The Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation supports global efforts to control, eliminate, and eradicate NTDs. The team focuses on seven of the ten London Declaration diseases, as well as on cross-cutting efforts to improve the quality and impact of NTD programs through a variety of levers, including data systems. Strengthening NTD data systems and ensuring use of quality data for programmatic decision-making at the country, regional, and global levels are priority components of these cross-cutting efforts.
National NTD programs rely on timely and quality data to make decisions throughout the duration of the program. The quality of these data ultimately depends on the systems, tools, and processes at the points-of-collection, collation, and analysis at sub-national and national levels. Many of the current data-related tools and approaches used by NTD programs are sub-optimal and hinder the ability of the national program to deliver. Specifically, a limited NTD data system can lead to an inaccurate understanding of program performance and reduced likelihood of achieving control and elimination goals. Moreover, poor quality country data and data systems introduces delay and inaccuracies in regional and global reporting, drug forecasting, and inefficient allocation of resources.
This Grand Challenge seeks innovative ideas for how to improve the quality, completeness, and timeliness of routine NTD data and ensure programmatic decision-making is based on the best available data. Such outcomes will help target interventions to all at-risk populations and achieve high intervention coverage and maximal impact on infection and morbidity.
Eligibility
Grand Challenges is open to both foreign and domestic organizations, including non-profit organizations, for- profit companies, international organizations, government agencies and academic institutions.
Award Budget
For Round 1, we are suggesting a maximum budget of $200,000 USD for up to 6 months of work. For Round 2, we have decided not to specify funding limits or expectations. The number of awards and quantity of each award amount will depend upon the quality of the proposals received.
Proposers are expected to develop a budget commensurate with the scope and scale of the work
necessary to achieve their detailed objectives; however, the objectives should be achievable within 12-18 months from onset of Round 2 funding.
Award Project Period
The Incubator funding will be structured in two rounds. Round 1 funding will support proof-of-concept testing of the proposed solution over 3 to 6 months. After this initial stage, we then expect to invite a subset of the most successful Round 1 grantees to apply for Round 2 funding to test their solutions more broadly over 12-18 months. As results from Round 2 would ultimately inform country scale-up, your proposal should identify the necessary conditions for its success
Deadline
Application Due Date: The application deadline for this RFP is March 25, 2019, at 11:30 a.m. U.S. Pacific Daylight Time, after which time applications will no longer be accepted.
Inquiries
Please direct all questions about this initiative, selection criteria or application instructions by e-mail to the following address: grandchallenges@gatesfoundation.org.
Full Details and Supporting Materials:
https://gcgh.grandchallenges.org/challenge/neglected-tropical-diseases-data-innovation-incubator
TropMed Sponsored Research Funding Opportunities: this blog is designed to alert TropMed researchers to funding opportunities to support their research. The Research Administration Unit of the Office of Research Services (ORS) is here to help staff members with all application, grant management, and post-grant processes. Please contact Mr. Paul Adams or Mr. Oiko Tacusalme on ext. 1332 for more information, or to express interest in any of these grant opportunities.
