Cost-Disrupting Innovations to Reduce the Cost of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Eligibility

Who is eligible for grants?
We welcome applications from universities and research institutes, RUTF manufacturers and food processors, ingredient and packaging suppliers, engineering and technology firms, NGOs with strong technical capacity, and for-profit entities (subject to global access requirements). Consortia led by or including LMIC-based organizations are strongly encouraged. Individuals and organizations classified as individuals for U.S. tax purposes are not eligible to receive an award from the foundation as part of this initiative.

Upon registration, applicants must provide information about the tax status of their organization as different terms and conditions may apply. You should confirm your organization's tax status with the appropriate advisor or entity within your organization such as your grants or contracts department, finance, or office of sponsored research. The foundation may request additional information regarding your tax status. For information about tax statuses, you may check with your own advisors and review information provided on the Internal Revenue Service web site at: www.irs.gov.

Does an organization need to be incorporated before applying?
Yes. If a startup or applicant group is not yet incorporated, it would need to be a registered organization by the time the application is submitted in order to be eligible to receive funding.

Can an organization submit multiple applications?
Yes. An organization may submit multiple applications. Within a single RFP, each application should have a different PI. A PI may lead only one application within that specific RFP, although the same PI can still serve as a collaborator on other applications. Applicant are eligible to apply to multiple open RFPs.

If a PI already has an active Gates Foundation grant, are they still eligible to apply?
Yes.

Application Process

What must my application include? 
Please refer to the Application Instructions document.

Am I able to edit my proposal once submitted? 
Yes, you may edit your proposal up until the specified deadline.

What amount of indirect cost is available? 
Details of the foundation indirect cost policy guidelines can be found here: Gates Foundation's indirect cost policy.

Does the 3-page proposal limit include the budget and narrative sections?
No. The proposal itself is capped at 3 pages, and the budget table and narrative are a separate 1-page upload. Figures and references count toward the 3-page proposal limit.

Do you need to apply as a full consortium producing complete RUTF, or can organizations apply for a single component such as protein innovation only?
You can apply around a single component. The call explicitly invites proposals under one or more focus areas such as protein diversification, lipid optimization, packaging, and production/supply innovations. Eligibility also includes ingredient suppliers, packaging suppliers, engineering firms, and for-profit entities, which indicates applicants do not need to be full end-to-end RUTF manufacturers.

Is there a recommended or maximum number of partners in a consortium?
No, you are welcome to collaborate with as many partners as you’d like.

Do partners need to be formally confirmed at application stage, such as through letters of intent?
No, letters of intent are not required or expected at this stage.

Do applicants need to already have manufacturing partners identified?
No, but the strongest applications will be informed by manufacturing realities and constraints. In practice, proposals should show that they have thought seriously about production feasibility and commercial viability.

Review Process

How does the review process work?
Please refer to the Rules and Guidelines document.

Can I get a list of potential reviewers who might be assigned to my application? 
No. We do not make public the roster of reviewers.

Can I request that my application not be reviewed by a specific individual? 
No. However, we will ask reviewers to self-identify conflicts of interest and will not assign reviewers with conflicts.

Will I receive specific feedback on my application if it is not selected? 
Due to the rapid proposal and review timelines applicable to this RFP, applicants with proposals that are not selected for award may receive a notification of decline without specific feedback.

Award Information

Are grant awards made directly to individuals? 
No. All awards are made to the organization where the individual holds their primary appointment. Institutions must agree to the terms and conditions governing each grant award prior to award activation.

How much money will each grant provide?
For any of the Focus Areas we will consider proposals under two funding options. Please consider which is most relevant to your proposal.

• Option A: We will consider proposals for awards of up to $500,000 USD across any of the categories within this call, with a grant term of up to 18 months. Application budgets should be commensurate with the scope of work proposed.
• Option B: We will consider several proposals for awards of up to $1,500,000 USD for each project, with a grant term of up to 36 months. Application budgets should be commensurate with the scope of work proposed.

Indirect costs should be included in the budget and should not exceed 10-15% of the total award (subject to the Gates Foundation's indirect cost policy).

How many projects will be funded?
The number of awards will depend on the quality and innovativeness of the applications, the overall mix of the cohort, and the available funding envelope.

Are other funders involved in this RFP?
Yes, the Gates Foundation has been working with the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation and GiveWell in developing the RFPs. Applications may also be shared with those organizations, and funding could come from Gates, CIFF, GiveWell, or a co-funding arrangement.

What is the difference between sub-grants and sub-contracts?
Use the same principles applied to grants vs. contracts.

• Subgrant: Funds support the subrecipient’s own program or activities. The subrecipient controls the funds, owns the final product, and typically receives funding in advance or on a set schedule. Oversight and acceptance rights are limited.
• Subcontract: The work directly benefits your organization. Payments are tied to deliverables or milestones, you can direct the work, and you may reject unsatisfactory outputs. The final product is owned by your organization.

Intellectual Property and Confidentiality

How can applicants protect their ideas and ensure confidentiality when sharing concepts in proposals?
When submitting materials to the Foundation please keep in mind that because we have a focus on achieving charitable outcomes, we view information that we obtain through our grantmaking as a public good. Subject to the Gates Foundation's Privacy & Cookies Notice, the Foundation may also share information you provide to us (either orally or in writing) with third parties, including external reviewers, consultants, contingent workers, key partners and co-funders. You should assume that nothing will be kept confidential and should not include any information in the proposal, budget, supplemental materials, or reports that you consider proprietary.

Who owns Intellectual Property in funded projects? 
Grantees retain ownership of intellectual property (IP) developed through foundation-funded grants. The foundation does, however, require that grant outputs be made widely available to the intended beneficiaries. You can read more here: Gates Foundation Global Access and IP Policy

Scope of the RFP

Why is the focus solely on micronutrients, and not on food safety in general?
The focus is on any innovation to bring down the cost of RUTF, not just micronutrients

What is the main objective of this RFP?
The central objective is to reduce the ex-factory cost of producing ready-to-use therapeutic food by 30 percent or more, while still meeting the required standards for quality and nutritional adequacy. The broader purpose is to enable treatment of more children with severe acute malnutrition within a fixed or declining resource envelope.

What kinds of innovation areas are of interest?
We are open to a broad range of ideas including protein diversification or dairy replacement, lipid optimization and stabilization, micronutrient or ingredient changes, packaging innovations, manufacturing process improvements, and supply-side innovations. However, they also stressed that this list is illustrative rather than exhaustive.

What types of activities are out of scope?
We are not seeking proposals focused only on delivery innovations, there is a separate Grand Challenges call for that. It also excludes pure market studies, price negotiation strategies, tariff or tax reform, volume guarantees, subsidizing existing manufacturing operations, and projects that focus only on clinical testing without demonstrating manufacturing and commercial viability.

Does the grant cover studies on scalability and acceptability among end users?
Scalability is explicitly in scope: proposals must show a clear scalability pathway with durable cost reductions at scale. Acceptability is also explicitly required in at least some focus areas; for example, the protein and lipid sections call for sensory and acceptability data.

Cost Reduction Expectations

If an existing innovation is being altered to make it cheaper, will this be considered for funding?
Any innovation that makes RUTF cheaper will be considered

Can the cost reduction strategy combine several approaches?
Yes. A proposal can combine multiple approaches.

How should applicants define the 30 percent cost reduction?
Applicants must be transparent about their baseline, assumptions, and cost model. The foundation did not impose one universal baseline, but it expects each proposal to clearly explain what comparator is being used and how the reduction is calculated.

What if current RUTF products are already close to cost and performance limits?
If an applicant believes no meaningful cost reduction is possible, then there may be no basis for a proposal under this RFP. The challenge is only interested in applications that can suggest a credible pathway to further lowering cost while preserving product quality.

Do we already need to demonstrate a ≥30% cost reduction at the proposal stage, or can this be achieved during project implementation?
The proposal needs to present a validated pathway to at least a 30% reduction and include a transparent cost model with assumptions and sensitivity analysis. You do not need to have achieved the reduction before applying, but we do require a credible, proposal-stage case for how the reduction will be delivered.

Could you provide guidance on how the cost model should be presented?
An application must include a transparent cost model with clear assumptions and sensitivity analysis, but we do not require a specific format.

Outcomes and Metrics

What standards must proposals meet?
Proposals must demonstrate alignment with the Codex RUTF guidelines, which the foundation said would serve as the benchmark for this call. Applicants also need to show that the formulation meets the required protein quality standard, specifically a PDCAAS score greater than 0.9.

How should applicants handle the tension between Codex and WHO guidance on dairy protein?
For this RFP, applicants should prioritize adherence to Codex manufacturing guidance and the PDCAAS threshold. At the same time, stronger applications should show awareness of the WHO-Codex tension and discuss what future normative or clinical steps might be needed.

Can applicants significantly alter the RUTF formulation?
Yes, but not in a way that ignores real-world manufacturing and supply constraints. If the formulation changes significantly, applicants need to demonstrate how it could still be manufactured feasibly and at scale, including how supply chains for major ingredients would work.

Implementation and Funding

Are clinical trials allowed?
Yes, but only if they are part of a broader project focused on manufacturing, cost reduction, and commercial viability. We are not interested in projects that are only clinical trials without a clear production and scale pathway.

Are preclinical models or preclinical studies allowed?
Possibly, but only if they are connected to a broader pathway for manufacturing and scale. The preclinical work on its own would likely not score well unless it is clearly linked to viable production and adoption plans.

Is regional or local production of interest?
Yes. We are interested in regional production capacity and applications from low- and middle-income countries or consortia that include LMIC partner are encouraged.

Can an innovation improve the nutritional profile of RUTF while also reducing cost?
Yes. Improvements such as additional nutrients or better nutrient characteristics would be considered, but only if the proposal still meets the cost-reduction goal. If the improvement increases cost instead, it would not be competitive for this call.

If a country does not currently manufacture RUTF, can it propose local production using local materials?
Broadly yes, if the proposal still meets the technical requirements. The RFP is interested in regional production capacity, LMIC manufacturability, local or lower-cost oils, and ingredient/manufacturing innovations, but all formulations still need a plausible path to Codex compliance, required nutritional specs, and scalable production.

Are advanced functional ingredients eligible?
Potentially yes. The call allows a broad range of ingredient and formulation innovations, including novel protein matrices and ingredient changes, as long as they support the required cost reduction and have a plausible path to Codex compliance, nutritional adequacy, and regulatory/normative acceptance. The RFP does not specifically mention prebiotic/probiotic/postbiotic ingredients, so that part would be an inference rather than an explicit endorsement.

Sustainability and Scale

What is the role of utilizing local resources in the preparation of therapeutic meals?
The focus of this RFP is on RUTF specifically, not in innovations of therapeutic meals using local resources. We are trying to optimize the current production of RUTF, which is at relatively large scale compared to locally prepared therapeutic meals, and for which there is large scale procurement through established mechanisms.

Is the goal to maximize scale, such as the number of children reached?
Not primarily. The RFP is being driven more by cost reduction than by a specific target number of children reached. The emphasis is on lowering the cost to treat a child with severe acute malnutrition so that fixed resources can go further.

Are applicants expected to immediately transform large-scale procurement or production?
No. These are relatively small innovation grants meant to generate promising ideas and begin a longer-term pathway toward scale. We are not expecting a single 18-month or 36-month grant to reshape global RUTF procurement on its own.

What does scalability mean in this context?
Scalability means the innovation should have a credible path toward broader commercial production and adoption. We are not interested in “boutique” reformulations or projects that may work in a narrow context but have no realistic path to larger-scale use.

Technical Support

I forgot my password. How do I reset my password? 
You can request to update your password within the application site. If you continue to have issues, please reach out to [email protected].

How will I know if my application was submitted? 
Once an application is submitted, an email confirmation will be sent.

I'm having trouble uploading my application file. What should I do? 
If you are having issues submitting your application, we would encourage you to submit from a different browser. If the issue persists, please email the specifics of your problem to [email protected].

How often do you intend to update the Frequently Asked Questions, and do you plan to provide answers to all questions submitted? 
We will periodically post answers to questions as they are submitted, but do not have a specific schedule. We will provide answers on this page that are of relevance and of general interest to potential applicants. For answers to specific questions that are not covered here, please email [email protected]