovation in the composition of specialized nutritious foods (e.g., RUTFs to treat severe acute malnutrition), considering susceptibility of raw ingredients to climate shocks, price volatility, and decreased nutritional quality. (Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa; South Asia; Brazil) &nbsp;</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>Adaptation Strategies for Agriculture and Income Development, with a focus on women's agriculture livelihoods. 
<ol type="a">
<li>The production of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers is energy-intensive and contributes to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. For every kilogram of Nitrogen (N) produced by synthetic process, 10.1Kg of CO2 is emitted. Biofertilizers present great promise in reducing&nbsp;emissions associated with synthetic fertilizer production and providing nitrogen fixation needed for productive plants. The technological gap in validating this innovation lies in the lack of robust field measurements, which, when addressed by accurately measuring Biological Nitrogen Fixation (BNF), can help develop strategies to reduce GHG emissions, fertilizer runoff, and water pollution. We are looking for in-situ methods for measuring BNF at field level to help validate climate-smart biofertilizers as next generation inputs.&nbsp;Research topics may include novel biosensors, spectral analysis, infra-red, or any other fast and low-cost methodology for measuring nitrogen fixation and release of fixed nitrogen to plants, by free-living, associative symbiotic and non-symbiotic microbes. Research may also comprise innovative methods for proving candidate microbes are indeed drawing nitrogen from the atmosphere for direct or indirect crop benefit, rather than mining the soil. (Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa; South Asia; Brazil)</li>
<li>Climate and weather information are fundamental for agricultural decision making and become even more essential amid changes in temperature and rainfall patterns. Women are typically underrepresented as users of climate decision support, due to cultural norms or technological gaps, and even more underrepresented as innovators and providers of climate services. We are looking for innovation solutions for scaling access to climate decision support provided by women- and youth-run, micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). This may include women- and youth-run small and medium enterprises (SMEs) integrating climate information services or a climate service provider innovating ways to partner with women- and youth-run SMEs. (Geography of interest: sub-Saharan Africa)</li>
<li>Women face multiple systemic disadvantages that reduce their capacity to adapt to climate change. We seek proposals on three topics related to women's resilience: (1) Climate-smart labor-saving technologies for rural women that are affordable and accessible with potential for scale, (2) Identifying opportunities for rural women's organizations to influence national climate adaptation plans, and (3) Gender transformative climate-smart innovations for livelihood diversification on and off farm in food systems. Cross-cutting topics of interest include access to capital, upskilling, digital tools, social norms, expanding market access, and support for young women and adolescent girls. (Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa; South Asia) &nbsp;</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>Knowledge Management and Data Integration of Climate and Health Databases - Many vector-borne diseases may increase in localities that were not prepared for them before the advent of climate-change. We seek solutions that integrate data from climate scientists, disease modelers, and government health officials to help address the rise of specific diseases. Potential areas of interest include, but are not limited to: 
<ol type="a">
<li>Facilitating community participation in/crowd-sourcing data collection to track climate change impact at local level (e.g., changes in weather patterns or detection of invasive vector species) (Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa; Brazil)</li>
<li>Integrating commercially available databases and local data into early warning systems that can drive decision making, working to ensure sex-disaggregated data when relevant. (Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa; Brazil)</li>
<li>Researching the relationship between climate change and the spread of vector-borne diseases (e.g., changes to vector populations or disease transmission dynamics) to develop early warning systems to prevent outbreaks. (Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa; Brazil) &nbsp;</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>Effective Response and Resilient Supply Chains for Crisis Management – Maintaining routine health delivery or non-routine campaigns such as humanitarian aid and vaccination efforts will be an increasingly multifaceted problem as the need for rapid, directed humanitarian aid increases in the face of extreme climate events, examples include changing landscapes for roads and bridges; Internally Displaced People (IDPs) and armed conflicts; and disrupted daily routines for affected populations. We are seeking to implement agile, resilient supply chains that allow for the re-deployment of interventions based on need, e.g., malaria insecticide-treated nets, preventive chemotherapies, etc. against vector-borne diseases. (Geography of interest: sub-Saharan Africa)</li>
</ol>
Funding Level, Period of Performance, and Geography of Interest
The funding level is up to USD $200,000.00, for each grant. The period of performance is up to two years. The geography of interest is outlined within the topic/sub-topic areas listed above. This means that the effort needs to be led by investigators in the specified geographies above. Global collaborators may be included, but at least 80% of the funding must go to an organization within the specified geographies. Application budgets should be commensurate with the scope of work proposed.
We are looking for proposals that:
<ul>
<li>Demonstrate that projects are led by (Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMIC)<a href="#_ftn1" title name="_ftnref1" id="_ftnref1">[1]</a> investigators, local stakeholders, or community-led organizations. Global partners may be included, but proposals must demonstrate at least 80% of the funding is going to an investigator in an LMIC institution within the geography of interest. Teams comprising multiple LMIC institutions will be given preference over applicants from single institutions. We also encourage multi-country collaborations.</li>
<li>Come from women-led organizations or involve projects led by women and focused on reaching women.</li>
<li>Articulate how the project will lead to near-term impact and how the impact will be sustained over the lifetime of the project and beyond.</li>
<li>Articulate the scalability of the solution beyond a small local region or population. Strong consideration will be given to approaches that can scale to multiple geographic areas, demographic groups, etc.</li>
<li>Demonstrate engagement with local and/or regional communities, decision-makers, and adopters.</li>
<li>Promote inter-sectoral co-ordination and collaboration.</li>
</ul>
We will not fund proposals that:
<ul>
<li>Do not support communities and countries to adapt and be resilient to the effects of climate change on agriculture, health and gender in the geography of interest.</li>
<li>Do not demonstrate that the majority of the work proposed will be undertaken by investigators and/or local stakeholders living in the geography of interest.&nbsp;</li>
<li>Do not plan for or demonstrate a pathway to sustainable impact and scalability.</li>
<li>Are not linked to or have no plan to engage relevant key stakeholders and decision makers from the affected communities.</li>
</ul>
<a href="#_ftnref1" title name="_ftn1" id="_ftn1">[1]</a> See <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/country/XO" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">World Bank - Low- &amp; Middle-Income Countries</a> for definitions.

This Grand Challenges request for proposals seeks innovative research and pilot/feasibility projects utilizing transdisciplinary approaches to better adapt to, mitigate, or reverse the combined, deleterious effects of climate change on health, women's lives, and agriculture in the geographies of interest. These innovations include early warning and disease surveillance systems to respond to climate-event-driven surges in malaria and other vector borne diseases, as well as improved mapping of expanded vector ranges and vector-borne disease transmission.

Accelerating Catalyzing Solutions for Climate Changes Impact on Health Agriculture and Gender

**NOTE: This opportunity was open only to participants who registered for and attended the 2023 Grand Challenges Annual Meeting.<h2>THE OPPORTUNITY</h2>The Grand Challenges Annual Meeting fosters innovation and international collaboration to address the biggest challenges in global health and development. It has been held in <a href="https://grandchallenges.org/annual-meeting" target="_blank">12 countries</a> over the past 18 years and in a virtual format for two years. The 2023 meeting continues the Annual Meeting's goal to support a global community of problem solvers who work together to set an innovation agenda and do the breakthrough science to deliver on it – to go further and faster together.<h2>THE CHALLENGE</h2>This Call-to-Action provides an opportunity for Grand Challenges Annual Meeting participants to take action based on ideas they developed and people they met at the meeting. As noted by past applicants in their submitted proposals, the meeting provides diverse ways to combine expertise and perspectives to speed the impact of what would otherwise be separate work by individual investigators. The&nbsp;<a href="https://gcgh.grandchallenges.org/grants/JTdCJTIyc29ydCUyMiUzQSUyMmRlc2NlbmRpbmclMjIlMkMlMjJzb3J0RmllbGQlMjIlM0ElMjJkYXRlJTIyJTJDJTIybnVtYmVyUGVyUGFnZSUyMiUzQTEwMCUyQyUyMnBhZ2VOdW1iZXIlMjIlM0EwJTdE/JTdCJTIyeWVhcnMlMjIlM0ElNUIlNUQlMkMlMjJjaGFsbGVuZ2VzJTIyJTNBJTVCJTIyMTI5JTIyJTVEJTJDJTIydGVybXMlMjIlM0ElNUIlNUQlMkMlMjJpbml0aWF0aXZlcyUyMiUzQSU1QiU1RCUyQyUyMmxvY2F0aW9ucyUyMiUzQSU1QiU1RCU3RA==" target="_blank">grants awarded</a>&nbsp;for past Call-to-Action opportunities show this, and we hope that this year’ meeting will also provide ways to catalyze collaborative projects that yield a tangible solution to a key problem by the end of the grant.Please note that there are multiple grant opportunities being launched at the Annual Meeting:<ul><li>Two that are open to meeting participants:<ol><li>This 2023 Grand Challenges Annual Meeting Call-to-Action</li><li><a href="https://gcgh.grandchallenges.org/challenge/collaboratory-platforms-2023-democratizing-access-technologies" target="_blank">Collaboratory Platforms 2023: Democratizing Access to Technologies</a></li></ol></li><li>Additional <a href="https://grandchallenges.org/grant-opportunities" target="_blank">grant opportunities</a> that are publicly open, launched across the Grand Challenges family of initiatives</li></ul>FundingEach meeting participant will have one opportunity to apply as the primary applicant, on behalf of their institution, for a USD $100,000 grant or a collaborative USD $200,000 grant, both with an 18-month grant duration. Collaborative awards require the participation of at least two meeting participants from different institutions. While restricted to one application as the primary applicant, meeting participants may participate as collaborators in multiple collaborative applications. Priority will be given to new or newly expanded collaborations, rather than to existing collaborations seeking new funding.We will give highest priority to proposed projects that:<ul><li>Contribute to a partnership network that empowers those with the local perspective required to direct the right approaches to the right parts of the problems to ensure success. We will prioritize projects led by investigators from low- and middle-income countries and a balanced representation of women principal investigators. Their collective action and directed energy will help solve today's key problems in global health, while building research networks ready to solve tomorrow’s.</li><li>Are likely to yield a tangible answer to a question or solution to a problem within the grant term.</li><li>Are explicitly aligned with the content within the meeting's scientific track sessions. Please note that individual proposals will be reviewed based on their alignment with one primary track and the specific content presented there (see <a href="https://www.cvent.com/api/email/dispatch/v1/click/q4pj6gq6zkcl4l/wl5lgk4j/aHR0cHMlM0ElMkYlMkZjdXN0b20uY3ZlbnQuY29tJTJGQjZFNTk2REVBQzZBNEE3RkIxNDY3NDk3QUU0RkY1NEIlMkZmaWxlcyUyRmV2ZW50JTJGZWEyZGNlMGQ2ZjlhNDAxM2E3OTBhNTg0ZDRiMGNkZTIlMkYzZTdiOTJkMzlkNmI0MDM1YWQ5ZmQ3OWM5ODU4YjJlMy5wZGYmaXB3OFdDM0w2VWJCWVZzek56NGNxdWZ6MTBGZTh5WmZndmJZaWRETTYzcyUzRCZHcmFuZCtDaGFsbGVuZ2VzK0FubnVhbCtNZWV0aW5nK0FnZW5kYQ" target="_blank">meeting agenda</a>), since we seek to provide an opportunity for participants to take action based on an idea that they developed and people they met during their participation in a scientific track. Eligible scientific tracks for this Call-to-Action are listed below.</li></ul>Scientific tracks eligible for the Grand Challenges Annual Meeting Call-to-Action<ul><li>Advancing Drug Discovery for Global Health</li><li>Applying a Translational Lens to Global Health</li><li>Artificial Intelligence &amp; Medical Devices: Strengthening the Ecosystem for Development, Implementation, and Scale in LMICs</li><li>Catalyzing Systems-level Agriculture Climate Adaptation in Africa</li><li>Enhancing African Vaccine Manufacturing Through Technology and Training</li><li>The Evolving Role of Pathogen Genomics in Public Health Surveillance</li><li>Global Health Discovery Collaboratory: Enabling a Global Health R&amp;D Network</li><li>Innovations in Reproductive Health Technologies for Advancement of Global Health</li><li>Key Ingredients for R&amp;D Ecosystems and Accelerating Innovation in LMICs</li><li>Malaria: Innovation for Eradication</li><li>The Road Ahead: Opportunities for HIV Prevention and Cure</li><li>Sickle Cell Disease: Global Burden and Therapeutic Opportunities</li><li>Vaccine and Biologics Innovations for Global Health</li></ul>We will not consider funding approaches that:<ul><li>Are not explicitly aligned with the specific content within the meeting scientific tracks listed above that are eligible for this request for proposals.</li><li>Address the meeting scientific tracks that are not part of this request for proposals:&nbsp;Global Network and Partnership Building to Combat the Effects of Climate Change on Health and Looking Ahead to the Next 20 Years: Sharing Learnings and Best Practices for Grand Challenge Implementation and Partnership.</li></ul>

2023 Grand Challenges Annual Meeting Call-to-Action

**NOTE: This opportunity is open only to participants who registered for and are attending the 2023 Grand Challenges Annual Meeting.
<h2>THE OPPORTUNITY</h2>
The Grand Challenges Annual Meeting fosters innovation and international collaboration to address the biggest challenges in global health and development. It has been held in <a href="https://grandchallenges.org/annual-meeting" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">12 countries</a> over the past 18 years and in a virtual format for two years. The 2023 meeting continues the Annual Meeting's goal to support a global community of problem solvers who work together to set an innovation agenda and do the breakthrough science to deliver on it – to go further and faster together.
<h2>THE CHALLENGE</h2>
This Call-to-Action provides an opportunity for Grand Challenges Annual Meeting participants to take action based on ideas they developed and people they met at the meeting. As noted by past applicants in their submitted proposals, the meeting provides diverse ways to combine expertise and perspectives to speed the impact of what would otherwise be separate work by individual investigators. The&nbsp;<a href="https://gcgh.grandchallenges.org/grants/JTdCJTIyc29ydCUyMiUzQSUyMmRlc2NlbmRpbmclMjIlMkMlMjJzb3J0RmllbGQlMjIlM0ElMjJkYXRlJTIyJTJDJTIybnVtYmVyUGVyUGFnZSUyMiUzQTEwMCUyQyUyMnBhZ2VOdW1iZXIlMjIlM0EwJTdE/JTdCJTIyeWVhcnMlMjIlM0ElNUIlNUQlMkMlMjJjaGFsbGVuZ2VzJTIyJTNBJTVCJTIyMTI5JTIyJTVEJTJDJTIydGVybXMlMjIlM0ElNUIlNUQlMkMlMjJpbml0aWF0aXZlcyUyMiUzQSU1QiU1RCUyQyUyMmxvY2F0aW9ucyUyMiUzQSU1QiU1RCU3RA==" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">grants awarded</a>&nbsp;for past Call-to-Action opportunities show this, and we hope that this year’ meeting will also provide ways to catalyze collaborative projects that yield a tangible solution to a key problem by the end of the grant.
Please note that there are multiple grant opportunities being launched at the Annual Meeting:
<ul>
<li>Two that are open to meeting participants:
<ol>
<li>This 2023 Grand Challenges Annual Meeting Call-to-Action</li>
<li><a href="https://gcgh.grandchallenges.org/challenge/collaboratory-platforms-2023-democratizing-access-technologies" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Collaboratory Platforms 2023: Democratizing Access to Technologies</a></li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>Additional <a href="https://grandchallenges.org/grant-opportunities" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">grant opportunities</a> that are publicly open, launched across the Grand Challenges family of initiatives</li>
</ul>
Funding
Each meeting participant will have one opportunity to apply as the primary applicant, on behalf of their institution, for a USD $100,000 grant or a collaborative USD $200,000 grant, both with an 18-month grant duration. Collaborative awards require the participation of at least two meeting participants from different institutions. While restricted to one application as the primary applicant, meeting participants may participate as collaborators in multiple collaborative applications. Priority will be given to new or newly expanded collaborations, rather than to existing collaborations seeking new funding.
We will give highest priority to proposed projects that:
<ul>
<li>Contribute to a partnership network that empowers those with the local perspective required to direct the right approaches to the right parts of the problems to ensure success. We will prioritize projects led by investigators from low- and middle-income countries and a balanced representation of women principal investigators. Their collective action and directed energy will help solve today's key problems in global health, while building research networks ready to solve tomorrow’s.</li>
<li>Are likely to yield a tangible answer to a question or solution to a problem within the grant term.</li>
<li>Are explicitly aligned with the content within the meeting's scientific track sessions. Please note that individual proposals will be reviewed based on their alignment with one primary track and the specific content presented there (see <a href="https://www.cvent.com/api/email/dispatch/v1/click/q4pj6gq6zkcl4l/wl5lgk4j/aHR0cHMlM0ElMkYlMkZjdXN0b20uY3ZlbnQuY29tJTJGQjZFNTk2REVBQzZBNEE3RkIxNDY3NDk3QUU0RkY1NEIlMkZmaWxlcyUyRmV2ZW50JTJGZWEyZGNlMGQ2ZjlhNDAxM2E3OTBhNTg0ZDRiMGNkZTIlMkYzZTdiOTJkMzlkNmI0MDM1YWQ5ZmQ3OWM5ODU4YjJlMy5wZGYmaXB3OFdDM0w2VWJCWVZzek56NGNxdWZ6MTBGZTh5WmZndmJZaWRETTYzcyUzRCZHcmFuZCtDaGFsbGVuZ2VzK0FubnVhbCtNZWV0aW5nK0FnZW5kYQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">meeting agenda</a>), since we seek to provide an opportunity for participants to take action based on an idea that they developed and people they met during their participation in a scientific track. Eligible scientific tracks for this Call-to-Action are listed below.</li>
</ul>
Scientific tracks eligible for the Grand Challenges Annual Meeting Call-to-Action
<ul>
<li>Advancing Drug Discovery for Global Health</li>
<li>Applying a Translational Lens to Global Health</li>
<li>Artificial Intelligence &amp; Medical Devices: Strengthening the Ecosystem for Development, Implementation, and Scale in LMICs</li>
<li>Catalyzing Systems-level Agriculture Climate Adaptation in Africa</li>
<li>Enhancing African Vaccine Manufacturing Through Technology and Training</li>
<li>The Evolving Role of Pathogen Genomics in Public Health Surveillance</li>
<li>Global Health Discovery Collaboratory: Enabling a Global Health R&amp;D Network</li>
<li>Innovations in Reproductive Health Technologies for Advancement of Global Health</li>
<li>Key Ingredients for R&amp;D Ecosystems and Accelerating Innovation in LMICs</li>
<li>Malaria: Innovation for Eradication</li>
<li>The Road Ahead: Opportunities for HIV Prevention and Cure</li>
<li>Sickle Cell Disease: Global Burden and Therapeutic Opportunities</li>
<li>Vaccine and Biologics Innovations for Global Health</li>
</ul>
We will not consider funding approaches that:
<ul>
<li>Are not explicitly aligned with the specific content within the meeting scientific tracks listed above that are eligible for this request for proposals.</li>
<li>Address the meeting scientific tracks that are not part of this request for proposals:&nbsp;Global Network and Partnership Building to Combat the Effects of Climate Change on Health and Looking Ahead to the Next 20 Years: Sharing Learnings and Best Practices for Grand Challenge Implementation and Partnership.</li>
</ul>

The Grand Challenges Annual Meeting fosters innovation and international collaboration to address the biggest challenges in global health and development. It has been held in 12 countries&nbsp;over the past 18 years and in a virtual format for two years. The 2023 meeting continues the Annual Meeting's goal to support a global community of problem solvers who work together to set an innovation agenda and do the breakthrough science to deliver on it – to go further and faster together.

Opportunities to Advance Women's Health Innovation

The Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation and the U.S. National Institutes of Health initiated an inclusive, consultative, cross-sector effort to generate a Women’s Health Innovation Opportunity Map 2023 as a collaborative framework to advance women’s health innovation. The Opportunity Map was created by the Innovation Equity Forum (IEF). The aim of the IEF was to bring a broad range of multidisciplinary expertise from various levels and sectors of the biomedical enterprise to provide diverse viewpoints in order to develop an inclusive, globally-focused, and widely accepted Opportunity Map of topics in women’s health R&amp;D. The Women’s Health Innovation team at the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation is looking for innovations and ideas that address opportunities outlined in the Opportunity Map.

Opportunities to Advance Womens Health Innovation

<h2>The Opportunity</h2>Insufficient access to quality, safe, efficacious, and affordable medical products in Africa has posed a significant challenge to public health for decades. The establishment of the African Medicines Agency (AMA)<a href="#_ftn1" title="" id="_ftnref1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a> will help to facilitate coordination of regulatory activities and further harmonization across Member States and help drive access.Over the last decade, the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation (the Foundation) among other funders and stakeholders has supported the harmonization of regulatory technical standards and optimization of regulatory processes in Africa. The Foundation's Africa regulatory systems strategy addresses all aspects of the newly emerging African tri-level regulatory ecosystem – continental, regional (Regional Economic Communities (RECs)), and national. While AMA will be a key catalyst of Africa's new regulatory ecosystem, it is designed to work within a regulatory network drawing on expertise and other resources from the RECs and National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs). Without strong NRAs, this ecosystem cannot function. At the national level, the Foundation is supporting a number of NRAs to reach WHO maturity level 3 (ML3), and ultimately to become WHO listed Authorities (WLA). This important effort is supported by African governments, the African Union, WHO, and several international partners. As part of the process to attain ML3 and WLA, NRAs need to establish clear Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and to track and publish these in a transparent manner.<a href="#_ftn2" title="" id="_ftnref2" name="_ftnref2">[2]</a><h2>The Challenge</h2>While harmonization of technical standards and processes has been ongoing in Africa for more than a decade, there remain disparities between different NRAs and regions. While maturity levels vary, so do processes for managing marketing authorization, clinical trials, and other regulatory applications and services, with many NRAs performing these manually without the support of a robust digital environment. Many NRAs have published public service charters committing to achieve certain levels of performance (based on clearly defined KPIs), but without a structured approach to measuring these KPIs, it is impossible for NRA leadership to track progress, take corrective action, or share performance with stakeholders. The lack of fit-for-purpose tracking systems prevents NRAs from accurately defining and overseeing their end-to-end processes, which in turn impacts their organizational strategic planning and execution.The ability to track and report these metrics is also important when NRAs seek support from their government and partners in order to improve their environment, as they need to report the impact of these investments to their governments, local stakeholders, and partners.Most NRAs do not have data systems, nor staff dedicated to the generation and reporting of data on KPIs. Where staff play such a role, in many instances these staff have other responsibilities and only do the data generation, analysis and reporting as additional duties or in their spare time. This has been evident in regional regulatory work-sharing/cooperation with RECs struggling to obtain data on products submitted to NRAs following regional recommendations and the associated regulatory timelines. This too applies to some NRAs participating in WHO's prequalification collaborative registration procedure, as well as for clinical trial review timelines they are expected to publish.In summary, we seek to address four problems: i) Lack of clear internal processes to manage different regulatory pathways available at NRAs; ii) Lack of clearly defined KPIs by some NRAs; iii) Lack of, or sub-optimal data systems for capturing and reporting key data and metrics to inform process improvement and demonstrate performance against KPIs and iv) lack of harmonized solutions that are interoperable across multiple NRAs and built to scale.The funded projects will be part of a larger coordinated program aimed at further strengthening African National Regulatory Authorities data systems to enhance and track performance. The project teams funded through this RFP will be expected to work together on shared areas of interest including, but not limited to, knowledge exchange and harmonization of solutions. This effort, while expected to contribute to NRAs attainment of ML3, will not support wider efforts at attaining ML3, but be limited to data systems, performance measurement, and advancing transparency.Funded projects will work closely with a coordinating entity (that will provide technical support to NRAs on data systems). An advisory committee comprised of key stakeholders will be constituted to guide this work including representatives from relevant African Union organizations.Proposals are required to allocate funds for staff time and travel to participate in the cross-project collaborative activities at least once a year agreed upon by the governance committees.What we are looking for:Applications are invited from African National Regulatory Agencies (NRAs). Each proposal should be submitted by one primary applicant, but the awards require active collaboration between at least two NRAs per application. In addition, proposals should address at least two (2) of the following categories:Regulatory review process management:<ul><li>Create or improve regulatory digital data management systems and end-to-end processes including structured approaches to data generation, analysis, sharing at the regional level. and reporting of KPIs. Priority will be given to proposals including a solid plan for reporting on KPIs, this includes:<ol><li>regulatory timelines for national marketing authorization,</li><li>clinical trial applications,</li><li>facilitated regulatory pathways; we would prioritize proposals including REC products, WHO PQ CRP, global pathway (and AMA pathways in future)</li></ol></li><li>Design and structure data management systems that contribute to NRAs achieving WHO ML3/WLA status along with other important efforts addressing the rest of the GBT requirement outside of performance management.</li></ul>Metrics systems and performance indicators improvement:<ul><li>Develop data systems and processes and engage in continuous improvement to establish key performance indicators and to assess process effectiveness. These should be based on the WHO Global Benchmarking Tool (GBT) for Evaluation of National Regulatory Systems of Medical Products.</li><li>Develop best practices for regulatory metrics monitoring and evaluation systems.</li><li>Develop, and/or update key performance indicators, organization client charter and publish on NRA website.</li></ul>Regulatory Data Standardization and data vocabulary:&nbsp;<ul><li>Enable data integration both from various sources within the same agency and beyond including other NRAs, other governmental agencies.</li><li>Develop/improve data structures and vocabularies to enable interoperability across countries and regions and that would support the AMA/continental RIMS development.</li><li>Develop guidelines and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) that support data systems at the NRA(s) participating in this call for proposals.</li></ul>Artificial Intelligence (AI) centered tools:&nbsp;<ul><li>Enable/design data systems that would enable the use of AI to facilitate regulatory activities including screening, reviews, and scanning large databases for potential quality and safety signals.</li></ul>Funding levelWe seek to fund up to 5 proposals. Successful proposals will receive an award of up to USD $300,000 with an 18- to 24-month grant duration. Proposals must demonstrate that at least 80% of the funding is going to NRAs. While proposals require the collaborative participation of at least two investigators at different NRAs, proposals should be submitted by one primary applicant/NRA. While restricted to one application per institution as the primary applicant, applicants may participate as collaborators in multiple collaborative applications.Selected proposals will be part of a coordinated program and will work closely with a coordinating entity (that will provide technical support to NRAs on data systems). An advisory committee comprised of key stakeholders will be constituted to guide this work including representatives from relevant African Union organizations.Successful proposals to be considered should:<ul><li>Involve at least an NRA operating at WHO (Maturity Level) ML3 level.</li><li>Demonstrate at least 80% of the funding is going to NRAs.</li><li>Demonstrate how they would enable other countries to achieve WHO ML3 level.</li><li>Involve substantial collaboration between at least 2 NRAs. The suggested collaboration should be key to advancing the project goals and yield insights that are unlikely in the absence of co-produced approaches. In addition, however, applications could include collaborations with institutions in other geographical areas including from outside Africa.</li><li>Have the potential to demonstrate impact on the areas proposed and within the proposed budget and timeframe of 18 -24 months.</li><li>Explain how resources for the project (including personnel) will be procured within the 1st 3-4 months to ensure that activities take off in time, and the project is completed in time (18-24 months).</li><li>Be driven by a shared commitment for collaboration, protocols and processes sharing and advancing information management systems and processes.</li><li>Plan for change management and implementation of new data systems and processes.</li><li>Demonstrate how sustainability of established systems will be achieved beyond this grant including key personnel like statisticians. An example might be securing written commitment from the agency Board (of all NRAs participating in the project) to fund the continued use of developed systems and personnel at the end of the project. Proposals that commit to start transition of ownership of personnel after 12-15 months of the project will be preferred.</li></ul>We will not consider for funding:<ul><li>Proposals that do not involve an ML3 NRA</li><li>Proposals led by institutions not based in Africa</li><li>Proposals that don't demonstrate a clear commitment to collaborating with other funded proposals/teams and the coordination team</li><li>Proposals that are not accomplishable within the grant term</li><li>Proposals outside the scope of this call even when what is proposed is highly relevant for the regulatory authorities involved.</li><li>Proposals seeking to support efforts at attaining ML3 that go beyond creating and enabling data systems.</li></ul><a href="#_ftnref1" title="" id="_ftn1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> <a href="https://joppp.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40545-020-00281-9">https://joppp.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40545-020-00281-9</a><a href="#_ftnref2" title="" id="_ftn2" name="_ftn2">[2]</a> <a href="https://www.who.int/tools/global-benchmarking-tools">https://www.who.int/tools/global-benchmarking-tools</a>

Strengthening African National Regulatory Authorities Data Systems to Enhance and Track Performance

Note: The deadline for submitting applications to this Challenge has been extended to February 14, 2024, 2:00 p.m. PST.
<h2>The Opportunity</h2>
Insufficient access to quality, safe, efficacious, and affordable medical products in Africa has posed a significant challenge to public health for decades. The establishment of the African Medicines Agency (AMA)<a href="#_ftn1" title name="_ftnref1" id="_ftnref1">[1]</a> will help to facilitate coordination of regulatory activities and further harmonization across Member States and help drive access.
Over the last decade, the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation (the Foundation) among other funders and stakeholders has supported the harmonization of regulatory technical standards and optimization of regulatory processes in Africa. The Foundation's Africa regulatory systems strategy addresses all aspects of the newly emerging African tri-level regulatory ecosystem – continental, regional (Regional Economic Communities (RECs)), and national. While AMA will be a key catalyst of Africa's new regulatory ecosystem, it is designed to work within a regulatory network drawing on expertise and other resources from the RECs and National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs). Without strong NRAs, this ecosystem cannot function. At the national level, the Foundation is supporting a number of NRAs to reach WHO maturity level 3 (ML3), and ultimately to become WHO listed Authorities (WLA). This important effort is supported by African governments, the African Union, WHO, and several international partners. As part of the process to attain ML3 and WLA, NRAs need to establish clear Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and to track and publish these in a transparent manner.<a href="#_ftn2" title name="_ftnref2" id="_ftnref2">[2]</a>
<h2>The Challenge</h2>
While harmonization of technical standards and processes has been ongoing in Africa for more than a decade, there remain disparities between different NRAs and regions. While maturity levels vary, so do processes for managing marketing authorization, clinical trials, and other regulatory applications and services, with many NRAs performing these manually without the support of a robust digital environment. Many NRAs have published public service charters committing to achieve certain levels of performance (based on clearly defined KPIs), but without a structured approach to measuring these KPIs, it is impossible for NRA leadership to track progress, take corrective action, or share performance with stakeholders. The lack of fit-for-purpose tracking systems prevents NRAs from accurately defining and overseeing their end-to-end processes, which in turn impacts their organizational strategic planning and execution.
The ability to track and report these metrics is also important when NRAs seek support from their government and partners in order to improve their environment, as they need to report the impact of these investments to their governments, local stakeholders, and partners.
Most NRAs do not have data systems, nor staff dedicated to the generation and reporting of data on KPIs. Where staff play such a role, in many instances these staff have other responsibilities and only do the data generation, analysis and reporting as additional duties or in their spare time. This has been evident in regional regulatory work-sharing/cooperation with RECs struggling to obtain data on products submitted to NRAs following regional recommendations and the associated regulatory timelines. This too applies to some NRAs participating in WHO's prequalification collaborative registration procedure, as well as for clinical trial review timelines they are expected to publish.
In summary, we seek to address four problems: i) Lack of clear internal processes to manage different regulatory pathways available at NRAs; ii) Lack of clearly defined KPIs by some NRAs; iii) Lack of, or sub-optimal data systems for capturing and reporting key data and metrics to inform process improvement and demonstrate performance against KPIs and iv) lack of harmonized solutions that are interoperable across multiple NRAs and built to scale.
The funded projects will be part of a larger coordinated program aimed at further strengthening African National Regulatory Authorities data systems to enhance and track performance. The project teams funded through this RFP will be expected to work together on shared areas of interest including, but not limited to, knowledge exchange and harmonization of solutions. This effort, while expected to contribute to NRAs attainment of ML3, will not support wider efforts at attaining ML3, but be limited to data systems, performance measurement, and advancing transparency.
Funded projects will work closely with a coordinating entity (that will provide technical support to NRAs on data systems). An advisory committee comprised of key stakeholders will be constituted to guide this work including representatives from relevant African Union organizations.
Proposals are required to allocate funds for staff time and travel to participate in the cross-project collaborative activities at least once a year agreed upon by the governance committees.
What we are looking for:
Applications are invited from African National Regulatory Agencies (NRAs). Each proposal should be submitted by one primary applicant, but the awards require active collaboration between at least two NRAs per application. In addition, proposals should address at least two (2) of the following categories:
Regulatory review process management:
<ul>
<li>Create or improve regulatory digital data management systems and end-to-end processes including structured approaches to data generation, analysis, sharing at the regional level. and reporting of KPIs. Priority will be given to proposals including a solid plan for reporting on KPIs, this includes:
<ol>
<li>regulatory timelines for national marketing authorization,</li>
<li>clinical trial applications,</li>
<li>facilitated regulatory pathways; we would prioritize proposals including REC products, WHO PQ CRP, global pathway (and AMA pathways in future)</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>Design and structure data management systems that contribute to NRAs achieving WHO ML3/WLA status along with other important efforts addressing the rest of the GBT requirement outside of performance management.</li>
</ul>
Metrics systems and performance indicators improvement:
<ul>
<li>Develop data systems and processes and engage in continuous improvement to establish key performance indicators and to assess process effectiveness. These should be based on the WHO Global Benchmarking Tool (GBT) for Evaluation of National Regulatory Systems of Medical Products.</li>
<li>Develop best practices for regulatory metrics monitoring and evaluation systems.</li>
<li>Develop, and/or update key performance indicators, organization client charter and publish on NRA website.</li>
</ul>
Regulatory Data Standardization and data vocabulary:&nbsp;
<ul>
<li>Enable data integration both from various sources within the same agency and beyond including other NRAs, other governmental agencies.</li>
<li>Develop/improve data structures and vocabularies to enable interoperability across countries and regions and that would support the AMA/continental RIMS development.</li>
<li>Develop guidelines and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) that support data systems at the NRA(s) participating in this call for proposals.</li>
</ul>
Artificial Intelligence (AI) centered tools:&nbsp;
<ul>
<li>Enable/design data systems that would enable the use of AI to facilitate regulatory activities including screening, reviews, and scanning large databases for potential quality and safety signals.</li>
</ul>
Funding level
We seek to fund up to 5 proposals. Successful proposals will receive an award of up to USD $300,000 with an 18- to 24-month grant duration. Proposals must demonstrate that at least 80% of the funding is going to NRAs. While proposals require the collaborative participation of at least two investigators at different NRAs, proposals should be submitted by one primary applicant/NRA. While restricted to one application per institution as the primary applicant, applicants may participate as collaborators in multiple collaborative applications.
Selected proposals will be part of a coordinated program and will work closely with a coordinating entity (that will provide technical support to NRAs on data systems). An advisory committee comprised of key stakeholders will be constituted to guide this work including representatives from relevant African Union organizations.
Successful proposals to be considered should:
<ul>
<li>Involve at least an NRA operating at WHO (Maturity Level) ML3 level.</li>
<li>Demonstrate at least 80% of the funding is going to NRAs.</li>
<li>Demonstrate how they would enable other countries to achieve WHO ML3 level.</li>
<li>Involve substantial collaboration between at least 2 NRAs. The suggested collaboration should be key to advancing the project goals and yield insights that are unlikely in the absence of co-produced approaches. In addition, however, applications could include collaborations with institutions in other geographical areas including from outside Africa.</li>
<li>Have the potential to demonstrate impact on the areas proposed and within the proposed budget and timeframe of 18 -24 months.</li>
<li>Explain how resources for the project (including personnel) will be procured within the 1st 3-4 months to ensure that activities take off in time, and the project is completed in time (18-24 months).</li>
<li>Be driven by a shared commitment for collaboration, protocols and processes sharing and advancing information management systems and processes.</li>
<li>Plan for change management and implementation of new data systems and processes.</li>
<li>Demonstrate how sustainability of established systems will be achieved beyond this grant including key personnel like statisticians. An example might be securing written commitment from the agency Board (of all NRAs participating in the project) to fund the continued use of developed systems and personnel at the end of the project. Proposals that commit to start transition of ownership of personnel after 12-15 months of the project will be preferred.</li>
</ul>
We will not consider for funding:
<ul>
<li>Proposals that do not involve an ML3 NRA</li>
<li>Proposals led by institutions not based in Africa</li>
<li>Proposals that don't demonstrate a clear commitment to collaborating with other funded proposals/teams and the coordination team</li>
<li>Proposals that are not accomplishable within the grant term</li>
<li>Proposals outside the scope of this call even when what is proposed is highly relevant for the regulatory authorities involved.</li>
<li>Proposals seeking to support efforts at attaining ML3 that go beyond creating and enabling data systems.</li>
</ul>
<a href="#_ftnref1" title name="_ftn1" id="_ftn1">[1]</a> <a href="https://joppp.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40545-020-00281-9">https://joppp.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40545-020-00281-9</a>
<a href="#_ftnref2" title name="_ftn2" id="_ftn2">[2]</a> <a href="https://www.who.int/tools/global-benchmarking-tools">https://www.who.int/tools/global-benchmarking-tools</a>

Insufficient access to quality, safe, efficacious, and affordable medical products in Africa has posed a significant challenge to public health for decades. The establishment of the African Medicines Agency (AMA) will help to facilitate coordination of regulatory activities and further harmonization across Member States and help drive access.

<h2>BACKGROUND</h2>A global lack of childcare has left nearly 350 million children and families who need care without access, with nearly 80% of those children living in LIC and LMICs (<a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2021/03/04/nearly-350-million-children-lack-quality-childcare-in-the-world" target="_blank">World Bank, 2021).</a><a href="#_ftn1" title="" id="_ftnref1" name="_ftnref1">[i]</a> This has had a disproportionate impact on women, creating a heavy burden of unpaid care that limits women's ability to enter, remain, and thrive in the workforce; evidence shows that globally, 606 million women are not in the paid workforce due to household responsibilities compared to 41 million men (<a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_633135.pdf" target="_blank">ILO, 2018</a>)<a href="#_ftn2" title="" id="_ftnref2" name="_ftnref2">[ii]</a>. Lack of childcare has high costs for women even when they enter the workforce. For example, one study in Uganda found that for women operating microenterprises, as many women do in emerging markets, childcare duties are correlated with a "baby-profit gap" as businesses where children are present earn 48% lower profits than other female-owned businesses where no child is present. (<a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3830932" target="_blank">SSRN, 2021</a>)<a href="#_ftn3" title="" id="_ftnref3" name="_ftnref3">[iii]</a>Investment is needed to both understand the most impactful, cost-effective, and sustainable interventions that address the full scale of the childcare crisis and scale childcare interventions to policy solutions and sustainable programs at scale.High-quality childcare, when accessible, can drive multi-generational impacts by improving women's employment and opportunities, business productivity, family welfare, and child development and nutritional outcomes (<a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2021/03/04/nearly-350-million-children-lack-quality-childcare-in-the-world" target="_blank">World Bank</a>, 2021)<a href="#_ftn4" title="" id="_ftnref4" name="_ftnref4">[iv]</a>. Investment in the care economy can drive economic development by generating between <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_838653.pdf" target="_blank">$2 to $4.5 trillion of additional GDP each year</a><a href="#_ftn5" title="" id="_ftnref5" name="_ftnref5">[v]</a> (with LIC and LMIC countries with the most to gain), creating decent work in care sectors, strengthening social protection systems, and closing long-standing gender gaps at work and at home that were only exacerbated by the pandemic.Addressing the childcare crisis would yield a triple dividend with positive benefits for mothers, children, and economies.Benefits to mothers: Strong evidence shows that providing access to suitable and affordable childcare increases women's economic wellbeing and agency by reducing the burden of unpaid care work and freeing up time to work outside the home, access more desirable work, and increase economic productivity. (<a href="https://www.povertyactionlab.org/policy-insight/access-childcare-improve-womens-economic-empowerment" target="_blank">J&nbsp;-&nbsp;PAL&nbsp;2023)</a>.<a href="#_ftn6" title="" id="_ftnref6" name="_ftnref6">[vi]</a>Benefits for children: Further investments in high quality childcare would have benefits for children's development and outcomes (<a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/44eaa523-faca-5760-9abc-569cfddcaea2/content" target="_blank">WBG 2022)</a><a href="#_ftn7" title="" id="_ftnref7" name="_ftnref7">[vii]</a>.Benefits to economies: Investing in comprehensive care infrastructure would drive employment rates for women to rise by 10% and reduce the gender gap in employment by 7.5% (<a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_838653.pdf" target="_blank">ILO 2022)</a><a href="#_ftn8" title="" id="_ftnref8" name="_ftnref8">[viii]</a>. On a macro-level, models estimate 300M jobs could be generated by 2035 if countries made wide-ranging investments needed in the care economy. Given the female predominance in the care sector, it is likely that many of these jobs would go to women (<a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_838653.pdf" target="_blank">ILO 2022)</a><a href="#_ftn9" title="" id="_ftnref9" name="_ftnref9">[ix]</a>.<h2>The Challenge</h2>This RFP seeks to support evidence-based testing and learning of childcare models in South Asia and Africa that support women's workforce participation by offering paid work opportunities, reduce and redistribute the burden of unpaid care, support women's pathways into leadership and/or shift gender norms related to paid work and caregiving.We are looking for projects with an up to 3-year timeline that will achieve at least one of the following objectives:<ul><li>Support Women's Economic Opportunity: Advance childcare models that support women's economic opportunities and/or pathways to leadership by expanding access to childcare services, reduce and redistribute the burden of unpaid care for women, and/or increase decent work opportunities for women in the childcare workforce.</li><li>Advancing Evidence: Advance evidence of scalable, sustainable, effective and gender intentional models of childcare, including (but not limited to) pilots which test and compare multiple models of childcare provision, proposals that study applicability and customization of successful care models in target geographies, programs that demonstrate business models which can sustain themselves (either with public or private resources) and/or pilots which help to understand the minimum and optimal levels of childcare quality.</li><li>Shift Gender Norms: Accelerate the economic benefits and impacts of childcare for women by shifting gender norms to expand women's economic agency through (but not limited to): increasing acceptability of women working outside the home, increasing women's control over newly gained income (inside or outside the care workforce), and shifting social norms regarding acceptability of women using care services.</li></ul>Ideally, proposals should also:<ul><li>Improve children's learning, social, emotional, and physical outcomes through high-quality curriculum.</li><li>To the extent possible, measure the effect childcare has on early child development in low-resource settings, including a measurement of school readiness.</li><li>Use data-centered and cost-effective approaches to study and shape effective strategies that can guide policies on childcare.</li><li>Tailor approaches to address the specific and targeted needs of the segment of women you're aiming to serve.</li></ul>Priority will be given to proposals that:Partner considerations:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; We particularly encourage applications that include the following:<ul><li>Local Leadership: are led by in-country partners.</li><li>Centering Women's Expertise: applications involving projects led by women and/or from women-led organizations, and/or projects that integrate women's voices and experiences throughout the project.</li></ul>Program design considerations:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Priority will be given to proposals that deliver on several (not necessarily all) of the below criteria:<ul><li>Community Engagement: lends itself to community-ownership through mechanisms such as participatory design or community advisory boards.</li><li>Multi-stakeholder Consultation: designed in partnership with private sector, policy makers, local government entities and/or program implementors, that include a line of sight from implementation to policy change, sustainability and/or scale.</li><li>Cultural Knowledge: demonstrates a deep knowledge and understanding of cultural norms, local context and specific needs of women and children in the target community.</li><li>Gender Intentionality: is gender intentional by design.<ul><li>Gender intentional investments will, through novel evidence-based testing and learning of childcare approaches:<ul><li>increase understanding of gap or barriers to access to resources that have an impact on women's workforce participation,</li><li>address gender power relations and increase understanding of gaps and barriers in agency or control over resources that affect women's workforce participation,</li><li>and include an intersectional approach that considers the intersectionality of gender with other social determinants (such as religion, caste, tribe, age, or level of education) to understand the complex and unique challenges faced by differing populations in accessing childcare and economic opportunity.</li></ul></li></ul></li></ul>Program elements:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Priority will be given to proposals that deliver on several (not necessarily all) of the below criteria:<ul><li>Evidence Generation: demonstrate effectiveness and measure outcomes for both women and children. Examples of measures for care can be found in the accompanying document.</li><li>Innovation: demonstrate innovation in distribution and delivery of care.</li><li>Employment for Women: provide employment opportunities for women.</li><li>Improved Care: improve care options and centers accessibility and support to working mothers.</li><li>Sustainable Business Models: demonstrate a business model that includes a credible revenue model in place to ensure ongoing sustainability, as a necessary element of scale.</li><li>Ability to Scale: has the potential to contribute to strengthening childcare models within the proposed grant budget and timeframe and demonstrate a potential pathway to scale once GC funding is exhausted.</li><li>Systems Change: have a point of view on how the proposed approach may change the broader system in which care is designed, delivered, or funded, e.g., considering how to incentivize key players such as government, private sector, donors, or local communities to change or collaborate in advancing access to quality childcare.</li></ul>We will not consider funding for:Programmatic considerations:<ul><li>Applications where the activities are limited to the evaluation of an existing program or an observational or overly general study.</li><li>Care programs focused on care for a population that is not children, for example elder care or care for those with disabilities.</li><li>Programs focused exclusively on effective childcare and child development outcomes, that ignore the needs of and impacts on the mother.</li><li>Proposals that focus on elements essential to childcare provision but not provision itself (i.e., training of childcare givers without including childcare provision) or proposals that focus exclusively on training programs for childcare workers or community awareness raising.</li><li>Proposals that fail to reach low-income women and/or proposals that require individual participants to invest excessive personal resources beyond what is reasonable and accessible for a low-income clientele.</li><li>Programs that are unscalable and/or overly costly.</li></ul>Partner considerations:<ul><li>Proposals led or driven by INGOs or entities that do not have a meaningful presence in Africa and Asia.</li><li>Program teams that are composed mostly of leaders from the global north and/or do not include women in their leadership or implementation teams.</li></ul>Funding Level:We will consider proposals for awards of up to $400,000 USD for each project, with a grant term of up to 3 years. Application budgets should be commensurate with the scope of work proposed. Indirect costs will be considered, and should be included in the budget for the up to $400,000 USD award (subject to the <a href="https://docs.gatesfoundation.org/Documents/Indirect_Cost_Policy.pdf" target="_blank">Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation's indirect cost policy</a>).&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#_ftnref1" title="" id="_ftn1" name="_ftn1">[i]</a> <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/385821d3-bce3-5640-b140-48e27b58296b" target="_blank">https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/385821d3-bce3-5640-b140-48e27b58296b</a><a href="#_ftnref2" title="" id="_ftn2" name="_ftn2">[ii]</a> <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_633135.pdf" target="_blank">ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_633135.pdf</a><a href="#_ftnref3" title="" id="_ftn3" name="_ftn3">[iii]</a> <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3830932" target="_blank">https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3830932</a><a href="#_ftnref4" title="" id="_ftn4" name="_ftn4">[iv]</a> <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/385821d3-bce3-5640-b140-48e27b58296b" target="_blank">https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/385821d3-bce3-5640-b140-48e27b58296b</a><a href="#_ftnref5" title="" id="_ftn5" name="_ftn5">[v]</a> <a href="http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_838653.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_838653.pdf</a><a href="#_ftnref6" title="" id="_ftn6" name="_ftn6">[vi]</a> <a href="https://www.povertyactionlab.org/policy-insight/access-childcare-improve-womens-economic-empowerment" target="_blank">https://www.povertyactionlab.org/policy-insight/access-childcare-improve-womens-economic-empowerment</a><a href="#_ftnref7" title="" id="_ftn7" name="_ftn7">[vii]</a> <a href="http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstream/44eaa523-faca-5760-9abc-569cfddcaea2/content" target="_blank">http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstream/44eaa523-faca-5760-9abc-569cfddcaea2/content</a><a href="#_ftnref8" title="" id="_ftn8" name="_ftn8">[viii]</a><a href="http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_838653.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_838653.pdf</a><a href="#_ftnref9" title="" id="_ftn9" name="_ftn9">[ix]</a> <a href="http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_838653.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_838653.pdf</a>

Strengthening Childcare Models that Advance Women's Economic Power

<h2>BACKGROUND</h2>
A global lack of childcare has left nearly 350 million children and families who need care without access, with nearly 80% of those children living in LIC and LMICs (<a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2021/03/04/nearly-350-million-children-lack-quality-childcare-in-the-world" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">World Bank, 2021).</a><a href="#_ftn1" title id="_ftnref1" name="_ftnref1">[i]</a> This has had a disproportionate impact on women, creating a heavy burden of unpaid care that limits women's ability to enter, remain, and thrive in the workforce; evidence shows that globally, 606 million women are not in the paid workforce due to household responsibilities compared to 41 million men (<a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_633135.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ILO, 2018</a>)<a href="#_ftn2" title id="_ftnref2" name="_ftnref2">[ii]</a>. Lack of childcare has high costs for women even when they enter the workforce. For example, one study in Uganda found that for women operating microenterprises, as many women do in emerging markets, childcare duties are correlated with a "baby-profit gap" as businesses where children are present earn 48% lower profits than other female-owned businesses where no child is present. (<a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3830932" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">SSRN, 2021</a>)<a href="#_ftn3" title id="_ftnref3" name="_ftnref3">[iii]</a>
Investment is needed to both understand the most impactful, cost-effective, and sustainable interventions that address the full scale of the childcare crisis and scale childcare interventions to policy solutions and sustainable programs at scale.
High-quality childcare, when accessible, can drive multi-generational impacts by improving women's employment and opportunities, business productivity, family welfare, and child development and nutritional outcomes (<a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2021/03/04/nearly-350-million-children-lack-quality-childcare-in-the-world" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">World Bank</a>, 2021)<a href="#_ftn4" title id="_ftnref4" name="_ftnref4">[iv]</a>. Investment in the care economy can drive economic development by generating between <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_838653.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">$2 to $4.5 trillion of additional GDP each year</a><a href="#_ftn5" title id="_ftnref5" name="_ftnref5">[v]</a> (with LIC and LMIC countries with the most to gain), creating decent work in care sectors, strengthening social protection systems, and closing long-standing gender gaps at work and at home that were only exacerbated by the pandemic.
Addressing the childcare crisis would yield a triple dividend with positive benefits for mothers, children, and economies.
Benefits to mothers: Strong evidence shows that providing access to suitable and affordable childcare increases women's economic wellbeing and agency by reducing the burden of unpaid care work and freeing up time to work outside the home, access more desirable work, and increase economic productivity. (<a href="https://www.povertyactionlab.org/policy-insight/access-childcare-improve-womens-economic-empowerment" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">J&nbsp;-&nbsp;PAL&nbsp;2023)</a>.<a href="#_ftn6" title id="_ftnref6" name="_ftnref6">[vi]</a>
Benefits for children: Further investments in high quality childcare would have benefits for children's development and outcomes (<a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/44eaa523-faca-5760-9abc-569cfddcaea2/content" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">WBG 2022)</a><a href="#_ftn7" title id="_ftnref7" name="_ftnref7">[vii]</a>.
Benefits to economies: Investing in comprehensive care infrastructure would drive employment rates for women to rise by 10% and reduce the gender gap in employment by 7.5% (<a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_838653.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ILO 2022)</a><a href="#_ftn8" title id="_ftnref8" name="_ftnref8">[viii]</a>. On a macro-level, models estimate 300M jobs could be generated by 2035 if countries made wide-ranging investments needed in the care economy. Given the female predominance in the care sector, it is likely that many of these jobs would go to women (<a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_838653.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ILO 2022)</a><a href="#_ftn9" title id="_ftnref9" name="_ftnref9">[ix]</a>.
<h2>The Challenge</h2>
This RFP seeks to support evidence-based testing and learning of childcare models in South Asia and Africa that support women's workforce participation by offering paid work opportunities, reduce and redistribute the burden of unpaid care, support women's pathways into leadership and/or shift gender norms related to paid work and caregiving.
We are looking for projects with an up to 3-year timeline that will achieve at least one of the following objectives:
<ul>
<li>Support Women's Economic Opportunity: Advance childcare models that support women's economic opportunities and/or pathways to leadership by expanding access to childcare services, reduce and redistribute the burden of unpaid care for women, and/or increase decent work opportunities for women in the childcare workforce.</li>
<li>Advancing Evidence: Advance evidence of scalable, sustainable, effective and gender intentional models of childcare, including (but not limited to) pilots which test and compare multiple models of childcare provision, proposals that study applicability and customization of successful care models in target geographies, programs that demonstrate business models which can sustain themselves (either with public or private resources) and/or pilots which help to understand the minimum and optimal levels of childcare quality.</li>
<li>Shift Gender Norms: Accelerate the economic benefits and impacts of childcare for women by shifting gender norms to expand women's economic agency through (but not limited to): increasing acceptability of women working outside the home, increasing women's control over newly gained income (inside or outside the care workforce), and shifting social norms regarding acceptability of women using care services.</li>
</ul>
Ideally, proposals should also:
<ul>
<li>Improve children's learning, social, emotional, and physical outcomes through high-quality curriculum.</li>
<li>To the extent possible, measure the effect childcare has on early child development in low-resource settings, including a measurement of school readiness.</li>
<li>Use data-centered and cost-effective approaches to study and shape effective strategies that can guide policies on childcare.</li>
<li>Tailor approaches to address the specific and targeted needs of the segment of women you're aiming to serve.</li>
</ul>
Priority will be given to proposals that:
Partner considerations:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; We particularly encourage applications that include the following:
<ul>
<li>Local Leadership: are led by in-country partners.</li>
<li>Centering Women's Expertise: applications involving projects led by women and/or from women-led organizations, and/or projects that integrate women's voices and experiences throughout the project.</li>
</ul>
Program design considerations:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Priority will be given to proposals that deliver on several (not necessarily all) of the below criteria:
<ul>
<li>Community Engagement: lends itself to community-ownership through mechanisms such as participatory design or community advisory boards.</li>
<li>Multi-stakeholder Consultation: designed in partnership with private sector, policy makers, local government entities and/or program implementors, that include a line of sight from implementation to policy change, sustainability and/or scale.</li>
<li>Cultural Knowledge: demonstrates a deep knowledge and understanding of cultural norms, local context and specific needs of women and children in the target community.</li>
<li>Gender Intentionality: is gender intentional by design.
<ul>
<li>Gender intentional investments will, through novel evidence-based testing and learning of childcare approaches:
<ul>
<li>increase understanding of gap or barriers to access to resources that have an impact on women's workforce participation,</li>
<li>address gender power relations and increase understanding of gaps and barriers in agency or control over resources that affect women's workforce participation,</li>
<li>and include an intersectional approach that considers the intersectionality of gender with other social determinants (such as religion, caste, tribe, age, or level of education) to understand the complex and unique challenges faced by differing populations in accessing childcare and economic opportunity.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
Program elements:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Priority will be given to proposals that deliver on several (not necessarily all) of the below criteria:
<ul>
<li>Evidence Generation: demonstrate effectiveness and measure outcomes for both women and children. Examples of measures for care can be found in the accompanying document.</li>
<li>Innovation: demonstrate innovation in distribution and delivery of care.</li>
<li>Employment for Women: provide employment opportunities for women.</li>
<li>Improved Care: improve care options and centers accessibility and support to working mothers.</li>
<li>Sustainable Business Models: demonstrate a business model that includes a credible revenue model in place to ensure ongoing sustainability, as a necessary element of scale.</li>
<li>Ability to Scale: has the potential to contribute to strengthening childcare models within the proposed grant budget and timeframe and demonstrate a potential pathway to scale once GC funding is exhausted.</li>
<li>Systems Change: have a point of view on how the proposed approach may change the broader system in which care is designed, delivered, or funded, e.g., considering how to incentivize key players such as government, private sector, donors, or local communities to change or collaborate in advancing access to quality childcare.</li>
</ul>
We will not consider funding for:
Programmatic considerations:
<ul>
<li>Applications where the activities are limited to the evaluation of an existing program or an observational or overly general study.</li>
<li>Care programs focused on care for a population that is not children, for example elder care or care for those with disabilities.</li>
<li>Programs focused exclusively on effective childcare and child development outcomes, that ignore the needs of and impacts on the mother.</li>
<li>Proposals that focus on elements essential to childcare provision but not provision itself (i.e., training of childcare givers without including childcare provision) or proposals that focus exclusively on training programs for childcare workers or community awareness raising.</li>
<li>Proposals that fail to reach low-income women and/or proposals that require individual participants to invest excessive personal resources beyond what is reasonable and accessible for a low-income clientele.</li>
<li>Programs that are unscalable and/or overly costly.</li>
</ul>
Partner considerations:
<ul>
<li>Proposals led or driven by INGOs or entities that do not have a meaningful presence in Africa and Asia.</li>
<li>Program teams that are composed mostly of leaders from the global north and/or do not include women in their leadership or implementation teams.</li>
</ul>
Funding Level:
We will consider proposals for awards of up to $400,000 USD for each project, with a grant term of up to 3 years. Application budgets should be commensurate with the scope of work proposed. Indirect costs will be considered, and should be included in the budget for the up to $400,000 USD award (subject to the <a href="https://docs.gatesfoundation.org/Documents/Indirect_Cost_Policy.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation's indirect cost policy</a>).
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="#_ftnref1" title id="_ftn1" name="_ftn1">[i]</a> <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/385821d3-bce3-5640-b140-48e27b58296b" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/385821d3-bce3-5640-b140-48e27b58296b</a>
<a href="#_ftnref2" title id="_ftn2" name="_ftn2">[ii]</a> <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_633135.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_633135.pdf</a>
<a href="#_ftnref3" title id="_ftn3" name="_ftn3">[iii]</a> <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3830932" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3830932</a>
<a href="#_ftnref4" title id="_ftn4" name="_ftn4">[iv]</a> <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/385821d3-bce3-5640-b140-48e27b58296b" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/385821d3-bce3-5640-b140-48e27b58296b</a>
<a href="#_ftnref5" title id="_ftn5" name="_ftn5">[v]</a> <a href="http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_838653.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_838653.pdf</a>
<a href="#_ftnref6" title id="_ftn6" name="_ftn6">[vi]</a> <a href="https://www.povertyactionlab.org/policy-insight/access-childcare-improve-womens-economic-empowerment" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://www.povertyactionlab.org/policy-insight/access-childcare-improve-womens-economic-empowerment</a>
<a href="#_ftnref7" title id="_ftn7" name="_ftn7">[vii]</a> <a href="http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstream/44eaa523-faca-5760-9abc-569cfddcaea2/content" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstream/44eaa523-faca-5760-9abc-569cfddcaea2/content</a>
<a href="#_ftnref8" title id="_ftn8" name="_ftn8">[viii]</a><a href="http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_838653.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_838653.pdf</a>
<a href="#_ftnref9" title id="_ftn9" name="_ftn9">[ix]</a> <a href="http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_838653.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_838653.pdf</a>

This RFP seeks to support evidence-based testing and learning of childcare models in South Asia and Africa that support women’s workforce participation by offering paid work opportunities, reduce and redistribute the burden of unpaid care, support women’s pathways into leadership and/or shift gender norms related to paid work and caregiving.

Strengthening Childcare Models that Advance Womens Economic Power

**NOTE: This opportunity was open only to invitees of the 2023 Grand Challenges Annual Meeting whose primary affiliation is with an institution based in a LMIC.<h2>Background</h2>The Global Health Discovery Collaboratory (GHDC) Platforms program at the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation - or <a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms" target="_blank">"Collaboratory Platforms"</a> program - lowers barriers to accessing best-in-class tools, cross-cutting technology platforms, and expertise for our grantee members in order to accelerate discovery and translation of transformative solutions to global health inequity. These Platforms guide the design, execution, data analysis, and interpretation to support a wide variety of initiatives, including discovery for vaccines and biologics, human immune monitoring, biomarker discovery, characterization of host-pathogen interactions, and early drug discovery compound profiling. Scientists in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have the local knowledge and perspective crucial to finding the right solution and directing it to the right problem, and the Gates Foundation is committed to ensuring that scientists based in LMICs have opportunities to advance their work through partnership with the Collaboratory Platforms.<h2>The Challenge</h2>We seek creative projects that are led by investigators in LMICs<a href="#_ftn1" title="" id="_ftnref1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a> and whose path to global health impact would be accelerated through partnership with the Collaboratory Platforms. Proposed ideas should be in alignment with the Priority Topic Areas listed below. The details and scope of the involvement of the Collaboratory Platform will be co-developed once finalists are identified.Priority Disease and Topic Areas:HIV<ul><li>Understanding and measuring mucosal immune responses (particularly reproductive track, and responses in lymph nodes)</li><li>Novel immunogen design and immunization strategies for HIV vaccines</li><li>Evaluating durability of protective immune responses</li><li>Strategies to elicit broadly neutralizing antibodies</li></ul>Malaria<ul><li>Mechanisms of naturally acquired immunity to P. falciparum infection</li><li>Mediators of P. falciparum liver stage immunity</li><li>Biomarkers of durability of vaccine-induced protection</li><li>mRNA vaccine candidates</li><li>Evaluation of non-CSP antigens in preclinical models</li><li>Evaluation of novel biologics</li><li>Testing new drug agents for drug discovery potential</li></ul>Enteric and Diarrheal Diseases<ul><li>Improved Rotavirus vaccines, optimized to overcome vaccine underperformance</li><li>Mechanisms to improve gut mucosal immunity</li><li>Multivalent vaccines for Shigella</li><li>Cholera genomics</li></ul>Tuberculosis<ul><li>Evaluation of novel TB vaccine candidates</li><li>Novel tools to support TB vaccine R&amp;D</li><li>New TB diagnostics</li><li>Improving TB drug regimens</li><li>New drug targets to overcome resistance</li><li>Testing new drug agents for drug discovery potential</li><li>Biomarkers to enable diagnostic or more efficient drug regimen development (or early markers of treatment cure)</li></ul>Pneumonia and Pandemic Preparedness<ul><li>Pneumococcus, RSV, Meningococcus and viruses of pandemic potential</li><li>mRNA vaccines</li><li>Strategies to extend durability of vaccine-induced protection</li><li>Preventing mortality from AMR risk pathogens</li></ul>Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs)<ul><li>Biomarkers for soil-transmitted helminths</li><li>Schistosomiasis vaccines</li></ul>Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health<ul><li>The intersection between maternal microbiome, nutrition and pregnancy, birth and infant outcomes</li><li>-omics studies for maternal health and adverse pregnancy outcomes</li><li>Fetal, neonatal, and infant nutrition and health (including growth and development)</li><li>Maternal, neonatal child health – with strategies for the identification/screening and/or treatment of preeclampsia, fetal growth restriction or stillbirth in local settings</li></ul>Women's Health Innovations<ul><li>STI vaccines and diagnostics</li><li>Nonhormonal contraceptive small molecule through biologic approaches and technologies (excluding vaccines)</li><li>Biomarkers of HPV infection, clearance, and immune correlates</li><li>Vaginal microbiome innovations to enable discovery of probiotic formulations and improved understanding of longitudinal microbiome dynamics before, during and after pregnancy</li></ul>Funding level: up to USD $250,000 for each award provided to the organization, with a term of up to two years depending on the scope of the project. Application budgets should be commensurate with the scope of work proposed.What We Are Looking ForWe are seeking proposals led by investigators from institutions based in LMICs* that are aligned with our priority topic areas. Proposed activities involving data and sample collection and experiments performed at the LMIC institution will be funded via new direct grants, while work performed by the Collaboratory Platform partners will be funded directly by the Gates Foundation through a separate funding mechanism. Proposed ideas may be entirely new projects or ideas that will enable further in-depth analysis to complement an existing project. Pilot studies to generate initial data that may lead to potential larger follow-on studies (via separate funding), or proposals aimed at generating hypotheses are acceptable, as are studies designed to test specific hypotheses. In addition to collaborating with Gates Foundation-funded investigators, some Platforms can train interested collaborators in wet lab or analytical techniques in the context of a specific project.Please visit the Global Health Discovery Collaboratory <a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/" target="_blank">website</a> to learn more about the GHDC and the individual Collaboratory Platforms. Representatives from each Collaboratory Platform are attending the 2023 Grand Challenges Annual Meeting and can be available to answer questions.Collaboratory Platforms focus areas:<ul><li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/adjuvants-and-formulations" target="_blank">Adjuvants and Formulations</a>: Access high quality adjuvants, formulation expertise, and small-animal immunogenicity studies.</li><li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/antibody-dynamics" target="_blank">Antibody Dynamics:</a> Providing qualified/validated GCLP compliant antibody measurements for specificity, isotype/subclass, avidity, affinity, and function; immune systems computational expertise to define immune correlates of protection.</li><li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/antigen-arrays" target="_blank">Antigen Arrays</a>: High throughput microarray technology enables measurement of antibody responses to thousands of proteins in a single assay.</li><li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/human-immunoglobulin-repertoire-mice" target="_blank">Human immunoglobulin repertoire mice</a>: Interrogate immunogens against a human immune repertoire. Discover and isolate monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to support your research or advance product development.</li><li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/protein-sciences" target="_blank">Protein Sciences</a>: Provides in-depth structural characterization of immunogens using a variety of structural and biophysical techniques.</li><li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/metabolomic-biomarker-discovery" target="_blank">Metabolomic Biomarker Discovery</a>: Offers untargeted mass spectrometry-based molecular profiling to measure thousands of distinct small molecules in biosamples to accelerate discovery of biomarkers of health and disease.</li><li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/proteomic-biomarker-discovery" target="_blank">Proteomic Biomarker Discovery</a>: Quantify thousands of proteins using liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS) to obtain signatures reflective of health or disease status.</li><li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/sars-cov-2-immunoassays" target="_blank">SARS-CoV-2 Immunoassays</a>: Access validated / qualified assays for vaccines and mAbs for SARS-CoV-2 and other pathogens of global health importance.</li><li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/single-cell-analytics" target="_blank">Single Cell Analytics</a>: Provides experimental and computational single-cell genomic profiling for in-depth molecular characterization of biological specimens.</li><li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/systems-immunology" target="_blank">Systems Immunology</a>: Offers comprehensive and standardized immune monitoring, cutting-edge technologies and novel analytics.</li><li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/systems-serology" target="_blank">Systems Serology</a>: High-throughput biophysical profiling and functional assays linked with systems biology/machine learning algorithms to characterize protective humoral immune responses.</li><li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/vaccine-immunology-statistical-center" target="_blank">Vaccine Immunology Statistical Center</a>: Access expert biostatistical support for study design, data management, high-dimensional data analysis, statistical and machine learning methods to advance global health research.</li><li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/hts-teratogenicity-assessment" target="_blank">HTS Teratogenicity Assessment</a>: High-throughput imaging-based teratogenicity platform utilizing Human iPSCs for assessing reproductive and developmental toxicity.</li><li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/humanized-drug-metabolism-mice" target="_blank">Humanized Drug Metabolism Mice</a>: A humanized mouse model that expresses human P450 enzymes and metabolizes drugs like humans, gives human-like pharmacokinetics, and generates human drug metabolites in vivo.</li><li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/mrna-lnp-production" target="_blank">Enabling mRNA Immunogens</a>: A solution for formulating high-quality research-grade mRNA-LNP immunogens for preclinical research studies.</li></ul>We will not consider funding for:<ul><li>Clinical trials</li><li>In-vivo studies in non-human primates</li><li>Investigators whose primary appointment is in a high-income country institution</li><li>Proposals that do not include the use of the Collaboratory Platforms</li><li>Proposals that do not align with the scope/remit of the Collaboratory Platforms</li><li>Purchase of capital equipment</li><li>Institutions that are unable to sign the <a href="https://assets.ctfassets.net/6y3xo20je9pr/4XPndugSRBymEFNUzfDvad/3c3e77f62e16987bcfd08542ed9d66a7/Gates-Foundation_Collaboratory-Guiding-Principles-2021.pdf" target="_blank">Collaboratory Guiding Principles</a> by the time of grant execution.</li></ul><a href="#_ftnref1" title="" id="_ftn1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> See <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/country/XO" target="_blank">World Bank - Low &amp; Middle Income</a> Countries for definitions. Subject to the eligibility requirements in the Rules &amp; Guidelines, investigators in low- and middle-income countries are invited (in connection with the organization with which they are affiliated) to apply through the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation's application portal. We reserve the right to determine eligibility for this call based on these characteristics.

Collaboratory Platforms 2023: Democratizing Access to Technologies

**NOTE: This opportunity is open only to invitees of the 2023 Grand Challenges Annual Meeting whose primary affiliation is with an institution based in a LMIC.
<h2>Background</h2>
The Global Health Discovery Collaboratory (GHDC) Platforms program at the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation - or <a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">"Collaboratory Platforms"</a> program - lowers barriers to accessing best-in-class tools, cross-cutting technology platforms, and expertise for our grantee members in order to accelerate discovery and translation of transformative solutions to global health inequity. &nbsp;These Platforms guide the design, execution, data analysis, and interpretation to support a wide variety of initiatives, including discovery for vaccines and biologics, human immune monitoring, biomarker discovery, characterization of host-pathogen interactions, and early drug discovery compound profiling. Scientists in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have the local knowledge and perspective crucial to finding the right solution and directing it to the right problem, and the Gates Foundation is committed to ensuring that scientists based in LMICs have opportunities to advance their work through partnership with the Collaboratory Platforms.
<h2>The Challenge</h2>
We seek creative projects that are led by investigators in LMICs<a href="#_ftn1" title name="_ftnref1" id="_ftnref1">[1]</a> and whose path to global health impact would be accelerated through partnership with the Collaboratory Platforms. Proposed ideas should be in alignment with the Priority Topic Areas listed below. The details and scope of the involvement of the Collaboratory Platform will be co-developed once finalists are identified.
Priority Disease and Topic Areas:
HIV
<ul>
<li>Understanding and measuring mucosal immune responses (particularly reproductive track, and responses in lymph nodes)</li>
<li>Novel immunogen design and immunization strategies for HIV vaccines</li>
<li>Evaluating durability of protective immune responses</li>
<li>Strategies to elicit broadly neutralizing antibodies</li>
</ul>
Malaria
<ul>
<li>Mechanisms of naturally acquired immunity to P. falciparum&nbsp;infection</li>
<li>Mediators of P. falciparum liver stage immunity</li>
<li>Biomarkers of durability of vaccine-induced protection</li>
<li>mRNA vaccine candidates</li>
<li>Evaluation of non-CSP antigens in preclinical models</li>
<li>Evaluation of novel biologics</li>
<li>Testing new drug agents for drug discovery potential</li>
</ul>
Enteric and Diarrheal Diseases
<ul>
<li>Improved Rotavirus vaccines, optimized to overcome vaccine underperformance</li>
<li>Mechanisms to improve gut mucosal immunity</li>
<li>Multivalent vaccines for Shigella</li>
<li>Cholera genomics</li>
</ul>
Tuberculosis
<ul>
<li>Evaluation of novel TB vaccine candidates</li>
<li>Novel tools to support TB vaccine R&amp;D</li>
<li>New TB diagnostics</li>
<li>Improving TB drug regimens&nbsp;</li>
<li>New drug targets to overcome resistance</li>
<li>Testing new drug agents for drug discovery potential</li>
<li>Biomarkers to enable diagnostic or more efficient drug regimen development (or early markers of treatment cure)</li>
</ul>
Pneumonia and Pandemic Preparedness
<ul>
<li>Pneumococcus, RSV, Meningococcus and viruses of pandemic potential</li>
<li>mRNA vaccines</li>
<li>Strategies to extend durability of vaccine-induced protection&nbsp;</li>
<li>Preventing mortality from AMR risk pathogens</li>
</ul>
Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs)
<ul>
<li>Biomarkers for soil-transmitted helminths</li>
<li>Schistosomiasis vaccines</li>
</ul>
Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health
<ul>
<li>The intersection between maternal microbiome, nutrition and pregnancy, birth and infant outcomes</li>
<li>-omics studies for maternal health and adverse pregnancy outcomes</li>
<li>Fetal, neonatal, and infant nutrition and health (including growth and development)</li>
<li>Maternal, neonatal child health – with strategies for the identification/screening and/or treatment of preeclampsia, fetal growth restriction or stillbirth in local settings</li>
</ul>
Women's Health Innovations
<ul>
<li>STI vaccines and diagnostics</li>
<li>Nonhormonal contraceptive small molecule through biologic approaches and technologies (excluding vaccines)</li>
<li>Biomarkers of HPV infection, clearance, and immune correlates</li>
<li>Vaginal microbiome innovations to enable discovery of probiotic formulations and improved understanding of longitudinal microbiome dynamics before, during and after pregnancy</li>
</ul>
Funding level: up to USD $250,000 for each award provided to the organization, with a term of up to two years depending on the scope of the project. Application budgets should be commensurate with the scope of work proposed.
What We Are Looking For
We are seeking proposals led by investigators from institutions based in LMICs* that are aligned with our priority topic areas. Proposed activities involving data and sample collection and experiments performed at the LMIC institution will be funded via new direct grants, while work performed by the Collaboratory Platform partners will be funded directly by the Gates Foundation through a separate funding mechanism. Proposed ideas may be entirely new projects or ideas that will enable further in-depth analysis to complement an existing project. Pilot studies to generate initial data that may lead to potential larger follow-on studies (via separate funding), or proposals aimed at generating hypotheses are acceptable, as are studies designed to test specific hypotheses. In addition to collaborating with Gates Foundation-funded investigators, some Platforms can train interested collaborators in wet lab or analytical techniques in the context of a specific project.
Please visit the Global Health Discovery Collaboratory&nbsp;<a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">website</a> to learn more about the GHDC and the individual Collaboratory Platforms. Representatives from each Collaboratory Platform are attending the 2023 Grand Challenges Annual Meeting and can be available to answer questions.
Collaboratory Platforms focus areas:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/adjuvants-and-formulations" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Adjuvants and Formulations</a>: Access high quality adjuvants, formulation expertise, and small-animal immunogenicity studies.</li>
<li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/antibody-dynamics" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Antibody Dynamics:</a>&nbsp;Providing qualified/validated GCLP compliant antibody measurements for specificity, isotype/subclass, avidity, affinity, and function; immune systems computational expertise to define immune correlates of protection.</li>
<li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/antigen-arrays" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Antigen Arrays</a>: High throughput microarray technology enables measurement of antibody responses to thousands of proteins in a single assay.</li>
<li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/human-immunoglobulin-repertoire-mice" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Human immunoglobulin repertoire mice</a>: Interrogate immunogens against a human immune repertoire. Discover and isolate monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to support your research or advance product development.</li>
<li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/protein-sciences" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Protein Sciences</a>: Provides in-depth structural characterization of immunogens using a variety of structural and biophysical techniques.</li>
<li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/metabolomic-biomarker-discovery" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Metabolomic Biomarker Discovery</a>: Offers untargeted mass spectrometry-based molecular profiling to measure thousands of distinct small molecules in biosamples to accelerate discovery of biomarkers of health and disease.</li>
<li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/proteomic-biomarker-discovery" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Proteomic Biomarker Discovery</a>: Quantify thousands of proteins using liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS) to obtain signatures reflective of health or disease status.</li>
<li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/sars-cov-2-immunoassays" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">SARS-CoV-2 Immunoassays</a>: Access validated / qualified assays for vaccines and mAbs for SARS-CoV-2 and other pathogens of global health importance.&nbsp;</li>
<li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/single-cell-analytics" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Single Cell Analytics</a>: Provides experimental and computational single-cell genomic profiling for in-depth molecular characterization of biological specimens.</li>
<li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/systems-immunology" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Systems Immunology</a>: Offers comprehensive and standardized immune monitoring, cutting-edge technologies and novel analytics.</li>
<li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/systems-serology" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Systems Serology</a>: High-throughput biophysical profiling and functional assays linked with systems biology/machine learning algorithms to characterize protective humoral immune responses.</li>
<li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/vaccine-immunology-statistical-center" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Vaccine Immunology Statistical Center</a>: Access expert biostatistical support for study design, data management, high-dimensional data analysis, statistical and machine learning methods to advance global health research.</li>
<li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/hts-teratogenicity-assessment" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">HTS Teratogenicity Assessment</a>: High-throughput imaging-based teratogenicity platform utilizing Human iPSCs for assessing reproductive and developmental toxicity.</li>
<li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/humanized-drug-metabolism-mice" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Humanized Drug Metabolism Mice</a>: A humanized mouse model that expresses human P450 enzymes and metabolizes drugs like humans, gives human-like pharmacokinetics, and generates human drug metabolites in vivo.</li>
<li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/mrna-lnp-production" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Enabling mRNA Immunogens</a>: A solution for formulating high-quality research-grade mRNA-LNP immunogens for preclinical research studies.</li>
</ul>
We will not consider funding for:
<ul>
<li>Clinical trials</li>
<li>In-vivo studies in non-human primates</li>
<li>Investigators whose primary appointment is in a high-income country institution</li>
<li>Proposals that do not include the use of the Collaboratory Platforms</li>
<li>Proposals that do not align with the scope/remit of the Collaboratory Platforms</li>
<li>Purchase of capital equipment</li>
<li>Institutions that are unable to sign the&nbsp;<a href="https://assets.ctfassets.net/6y3xo20je9pr/4XPndugSRBymEFNUzfDvad/3c3e77f62e16987bcfd08542ed9d66a7/Gates-Foundation_Collaboratory-Guiding-Principles-2021.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Collaboratory Guiding Principles</a> by the time of grant execution.</li>
</ul>
<a href="#_ftnref1" title name="_ftn1" id="_ftn1">[1]</a>See <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/country/XO" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">World Bank - Low &amp; Middle Income</a> Countries for definitions. Subject to the eligibility requirements in the Rules &amp; Guidelines, investigators in low- and middle-income countries are invited (in connection with the organization with which they are affiliated) to apply through the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation's application portal. We reserve the right to determine eligibility for this call based on these characteristics.

The Global Health Discovery Collaboratory (GHDC) Platforms program at the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation lowers barriers to accessing best-in-class tools, cross-cutting technology platforms, and expertise for our grantee members in order to accelerate discovery and translation of transformative solutions to global health inequity. These Platforms guide the design, execution, data analysis, and interpretation to support a wide variety of initiatives, including discovery for vaccines and biologics, human immune monitoring, biomarker discovery, characterization of host-pathogen interactions, and more. Scientists in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have the local knowledge and perspective crucial to finding the right solution and directing it to the right problem, and the Gates Foundation is committed to ensuring that scientists based in LMICs have opportunities to advance their work through partnership with the Collaboratory Platforms. We seek creative projects that are led by investigators in LMICs and whose path to global health impact would be accelerated through partnership with the Collaboratory Platforms.

Collaboratory Platforms 2023 Democratizing Access to Technologies

Strengthening Health and Disease Modeling for Public Health Decision Making in Africa

Mathematical modeling is a valuable tool for informing policy-making and programmatic decision-making in the public health domain. Modeling can be applied to analyze key areas from disease burden estimation, to evaluating the potential impact of control interventions, to informing product development. Approaches to guide public health action led by local modeling units and co-created with decision-makers, bring an invaluable understanding of relevant local/regional context and questions, enabling higher impact.

<h2>Background</h2>The power of science and innovation can improve global health and development outcomes and dramatically reduce global inequity. Harnessing the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) can improve the lives and wellbeing of women, children, and vulnerable communities everywhere.As AI technology continues to swiftly evolve and advance, the global community must move with urgency to ensure low- and middle-income countries<a href="#_ftn1" title="" id="_ftnref1" name="_ftnref1">[i]</a> (LMICs) are included in the co-creation process. AI solutions targeting LMICs must be locally driven and owned and relevant to each person's needs. Local communities must be given the opportunity to provide their own perspective and cultural context so that they can decide on both 1) their own thresholds for safe usage and 2) the overall utility of AI within their own lives.Additionally, LMICs must have equitable access to AI tools and approaches. Responsible global use of AI entails a safe, equitable, transparent, reliable, and beneficial process that is adhered to with a high level of accountability. As the world rapidly moves to seize AI's opportunity, it is imperative to monitor and mitigate the safety, ethical, equity, and reliability dimensions of AI deployment. This will allow the enormous resilience, creativity, and commitment of researchers, scientists, and policymakers to capture the full capability of AI for lasting good.The Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation and Grand Challenges (GC) Partners (including GC South Africa and GC Brazil, with others to be confirmed) have jointly discussed the need for an equitable and responsible approach to the use of AI and specifically Large Language Models (LLMs) in LMICs. This initial call by the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation represents an early step towards identifying, nurturing, and catalyzing the creativity, energy, and skills that researchers, implementers, governments, and technical partners have demonstrated in solving specific challenges in their countries and regions through LLMs. We are optimistic that this will lead to more investment from the Gates Foundation, GC partners, and other funders, to ensure that this potentially transformative technology improves the lives and conditions of the most vulnerable communities around the world.<h2>The Challenge</h2>This RFP seeks innovative and safe approaches to the use of Large Language Models (ChatGPT-4, or other credible sources with equivalent capability) to build an evidence base across the <a href="https://www.gatesfoundation.org/our-work#program_strategies" target="_blank">Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation Divisions</a> of Global Health, Gender Equality, Global Growth and Opportunity (including Global Education), and Global Development contexts in LMICs.We are looking for projects that can be executed over a 3-month period and will achieve at least one of the following objectives:<ol><li>Demonstrate how the tool can be used to support decision making (in terms of speed, accuracy, inclusivity, quality) in the following domains.<ul><li>Accelerate the pathway from evidence to policy development.</li><li>Accelerate the pathway from policy to implementation.</li><li>Enhance the quality and timeliness of focused communications.</li><li>Improve the quality of resource allocation exercises.</li><li>Decision support for front line workers.</li></ul></li><li>Achieve a better understanding of the opportunities and challenges related to ChatGPT-4, or other credible sources with equivalent capabilities, use in LMICs and how they can be effectively mitigated.</li><li>Conduct observational research that highlights end-user specific applications of ChatGPT-4, or other credible sources with equivalent capabilities, amongst vulnerable populations in LMICs.</li></ol>Ideally the proposal will also:<ul><li>Work on a specific problem that has been identified as a priority in a country or region.</li><li>Contribute to the body of evidence related to AI use in LMICs across health, gender, financial inclusion, agriculture, and education.</li><li>Foster innovation with AI in the interest of supporting decision makers and affected communities.</li><li>Enable an improved understanding of the potential and risks of AI for LMICs.</li><li>Place a strong emphasis on systematically observing, validating, and documenting the process and outcomes for each proposal.</li><li>Conform with global principles of AI use i) to do no harm ii) to leverage technology against the toughest/most relevant problem iii) ensures that projects are led from LMICs even though there may be a high-income country (HIC) partner iv) local voices and ideas are captured throughout the process, and v) there is a dissemination plan of the outcomes of the projects.</li></ul>Priority will be given to proposals that have:<ul><li>an explicit request for an AI supported project,</li><li>those projects that have already completed a pilot before this Grand Challenges call, and/or,</li><li>projects that have lessons/tools that can be transferred to other use cases / situations/ contexts with minimal change.</li></ul>Funding Level:The funding level is a grant of up to USD $100,000.00, for each project, provided to the organization, with a term of up to 3 months.<a href="#_ftn2" title="" id="_ftnref2" name="_ftnref2">[ii]</a> Application budgets should be commensurate with the scope of work proposed. The budget envelope for this Grand Challenge request for proposals is up to $3,000,000.What We Are Looking For:<ul><li>Proposals are led by investigators in LMICs.</li><li>Proposals that demonstrate clear applications of ChatGPT-4, or other credible sources with equivalent capabilities, to address a specific challenge in LMICs related to the SDGs.</li><li>Proposals that demonstrate the grantee has a firm grasp of the application, has done some of the stakeholder mapping, and has an engagement plan to ensure the proposal is successful.</li><li>Proposals that include engagement with affected/supported populations, decision makers.</li><li>Proposals that show the potential for AI to be transformative for application in the <a href="https://www.gatesfoundation.org/our-work#program_strategies" target="_blank">Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation Divisions</a> of Global Health, Gender Equality, Global Growth and Opportunity (including Global Education), and Global Development.</li><li>Proposals that present a high leverage and scalability opportunity.</li><li>Proposals that can easily be adapted or modified either across i) geographies or ii) fields.</li><li>Proposals that outline a clear, feasible and reproducible methodology.</li><li>Proposals that focus on identifying risks to responsible use and develop ways to mitigate those risks.</li><li>Proposals that have timely access to data, decision-maker time and interest in using AI</li><li>Proposals that articulate how the project will lead to impact in the near-term and how those benefits will be sustained past the lifetime of the project.</li><li>Proposals that demonstrate engagement with local and regional decision makers.</li><li>Proposals that are driven by a shared commitment to open science, data sharing, and building collaboration and analysis infrastructure to enable discoveries that will benefit people everywhere.</li></ul>Note: Global partners may be included. However, priority will be given to proposals that demonstrate at least 80% of the funding is going to LMIC institutions and where the investigator is a part of an LMIC institution.We will not consider funding for proposals that:<ul><li>Do not explicitly use/reference the use of ChatGPT-4, or other credible sources with equivalent capabilities, in their project execution.</li><li>Ignore the challenges and context constraints LMICs present.</li><li>Do not have timely access to necessary data, decision-maker time, commitment, and interest (a commendation/request letter will be advantageous).</li><li>Do not demonstrate that the majority of the work proposed will be undertaken by investigators and teams in LMICs.</li><li>Have a weak methodology.</li><li>Have no or weak validation plan.</li><li>Do not provide any thought towards scale up and sustainability.</li><li>Do not engage local and/or regional decision-makers.</li></ul><a href="#_ftnref1" title="" id="_ftn1" name="_ftn1">[i]</a> See <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/country/XO" target="_blank">World Bank – Low Income Countries</a> for definitions.<a href="#_ftnref2" title="" id="_ftn2" name="_ftn2">[ii]</a> Subject to the eligibility requirements in the <a href="https://gcgh.grandchallenges.org/sites/default/files/files/catalyzing_equitable_ai_use_rules_and_guidelines.pdf" target="_blank">Rules &amp; Guidelines</a>.

Catalyzing Equitable Artificial Intelligence (AI) Use

<h2>Background</h2>
The power of science and innovation can improve global health and development outcomes and dramatically reduce global inequity. Harnessing the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) can improve the lives and wellbeing of women, children, and vulnerable communities everywhere.
As AI technology continues to swiftly evolve and advance, the global community must move with urgency to ensure low- and middle-income countries<a href="#_edn1" title name="_ednref1" id="_ednref1">i</a> (LMICs) are included in the co-creation process. AI solutions targeting LMICs must be locally driven and owned and relevant to each person's needs. Local communities must be given the opportunity to provide their own perspective and cultural context so that they can decide on both 1) their own thresholds for safe usage and 2) the overall utility of AI within their own lives.
Additionally, LMICs must have equitable access to AI tools and approaches. Responsible global use of AI entails a safe, equitable, transparent, reliable, and beneficial process that is adhered to with a high level of accountability. As the world rapidly moves to seize AI's opportunity, it is imperative to monitor and mitigate the safety, ethical, equity, and reliability dimensions of AI deployment. This will allow the enormous resilience, creativity, and commitment of researchers, scientists, and policymakers to capture the full capability of AI for lasting good.
The Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation and Grand Challenges (GC) Partners (including GC South Africa and GC Brazil, with others to be confirmed) have jointly discussed the need for an equitable and responsible approach to the use of AI and specifically Large Language Models (LLMs) in LMICs. This initial call by the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation represents an early step towards identifying, nurturing, and catalyzing the creativity, energy, and skills that researchers, implementers, governments, and technical partners have demonstrated in solving specific challenges in their countries and regions through LLMs. We are optimistic that this will lead to more investment from the Gates Foundation, GC partners, and other funders, to ensure that this potentially transformative technology improves the lives and conditions of the most vulnerable communities around the world.
<h2>The Challenge</h2>
This RFP seeks innovative and safe approaches to the use of Large Language Models (ChatGPT-4, or other credible sources with equivalent capability) to build an evidence base across the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gatesfoundation.org/our-work#program_strategies" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation Divisions</a> of Global Health, Gender Equality, Global Growth and Opportunity (including Global Education), and Global Development contexts in LMICs.
We are looking for projects that can be executed over a 3-month period and will achieve at least one of the following objectives:
<ol>
<li>Demonstrate how the tool can be used to support decision making (in terms of speed, accuracy, inclusivity, quality) in the following domains.
<ul>
<li>Accelerate the pathway from evidence to policy development.</li>
<li>Accelerate the pathway from policy to implementation.</li>
<li>Enhance the quality and timeliness of focused communications.</li>
<li>Improve the quality of resource allocation exercises.</li>
<li>Decision support for front line workers.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Achieve a better understanding of the opportunities and challenges related to ChatGPT-4, or other credible sources with equivalent capabilities, use in LMICs and how they can be effectively mitigated.</li>
<li>Conduct observational research that highlights end-user specific applications of ChatGPT-4, or other credible sources with equivalent capabilities, amongst vulnerable populations in LMICs.</li>
</ol>
Ideally the proposal will also:
<ul>
<li>Work on a specific problem that has been identified as a priority in a country or region.</li>
<li>Contribute to the body of evidence related to AI use in LMICs across health, gender, financial inclusion, agriculture, and education.</li>
<li>Foster innovation with AI in the interest of supporting decision makers and affected communities.</li>
<li>Enable an improved understanding of the potential and risks of AI for LMICs.</li>
<li>Place a strong emphasis on systematically observing, validating, and documenting the process and outcomes for each proposal.</li>
<li>Conform with global principles of AI use i) to do no harm ii) to leverage technology against the toughest/most relevant problem iii) ensures that projects are led from LMICs even though there may be a high-income country (HIC) partner iv) local voices and ideas are captured throughout the process, and v) there is a dissemination plan of the outcomes of the projects.</li>
</ul>
Priority will be given to proposals that have:
<ul>
<li>an explicit request for an AI supported project,</li>
<li>those projects that have already completed a pilot before this Grand Challenges call, and/or,</li>
<li>projects that have lessons/tools that can be transferred to other use cases / situations/ contexts with minimal change.</li>
</ul>
Funding Level:
The funding level is a grant of up to USD $100,000.00, for each project, provided to the organization, with a term of up to 3 months.<a href="#_edn2" title name="_ednref2" id="_ednref2">ii</a> Application budgets should be commensurate with the scope of work proposed. The budget envelope for this Grand Challenge request for proposals is up to $3,000,000.
What We Are Looking For:
<ul>
<li>Proposals are led by investigators in LMICs.</li>
<li>Proposals that demonstrate clear applications of ChatGPT-4, or other credible sources with equivalent capabilities, to address a specific challenge in LMICs related to the SDGs.</li>
<li>Proposals that demonstrate the grantee has a firm grasp of the application, has done some of the stakeholder mapping, and has an engagement plan to ensure the proposal is successful.</li>
<li>Proposals that include engagement with affected/supported populations, decision makers.</li>
<li>Proposals that show the potential for AI to be transformative for application in the <a href="https://www.gatesfoundation.org/our-work#program_strategies" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation Divisions</a> of Global Health, Gender Equality, Global Growth and Opportunity (including Global Education), and Global Development.</li>
<li>Proposals that present a high leverage and scalability opportunity.</li>
<li>Proposals that can easily be adapted or modified either across i) geographies or ii) fields.</li>
<li>Proposals that outline a clear, feasible and reproducible methodology.</li>
<li>Proposals that focus on identifying risks to responsible use and develop ways to mitigate those risks.</li>
<li>Proposals that have timely access to data, decision-maker time and interest in using AI</li>
<li>Proposals that articulate how the project will lead to impact in the near-term and how those benefits will be sustained past the lifetime of the project.</li>
<li>Proposals that demonstrate engagement with local and regional decision makers.</li>
<li>Proposals that are driven by a shared commitment to open science, data sharing, and building collaboration and analysis infrastructure to enable discoveries that will benefit people everywhere.</li>
</ul>
Note: Global partners may be included. However, priority will be given to proposals that demonstrate at least 80% of the funding is going to LMIC institutions and where the investigator is a part of an LMIC institution.
We will not consider funding for proposals that:
<ul>
<li>Do not explicitly use/reference the use of ChatGPT-4, or other credible sources with equivalent capabilities, in their project execution.</li>
<li>Ignore the challenges and context constraints LMICs present.</li>
<li>Do not have timely access to necessary data, decision-maker time, commitment, and interest (a commendation/request letter will be advantageous).</li>
<li>Do not demonstrate that the majority of the work proposed will be undertaken by investigators and teams in LMICs.</li>
<li>Have a weak methodology.</li>
<li>Have no or weak validation plan.</li>
<li>Do not provide any thought towards scale up and sustainability.</li>
<li>Do not engage local and/or regional decision-makers.</li>
</ul>
<a href="#_ednref1" title name="_edn1" id="_edn1">i</a> See <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/country/XO" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">World Bank – Low Income Countries</a> for definitions.
<a href="#_ednref2" title name="_edn2" id="_edn2">ii</a> Subject to the eligibility requirements in the <a href="https://gcgh.grandchallenges.org/sites/default/files/files/catalyzing_equitable_ai_use_rules_and_guidelines.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Rules &amp; Guidelines</a>.

Harnessing the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) can improve the lives and wellbeing of vulnerable communities everywhere including those of women and children. As AI technology continues to swiftly evolve and advance, the global community must move with urgency to ensure low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are included in the co-creation process.

This request for proposals seeks innovative and safe approaches to the use of Large Language Models (ChatGPT-4, or other credible sources with equivalent capability). The foundation hopes to build an evidence base on this issue – informed by the communities we serve – to ensure this technology ultimately improves the lives of the world's most vulnerable people. This initial call is an opportunity to identify, nurture, and catalyze the creativity, energy, and skills that researchers, implementers, governments, and technical partners have demonstrated insolving specific challenges in their countries and regions through Large Language Models.

**NOTE: This opportunity was open only to participants who registered for and attended the 2022 Grand Challenges Annual Meeting.

<h2>THE OPPORTUNITY</h2>

The Grand Challenges Annual Meeting fosters innovation and international collaboration to address the biggest challenges in global health and development. It has been held in <a href="https://grandchallenges.org/annual-meeting" target="_blank">11 countries</a> over the past 17 years and in a virtual format for the past two years. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the world the challenges and opportunities ahead with new clarity. The 2022 meeting continues the Annual Meeting's goal to support a global community of problem solvers who work together to set an innovation agenda and do the breakthrough science to deliver on it – to go further and faster together.

<h2>THE CHALLENGE</h2>

This Call-to-Action provides an opportunity for Grand Challenges Annual Meeting participants to take action based on ideas they developed and people they met at the meeting. As noted by past applicants in their submitted proposals, the meeting provides diverse ways to combine expertise and perspectives to speed the impact of what would otherwise be separate work by individual investigators. The <a href="https://gcgh.grandchallenges.org/grants/JTdCJTIyc29ydCUyMiUzQSUyMmRlc2NlbmRpbmclMjIlMkMlMjJzb3J0RmllbGQlMjIlM0ElMjJkYXRlJTIyJTJDJTIybnVtYmVyUGVyUGFnZSUyMiUzQTEwMCUyQyUyMnBhZ2VOdW1iZXIlMjIlM0EwJTdE/JTdCJTIyeWVhcnMlMjIlM0ElNUIlNUQlMkMlMjJjaGFsbGVuZ2VzJTIyJTNBJTVCJTIyMTI5JTIyJTVEJTJDJTIydGVybXMlMjIlM0ElNUIlNUQlMkMlMjJpbml0aWF0aXZlcyUyMiUzQSU1QiU1RCUyQyUyMmxvY2F0aW9ucyUyMiUzQSU1QiU1RCU3RA==" target="_blank">grants awarded</a> for past Call-to-Action opportunities show this, and we hope that this year’ meeting will also provide ways to catalyze collaborative projects that yield a tangible solution to a key problem by the end of the grant.

Please note that there are multiple grant opportunities being launched at the Annual Meeting:

&nbsp;•&nbsp;Two that are open to meeting participants

<ol>
	<li>This 2022 Grand Challenges Annual Meeting Call-to-Action</li>
	<li><a href="https://gcgh.grandchallenges.org/challenge/supporting-researchers-through-technologies-global-health-discovery-collaboratory" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Supporting Researchers Through the Technologies of the Global Health Discovery Collaboratory Platforms</a></li>
</ol>

&nbsp;•&nbsp;Additional <a href="https://grandchallenges.org/grant-opportunities" target="_blank">grant opportunities</a> that are publicly open, launched across the Grand Challenges family of initiatives

Funding

Each meeting participant will have one opportunity to apply as the primary applicant for a USD $100,000 grant or a collaborative USD $200,000 grant, both with an 18-month grant duration. Collaborative awards require the participation of at least two meeting participants from different institutions. While restricted to one application as the primary applicant, meeting participants may participate as collaborators in multiple collaborative applications. Priority will be given to new or newly expanded collaborations, rather than to existing collaborations seeking new funding.

We will give highest priority to proposed projects that:

<ul>
	<li>Contribute to a partnership network that empowers those with the local perspective required to direct the right approaches to the right parts of the problems to ensure success. We will prioritize projects led by investigators from low- and middle-income countries and a balanced representation of women principal investigators. Their collective action and directed energy will help solve today's key problems in global health, while building research networks ready to solve tomorrow’s</li>
	<li>Are likely to yield a tangible answer to a question or solution to a problem within the grant term</li>
	<li>Are explicitly aligned with the content within the meeting's scientific track sessions. Please note that individual proposals will be reviewed based on their alignment with one primary track and the specific content presented there (see <a href="https://custom.cvent.com/B6E596DEAC6A4A7FB1467497AE4FF54B/files/event/0123b10e74394b98afaf2b0c4088baeb/ba3d9702354245d1bad108dcc1e831c0.pdf" target="_blank">meeting agenda</a>), since we seek to provide an opportunity for participants to take action based on an idea that they developed and people they met during their participation in a scientific track. Eligible scientific tracks for this Call-to-Action are listed below, and they include the entire Keystone Symposia Global Health Series conference that overlaps with the Grand Challenges Annual Meeting.</li>
</ul>

Scientific tracks eligible for the Grand Challenges Annual Meeting Call-to-Action

<ul>
	<li>Advancing Drug Discovery for Global Health </li>
	<li>Applying a Translational Lens to Global Health</li>
	<li>Beyond the first 1000 days: Research and implementation innovations for women and girls' nutrition</li>
	<li>Global Health Discovery Collaboratory - Novel Technologies for Collaborative Scientific Solutions</li>
	<li>Global Partnerships &amp; Grand Challenges</li>
	<li>Harnessing the Power of Data in Health</li>
	<li>Innovations in Non-Hormonal Contraceptives Research &amp; Development</li>
	<li>Maximizing the Potential of Pathogen Genomic Sequencing for Global Health</li>
	<li>New Insights &amp; Innovations to Address Antimicrobial Resistance</li>
	<li>Vaccine and Biologics Innovations for Global Health</li>
	<li>Keystone Symposia - Covid and Beyond: Novel Approaches to Global Infectious Diseases</li>
</ul>

We will not consider funding approaches that:

<ul>
	<li>Are not explicitly aligned with the specific content within the meeting scientific tracks listed above that are eligible for this request for proposals</li>
	<li>Address the meeting scientific tracks that are not part of this request for proposals: Novel Approaches to Reduce the Impacts of Climate Change on Health (noting that there is an associated <a href="https://www.grandchallenges.ca/funding-opportunities/" target="_blank">Grand Challenges Canada</a> request for proposals) and Sourcing and Accelerating Humanitarian Innovations</li>
</ul>

2022 Grand Challenges Annual Meeting Call-to-Action

**NOTE: This opportunity is only open to participants who registered for and attended the 2022 Grand Challenges Annual Meeting.
<h2>THE OPPORTUNITY</h2>
The Grand Challenges Annual Meeting fosters innovation and international collaboration to address the biggest challenges in global health and development. It has been held in <a href="https://grandchallenges.org/annual-meeting" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">11 countries</a> over the past 17 years and in a virtual format for the past two years. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the world the challenges and opportunities ahead with new clarity. The 2022 meeting continues the Annual Meeting's goal to support a global community of problem solvers who work together to set an innovation agenda and do the breakthrough science to deliver on it – to go further and faster together.
<h2>THE CHALLENGE</h2>
This Call-to-Action provides an opportunity for Grand Challenges Annual Meeting participants to take action based on ideas they developed and people they met at the meeting. As noted by past applicants in their submitted proposals, the meeting provides diverse ways to combine expertise and perspectives to speed the impact of what would otherwise be separate work by individual investigators. The <a href="https://gcgh.grandchallenges.org/grants/JTdCJTIyc29ydCUyMiUzQSUyMmRlc2NlbmRpbmclMjIlMkMlMjJzb3J0RmllbGQlMjIlM0ElMjJkYXRlJTIyJTJDJTIybnVtYmVyUGVyUGFnZSUyMiUzQTEwMCUyQyUyMnBhZ2VOdW1iZXIlMjIlM0EwJTdE/JTdCJTIyeWVhcnMlMjIlM0ElNUIlNUQlMkMlMjJjaGFsbGVuZ2VzJTIyJTNBJTVCJTIyMTI5JTIyJTVEJTJDJTIydGVybXMlMjIlM0ElNUIlNUQlMkMlMjJpbml0aWF0aXZlcyUyMiUzQSU1QiU1RCUyQyUyMmxvY2F0aW9ucyUyMiUzQSU1QiU1RCU3RA==" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">grants awarded</a> for past Call-to-Action opportunities show this, and we hope that this year’ meeting will also provide ways to catalyze collaborative projects that yield a tangible solution to a key problem by the end of the grant.
Please note that there are multiple grant opportunities being launched at the Annual Meeting:
&nbsp;•&nbsp;Two that are open to meeting participants
<ol>
<li>This 2022 Grand Challenges Annual Meeting Call-to-Action</li>
<li><a href="https://gcgh.grandchallenges.org/challenge/supporting-researchers-through-technologies-global-health-discovery-collaboratory" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Supporting Researchers Through the Technologies of the Global Health Discovery Collaboratory Platforms</a></li>
</ol>
&nbsp;•&nbsp;Additional <a href="https://grandchallenges.org/grant-opportunities" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">grant opportunities</a> that are publicly open, launched across the Grand Challenges family of initiatives
Funding
Each meeting participant will have one opportunity to apply as the primary applicant for a USD $100,000 grant or a collaborative USD $200,000 grant, both with an 18-month grant duration. Collaborative awards require the participation of at least two meeting participants from different institutions. While restricted to one application as the primary applicant, meeting participants may participate as collaborators in multiple collaborative applications. Priority will be given to new or newly expanded collaborations, rather than to existing collaborations seeking new funding.
We will give highest priority to proposed projects that:
<ul>
<li>Contribute to a partnership network that empowers those with the local perspective required to direct the right approaches to the right parts of the problems to ensure success. We will prioritize projects led by investigators from low- and middle-income countries and a balanced representation of women principal investigators. Their collective action and directed energy will help solve today's key problems in global health, while building research networks ready to solve tomorrow’s</li>
<li>Are likely to yield a tangible answer to a question or solution to a problem within the grant term</li>
<li>Are explicitly aligned with the content within the meeting's scientific track sessions. Please note that individual proposals will be reviewed based on their alignment with one primary track and the specific content presented there (see <a href="https://custom.cvent.com/B6E596DEAC6A4A7FB1467497AE4FF54B/files/event/0123b10e74394b98afaf2b0c4088baeb/ba3d9702354245d1bad108dcc1e831c0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">meeting agenda</a>), since we seek to provide an opportunity for participants to take action based on an idea that they developed and people they met during their participation in a scientific track. Eligible scientific tracks for this Call-to-Action are listed below, and they include the entire Keystone Symposia Global Health Series conference that overlaps with the Grand Challenges Annual Meeting.</li>
</ul>
Scientific tracks eligible for the Grand Challenges Annual Meeting Call-to-Action
<ul>
<li>Advancing Drug Discovery for Global Health </li>
<li>Applying a Translational Lens to Global Health</li>
<li>Beyond the first 1000 days: Research and implementation innovations for women and girls' nutrition</li>
<li>Global Health Discovery Collaboratory - Novel Technologies for Collaborative Scientific Solutions</li>
<li>Global Partnerships &amp; Grand Challenges</li>
<li>Harnessing the Power of Data in Health</li>
<li>Innovations in Non-Hormonal Contraceptives Research &amp; Development</li>
<li>Maximizing the Potential of Pathogen Genomic Sequencing for Global Health</li>
<li>New Insights &amp; Innovations to Address Antimicrobial Resistance</li>
<li>Vaccine and Biologics Innovations for Global Health</li>
<li>Keystone Symposia - Covid and Beyond: Novel Approaches to Global Infectious Diseases</li>
</ul>
We will not consider funding approaches that:
<ul>
<li>Are not explicitly aligned with the specific content within the meeting scientific tracks listed above that are eligible for this request for proposals</li>
<li>Address the meeting scientific tracks that are not part of this request for proposals: Novel Approaches to Reduce the Impacts of Climate Change on Health (noting that there is an associated <a href="https://www.grandchallenges.ca/funding-opportunities/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Grand Challenges Canada</a> request for proposals) and Sourcing and Accelerating Humanitarian Innovations</li>
</ul>

**NOTE: This opportunity is only open to participants who registered for and attended the 2022 Grand Challenges Annual Meeting.

**NOTE: This opportunity was open only to participants who registered for and attended the 2022 Grand Challenges Annual Meeting.<h2>Background</h2>The Global Health Discovery Collaboratory (GHDC) Platforms program at the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation - or <a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms" target="_blanks">"Collaboratory Platforms"</a> - enables access to specialized research platforms to accelerate the discovery and translation of transformative solutions to global health inequity. These Platforms enable access to cutting-edge technologies and unique expertise to guide the design, execution, data analysis and interpretation to support a wide variety of initiatives, including discovery for vaccines and biologics, human immune monitoring, biomarker discovery, characterization of host-pathogen interactions, and more. Scientists in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have the local knowledge and perspective crucial to finding the right solution and directing it to the right problem, and the Gates Foundation is committed to ensuring that scientists based in LMICs have opportunities to advance their work through partnership with the Collaboratory Platforms.<h2>The Challenge</h2>We seek creative projects that are led by investigators in LMICs<a class="footnote" href="#_ftn1" title="" id="_ftnref1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a> and whose path to global health impact would be accelerated through partnership with the Collaboratory Platforms. Proposed ideas should be in alignment with the GHDC focus areas listed below. They should also align with the Gates Foundation's <a href="https://www.gatesfoundation.org/our-work" target="_blank">strategic priorities</a>, including but not limited to tuberculosis, HIV, malaria, pneumonia (e.g., influenza, RSV, coronavirus), enteric diseases (e.g., Shigella, rotavirus), HPV, and neglected tropical diseases. The details and scope of the involvement of the Collaboratory Platform will be co-developed once finalists are identified.GHDC focus areas:<ul><li>Development of vaccines and biologics</li><li>Drug discovery</li><li>Biomarker discovery</li><li>Maternal, neonatal, child health</li><li>Reproductive health technologies</li><li>Translational sciences</li></ul>Funding level: up to USD $250,000 for each project, with a grant term of up to two years depending on the scope of the project.What We Are Looking ForWe are looking for proposals from investigators based in LMICs* that are aligned with our <a href="https://www.gatesfoundation.org/our-work" target="_blank">strategic priorities</a>. Proposed activities involving data and sample collection and experiments performed at the LMIC institution will be funded via new direct grants, while work performed by the Collaboratory Platform partners will be funded directly by the Gates Foundation through a separate funding mechanism. Proposed ideas may be entirely new projects or ideas that will enable further in-depth analysis to complement an existing project. Pilot studies to generate initial data that may lead to potential larger follow-on studies (via separate funding) or proposals aimed at generating hypotheses are acceptable, as are studies designed to test specific hypotheses. In addition to collaborating with Gates Foundation-funded investigators, some Platforms can train interested collaborators in wet lab or analytical techniques in the context of a specific project.Your proposal should include:<ol><li>A description of your idea and how you intend to test it</li><li>A description of what you will do at your institution with the funds provided</li><li>The name of the Collaboratory Platform you wish to work with during your project and why this platform will enable you to more effectively test your idea(s). We do not expect proposals to contain detailed descriptions of work done by the Platforms, as we expect workplans will be jointly developed after finalists are selected. You do not need to provide a budget for the Platform in your proposal.</li></ol>Please visit the Global Health Discovery Collaboratory <a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/" target="_blank">website</a> to learn more about the GHDC and the individual Collaboratory Platforms. Representatives from each Collaboratory Platform are attending the 2022 Grand Challenges Annual Meeting and will be presenting posters at the poster session. We encourage interested parties to visit the poster session and also to attend the GHDC scientific track sessions at the meeting to learn more.Collaboratory Platforms focus areas:<ul><li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/adjuvants-and-formulations" target="_blank">Adjuvants &amp; Formulations</a>: Access high quality adjuvants, formulation expertise, and small-animal immunogenicity studies.</li><li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/antibody-dynamics" target="_blank">Antibody Dynamics:</a> Providing qualified/validated GCLP compliant antibody measurements for specificity, isotype/subclass, avidity, affinity, and function; immune systems computational expertise to define immune correlates of protection.</li><li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/antigen-arrays" target="_blank">Antigen Arrays</a>: High throughput microarray technology enables measurement of antibody responses to thousands of proteins in a single assay.</li><li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/human-immunoglobulin-repertoire-mice" target="_blank">Human immunoglobulin repertoire mice</a>: Interrogate immunogens against a human immune repertoire. Discover and isolate mAbs to support your research or advance product development.</li><li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/protein-sciences" target="_blank">Protein Sciences</a>: Provides in-depth structural characterization of immunogens using a variety of structural and biophysical techniques.</li><li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/metabolomic-biomarker-discovery" target="_blank">Metabolomic Biomarker Discovery</a>: Offers untargeted mass spectrometry-based molecular profiling to measure thousands of distinct small molecules in biosamples to accelerate discovery of biomarkers of health and disease.</li><li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/proteomic-biomarker-discovery" target="_blank">Proteomic Biomarker Discovery</a>: Quantify thousands of proteins using liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS) to obtain signatures reflective of health or disease status.</li><li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/sars-cov-2-immunoassays" target="_blank">SARS-CoV-2 Immunoassays</a>: Access validated / qualified assays to evaluate vaccines or mAbs for SARS-CoV-2 (Opportunities to develop assays for other global health diseases.</li><li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/single-cell-analytics" target="_blank">Single Cell Analytics</a>: Provides experimental and computational single-cell genomic profiling for in-depth molecular characterization of biological specimens.</li><li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/systems-immunology" target="_blank">Systems Immunology</a>: Offers comprehensive and standardized immune monitoring, cutting-edge technologies and novel analytics.</li><li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/systems-serology" target="_blank">Systems Serology</a>: High-throughput biophysical profiling and functional assays linked with systems biology/machine learning algorithms to characterize protective humoral immune responses.</li><li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/vaccine-immunology-statistical-center" target="_blank">Vaccine Immunology Statistical Center</a>: Access expert biostatistical support for study design, data management, high-dimensional data analysis, statistical and machine learning methods to advance global health research.</li></ul>We Will Not Consider Funding for:<ul><li>Clinical trials</li><li>In-vivo studies in non-human primates</li><li>Investigators whose primary appointment is in a high-income country</li><li>Proposals that do not include the use of the Collaboratory Platforms</li><li>Proposals that do not align with the scope/remit of the Collaboratory Platforms</li><li>Purchase of capital equipment</li><li>Institutions that are unable to sign the <a href="https://assets.ctfassets.net/6y3xo20je9pr/4XPndugSRBymEFNUzfDvad/3c3e77f62e16987bcfd08542ed9d66a7/Gates-Foundation_Collaboratory-Guiding-Principles-2021.pdf" target="_blank">Collaboratory Guiding Principles</a> by the time of grant execution.</li></ul><a class="footnote" href="#_ftnref1" title="" id="_ftn1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> See <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/country/XO" target="_blank">World Bank - Low &amp; Middle Income</a> Countries for definitions. Subject to the eligibility requirements in the Rules &amp; Guidelines, investigators in low- and middle-income countries are invited (in connection with the organization with which they are affiliated) to apply through the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation's application portal. We reserve the right to determine eligibility for this call based on these characteristics.

Supporting Researchers Through the Technologies of the Global Health Discovery Collaboratory Platforms

<h2>Background</h2>
The Global Health Discovery Collaboratory (GHDC) Platforms program at the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation - or <a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms">"Collaboratory Platforms"</a> - enables access to specialized research platforms to accelerate the discovery and translation of transformative solutions to global health inequity. These Platforms enable access to cutting-edge technologies and unique expertise to guide the design, execution, data analysis and interpretation to support a wide variety of initiatives, including discovery for vaccines and biologics, human immune monitoring, biomarker discovery, characterization of host-pathogen interactions, and more. Scientists in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have the local knowledge and perspective crucial to finding the right solution and directing it to the right problem, and the Gates Foundation is committed to ensuring that scientists based in LMICs have opportunities to advance their work through partnership with the Collaboratory Platforms.
<h2>The Challenge</h2>
We seek creative projects that are led by investigators in LMICs<a class="footnote" href="#_ftn1" title name="_ftnref1" id="_ftnref1">1</a> and whose path to global health impact would be accelerated through partnership with the Collaboratory Platforms. Proposed ideas should be in alignment with the GHDC focus areas listed below. They should also align with the Gates Foundation's <a href="https://www.gatesfoundation.org/our-work" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">strategic priorities</a>, including but not limited to tuberculosis, HIV, malaria, pneumonia (e.g., influenza, RSV, coronavirus), enteric diseases (e.g., Shigella, rotavirus), HPV, and neglected tropical diseases. The details and scope of the involvement of the Collaboratory Platform will be co-developed once finalists are identified.
GHDC focus areas:
<ul>
<li>Development of vaccines and biologics</li>
<li>Drug discovery</li>
<li>Biomarker discovery</li>
<li>Maternal, neonatal, child health</li>
<li>Reproductive health technologies</li>
<li>Translational sciences</li>
</ul>
Funding level: up to USD $250,000 for each project, with a grant term of up to two years depending on the scope of the project.
What We Are Looking For
We are looking for proposals from investigators based in LMICs* that are aligned with our <a href="https://www.gatesfoundation.org/our-work" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">strategic priorities</a>. Proposed activities involving data and sample collection and experiments performed at the LMIC institution will be funded via new direct grants, while work performed by the Collaboratory Platform partners will be funded directly by the Gates Foundation through a separate funding mechanism. Proposed ideas may be entirely new projects or ideas that will enable further in-depth analysis to complement an existing project. Pilot studies to generate initial data that may lead to potential larger follow-on studies (via separate funding) or proposals aimed at generating hypotheses are acceptable, as are studies designed to test specific hypotheses. In addition to collaborating with Gates Foundation-funded investigators, some Platforms can train interested collaborators in wet lab or analytical techniques in the context of a specific project.
Your proposal should include:
<ol>
<li>A description of your idea and how you intend to test it</li>
<li>A description of what you will do at your institution with the funds provided</li>
<li>The name of the Collaboratory Platform you wish to work with during your project and why this platform will enable you to more effectively test your idea(s). We do not expect proposals to contain detailed descriptions of work done by the Platforms, as we expect workplans will be jointly developed after finalists are selected. You do not need to provide a budget for the Platform in your proposal.</li>
</ol>
Please visit the Global Health Discovery Collaboratory <a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">website</a> to learn more about the GHDC and the individual Collaboratory Platforms. Representatives from each Collaboratory Platform are attending the 2022 Grand Challenges Annual Meeting and will be presenting posters at the poster session. We encourage interested parties to visit the poster session and also to attend the GHDC scientific track sessions at the meeting to learn more.
Collaboratory Platforms focus areas:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/adjuvants-and-formulations" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Adjuvants &amp; Formulations</a>: Access high quality adjuvants, formulation expertise, and small-animal immunogenicity studies.</li>
<li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/antibody-dynamics" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Antibody Dynamics:</a> Providing qualified/validated GCLP compliant antibody measurements for specificity, isotype/subclass, avidity, affinity, and function; immune systems computational expertise to define immune correlates of protection.</li>
<li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/antigen-arrays" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Antigen Arrays</a>: High throughput microarray technology enables measurement of antibody responses to thousands of proteins in a single assay.</li>
<li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/human-immunoglobulin-repertoire-mice" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Human immunoglobulin repertoire mice</a>: Interrogate immunogens against a human immune repertoire. Discover and isolate mAbs to support your research or advance product development.</li>
<li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/protein-sciences" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Protein Sciences</a>: Provides in-depth structural characterization of immunogens using a variety of structural and biophysical techniques.</li>
<li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/metabolomic-biomarker-discovery" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Metabolomic Biomarker Discovery</a>: Offers untargeted mass spectrometry-based molecular profiling to measure thousands of distinct small molecules in biosamples to accelerate discovery of biomarkers of health and disease.</li>
<li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/proteomic-biomarker-discovery" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Proteomic Biomarker Discovery</a>: Quantify thousands of proteins using liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS) to obtain signatures reflective of health or disease status.</li>
<li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/sars-cov-2-immunoassays" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">SARS-CoV-2 Immunoassays</a>: Access validated / qualified assays to evaluate vaccines or mAbs for SARS-CoV-2 (Opportunities to develop assays for other global health diseases.</li>
<li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/single-cell-analytics" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Single Cell Analytics</a>: Provides experimental and computational single-cell genomic profiling for in-depth molecular characterization of biological specimens.</li>
<li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/systems-immunology" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Systems Immunology</a>: Offers comprehensive and standardized immune monitoring, cutting-edge technologies and novel analytics.</li>
<li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/systems-serology" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Systems Serology</a>: High-throughput biophysical profiling and functional assays linked with systems biology/machine learning algorithms to characterize protective humoral immune responses.</li>
<li><a href="https://ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/platforms/vaccine-immunology-statistical-center" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Vaccine Immunology Statistical Center</a>: Access expert biostatistical support for study design, data management, high-dimensional data analysis, statistical and machine learning methods to advance global health research.</li>
</ul>
We Will Not Consider Funding for:
<ul>
<li>Clinical trials</li>
<li>In-vivo studies in non-human primates</li>
<li>Investigators whose primary appointment is in a high-income country</li>
<li>Proposals that do not include the use of the Collaboratory Platforms</li>
<li>Proposals that do not align with the scope/remit of the Collaboratory Platforms</li>
<li>Purchase of capital equipment</li>
<li>Institutions that are unable to sign the <a href="https://assets.ctfassets.net/6y3xo20je9pr/4XPndugSRBymEFNUzfDvad/3c3e77f62e16987bcfd08542ed9d66a7/Gates-Foundation_Collaboratory-Guiding-Principles-2021.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Collaboratory Guiding Principles</a> by the time of grant execution.</li>
</ul>
<a class="footnote" href="#_ftnref1" title name="_ftn1" id="_ftn1">1</a> See <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/country/XO" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">World Bank - Low &amp; Middle Income</a> Countries for definitions. Subject to the eligibility requirements in the Rules &amp; Guidelines, investigators in low- and middle-income countries are invited (in connection with the organization with which they are affiliated) to apply through the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation's application portal. We reserve the right to determine eligibility for this call based on these characteristics.

We seek creative projects that are led by investigators in LMICs and whose path to global health impact would be accelerated through partnership with the Collaboratory Platforms. Proposed ideas should be in alignment with the Gates Foundation’s strategic priorities, including but not limited to tuberculosis, HIV, malaria, pneumonia (e.g., influenza, RSV, coronavirus), enteric diseases (e.g., Shigella, rotavirus), HPV, and neglected tropical diseases.