Grand Challenges India
In 2012, the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), where both parties agreed to collaborate on scientific and technological research to alleviate some of the world’s most critical global health and development issues, for the benefit of the people of India and other developing countries.
This partnership seeks to identify opportunities to initiate and promote scientific and technological research in the country, to provide India-specific solutions for the country, which can then be adapted for use in other developing countries. Specifically, the partnership focuses on encouraging research and exploring avenues to reduce maternal and child mortality and morbidity; developing scientific and technical solutions for infectious diseases; strengthening India’s scientific translation capacity; developing scientific and technical advances related to agriculture, food and nutrition, among others
Grand Challenges initiatives follow these core principles:
Here we announce a call titled ‘Immunization Data: Innovating for Action (IDIA)’, a program directed at addressing challenges that we face in collecting, analyzing and using data on immunization and health in technical partnership with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the Department of Health Research (DHR), who will be providing their valuable technical and practical inputs in selecting and reviewing projects.
This Request for Proposals (RFP) is specific to India and open to anyone who is interested in applying – including academics, research institutions, medical research institutions, for-profit companies, not-for-profit organizations, and foundations.
Grants will be to researchers and innovators who are Indian individual or Indian entities[1], but we encourage partnerships with researchers in other countries, especially where the opportunity exists to build on established collaborations.
[1] *An Individual should be a Citizen of India
*Indian entities are defined as those established under any relevant statute, agreement, rule or
regulation in India.
The Department of Biotechnology, Government of India and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation under Grand Challenges India seek proposals that address the challenges in immunization data systems in India that are different from current approaches and stretch the frontiers of the programme. The solutions submitted to this GCI program may deal with integrated health information, or may focus specifically on immunization only. They should have the potential to be scaled up in multiple settings. We also encourage solutions that translate leading and best practices and solutions developed by the private sector as well as academic research, even from outside health sector.
This RFA is India-led; the programme is open to academics, research institutions, medical research institutions, for-profit companies, not-for-profit organizations, trusts and foundations.
Grants will be made to researchers and innovators who are Indian individual or Indian entities*, we also encourage partnerships with researchers of national/international expertise.
Experts of the relevant discipline as mentors should be a part of the proposal such as healthcare professionals, data analytics experts, mhealth specialists, management experts, logistics experts, immunizations specialists, M&E experts and market analyst among others.
Through national and international collaboration, we expect that sharing experimental methods, data, and resources will ultimately improve the ability to compare and validate local research findings and to develop interventions and products that can have impact at a greater scale.
Proposals are required to be submitted online only. For submission of proposals, applicants need to register with BIRAC through “User Registration”. Additional information on user registration and proposal submission are available online at BIRAC website at www.birac.nic.in.
No Hard Copy to be submitted. Proposals submitted online only would be considered.
Last date for Submission of Proposals: 15th January, 2017
For any queries, please contact:
Head – Investment: mdpmubmgf.birac@nic.in
Announcement Date: 15-11-2017
Last Submission Date: 15-01-2018 12:00 AM