The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has issued a call for proposals with the aim of advancing innovations in women’s health.
According to the organizers of this challenge, the primary objective is to provide funding for a diverse array of proposals addressing a wide spectrum of issues. The overarching goals encompass:
- Cultivating groundbreaking ideas that address the opportunities outlined in the Opportunity Map.
- Reinforcing the overall funding and resources dedicated to research and development (R&D) in women’s health.
- Demonstrating the effectiveness of investments in women’s health R&D.
These components encompass various themes within women’s health R&D, each with unique challenges and goals. These themes can be categorized into two groups: cross-cutting topics and issue-specific topics.
Cross-cutting topics encompass areas such as data and modeling, research design and methodologies, regulatory and science policy, innovation introduction, social and structural determinants, and training and careers.
Issue-specific topics include communicable diseases, non-communicable diseases, chronic conditions, and female-specific conditions.
Award Information:
It has been reported that each award may receive funding of up to USD 150,000 for projects spanning a maximum of 2 years, depending on the project’s scope. The plan is to support up to three proposals for each of the eight in-scope Opportunity Areas.
Proposals Sought For:
The organizers are particularly interested in proposals addressing opportunities within the following topic areas in the Opportunity Map:
- Data and Modeling: Collecting more detailed data, enhancing capacity for gender-informed data collection, and bridging critical data gaps.
- Research Design and Methodologies: Advancing gender-inclusive research design, methodologies, and analysis.
- Regulatory and Science Policy: Implementing gender-inclusive regulatory and science policy frameworks that promote innovations enhancing women’s health.
- Innovation Introduction: Reinforcing the innovation ecosystem and pathways for scaling women’s health solutions.
- Social and Structural Determinants: Incorporating social determinants of health in women’s health R&D to develop more equitable and suitable women’s health products.
- Training and Careers: Integrating a gender lens into education and supporting women’s career advancement to nurture a workforce capable of driving innovation in women’s health.
- Communicable Diseases: Assessing the burden of infectious diseases and their associated costs, exploring links between microbes and chronic conditions, and developing innovations for infections disproportionately affecting women and those beneficial to pregnant women.
- Female-Specific Conditions: Researching the etiology and progression of gynecological, reproductive, maternal, and life-stage conditions, supporting new methods for data collection and sharing, and creating innovations for the prevention, diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment of female-specific conditions.
Eligibility Criteria:
This initiative is open to nonprofit organizations, for-profit companies, international organizations, government agencies, and academic institutions. There is a particular emphasis on applications involving projects led by women or from women-led organizations, as well as applications from institutions based in low- and middle-income countries. Proposals should align with local public health systems, and collaborative projects are highly encouraged.
The foundation, however, will not consider funding for proposals unrelated to improving women’s health, proposals that do not account for health conditions based on gender differences, or proposals lacking a clear link to at least one opportunity outlined in the Opportunity Map.
This Request for Proposals (RFP) does not apply to non-communicable diseases, partnerships, proposals focusing solely on high-income countries, lobbying efforts, or projects that are not easily scalable or do not align with local needs for adoption.
Interested applicants can submit their proposals [here] before the deadline on December 6, 2023.
