Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: Multiple Global Grand Challenges Grant Opportunities (04/28/26)
Posted: 3/26/2026 (Funding)
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation invites applications for the following Grand Challenges grant opportunities. Applications for all RFPs are due no later than April 28, 2026, at 11:30 AM Pacific Daylight Time.
- Innovations in Cost-Disruptive Tools for Diagnosis and Screening
- Novel Interventions Targeting Placental and Gut Inflammation to Improve Fetal Growth
- Addressing Physiological Barriers to Micronutrient Absorption from Fortified Foods
- Cost-Disrupting Innovations to Reduce the Cost of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food
- Breakthrough Innovations to Significantly Reduce the Cost of Severe Acute Malnutrition Treatment
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Accelerate Charitable Giving
The Foundation will host a dedicated webinar on each RFP to provide more details and answer your questions. Please check the challenge page of the RFP you are interested in for exact dates and times. The webinars will be recorded and available for viewing after the session.
- Innovations in Cost-Disruptive Tools for Diagnosis and Screening: This request for proposals (RFP) seeks cost-disruptive devices and diagnostics that cost less than US$1 per test or person, that can stand up to the real-world constraints of frontline public health, and that provide rapid, reliable results.
- Novel Interventions Targeting Placental and Gut Inflammation to Improve Fetal Growth: There are currently no scalable, effective therapies that directly prevent or reverse fetal growth restriction, which affects more than 20 million infants annually. This RFP is designed to accelerate the discovery and development of interventions targeting maternal gut–placenta inflammatory axes and oxidative stress to improve fetal growth outcomes.
- Addressing Physiological Barriers to Micronutrient Absorption from Fortified Foods: This RFP seeks innovative approaches to overcome the biological constraints that limit people’s ability to absorb micronutrients in fortified foods in high-burden settings, such as chronic inflammation and gut barrier dysfunction.
- Cost-Disrupting Innovations to Reduce the Cost of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food: With increasingly constrained resources to address Severe Acute Malnutrition, this RFP seeks innovative approaches that will reduce the cost of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Foods (RUTF) in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia by at least 30%.
- Breakthrough Innovations to Significantly Reduce the Cost of Severe Acute Malnutrition Treatment: This RFP seeks transformative, system-level innovations that can substantially increase the number of children treated per dollar spent by reducing the total cost per child treated—without changing the ex-factory price of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Foods (RUTF) or substituting RUTF with an alternative product.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Accelerate Charitable Giving: This RFP seeks ideas that use AI to connect potential donors (from everyday givers to established foundations) to the causes they care about and make it easier for them to contribute.
Deadline: 04/28/2026