Special Notice
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Explorations global health initiative
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has recently launched Grand Challenges Explorations, a US$100 million fast-track
grants initiative to support innovative global health research. A brief overview of the initiative is below. To learn more
about this funding opportunity, please visit www.gcgh.org , where you can sign up for email updates.
About the Grand Challenges Explorations Initiative
Grand Challenges Explorations is a new five-year US$100 million fast-track grants initiative of the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation to support innovative global health research. The initiative will support hundreds of early-stage research
projects pursuing creative concepts for new global health solutions, including vaccines, drugs, diagnostics, and other
technologies for health problems disproportionately affecting poor countries.
The goal of the initiative is to spur the kind of unconventional scientific thinking that is critical to solving serious
global health problems. We want to encourage researchers around the world to take risks on creative, unorthodox approaches
that could ultimately lead to big breakthroughs in health.
Projects will initially be funded at the level of US$100,000 each, with the opportunity for additional funding in the future
for projects that show promise.
Specifically, the initiative aims to:
- Support paradigm-changing ideas that have never before been tested, and that might not stand up to traditional peer review
- Involve scientists from a wide range of disciplines, as well as young investigators
- Involve scientists from around the world, including innovators in the developing world and the private sector The initiative
is an expansion of the foundation�s commitment to the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative, which since its creation
in 2003 has made important progress in accelerating the discovery of new technologies to improve global health.
Fast-Track Grants
To make it as easy as possible for scientists to apply, the Explorations initiative will use a new fast-track grantmaking approach
that complements the foundation's traditional grantmaking process:
- Applicants for Explorations grants will be asked to submit relatively short funding proposals. Applicants will not
necessarily be required to show preliminary data.
- Proposals will be reviewed within approximately three months
- Grants will be solicited and awarded multiple times per year
Each funding round will address a few specific topics or themes GETTING INVOLVED The first call for proposals will be posted
on the Grand Challenges in Global Health website www.gcgh.org in early 2008,
along with the list of topics being addressed and application instructions. You can sign up now at
www.gcgh.org to receive email updates on the initiative.
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