Our structure and working

Grand Challenges India is governed by the decisions of two committees with representatives from the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other partners.

The Executive Committee is responsible for the major policy decisions, strategy and the overall direction of the partnership. The EC is the final approving authority for all programs of the Grand Challenges India partnership.

The Joint Steering Committee is responsible for the operational decisions on the working of GCI These include all monitoring, technical and financial decisions. This committee has representatives from all the major partners; the Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Seattle, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation India Country Office and the Wellcome Trust.

The program or project design is based on the mandate and requirements of the theme and may differ from program to program.

Based on joint decisions from our Executive Committee and Joint Steering Board, the team works with our partners and experts, as required, to design, and refine specialized programs or calls for proposals for programs that are funded by specific partners.

All proposals are first judged for legal eligibility as per BIRAC norms. The legally eligible proposals are then reviewed and recommended by committees of experts in the field that are constituted by GCI-BIRAC, and approved by the relevant authority, depending on the nature of the program.

Once recommended by the relevant committee, after the review process, the projects are then subjected to cost challenges, and financial due diligence at BIRAC. The final step is the signing of the agreement with the associated documentation.

GCI-BIRAC is responsible for monitoring and evaluating projects based on their milestones, which are set based on the project scope and activities recommended by the Technical/Scientific Advisory Groups (TAG/SAG) and approved in BIRAC. Once sanctioned, project teams submit milestone reports to GCI-BIRAC who assess these and release payments based on recommendations from the TAG/SAG or a specially constituted committee such as the Project Monitoring/Mentoring Committee (PMC) or others that is created for each project. All successive grant payments are in instalments and are recommended for release by relevant committee. Once completed, GCI-BIRAC is responsible for closing the projects and also analyzing the policy impacts of these projects.

GCI-BIRAC provides support through the life of a project, by facilitating not only the procedures for grant disbursement, but also providing technical support to the teams and contributors, as necessary.