Funding Opportunity

Sponsor:         Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Grand Challenges Explorations, Round 10

Amount:         Up to $100,000

Deadline:        Applications accepted until November 7, 2012 at 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will accept grant proposals until November 7, 2012 for Grand Challenges Explorations Round 10, an initiative to encourage bold and innovative research on new global health solutions.

The topics for this round of the Grand Challenges Explorations in Global Health are:

• New Approaches in Model Systems, Diagnostics, and Drugs for Specific Neglected Tropical Diseases
• Labor Saving Innovations for Women Smallholder Farmers
• New Approaches for the Interrogation of Anti-malarial Compounds
• Aid is Working. Tell the World (Part 2)

Successful projects have the opportunity to receive a follow-on grant of up to $1 million.

The Grand Challenges Explorations initiative uses an agile, accelerated grant-making process with short two-page applications and no preliminary data required. Applications are submitted online, and winning grants are chosen approximately five months from the submission deadline.

The grant program is open to anyone from any discipline, from student to tenured professor, and from any organization – colleges and universities, government laboratories, research institutions, non-profit organizations and for-profit companies.

Following are some tips provided by the Gates Foundation for grant seekers wishing to submit proposals:

• Proposals must represent an innovative approach responsive to the topic.  There are other avenues of funding for the equally important research that is within currently accepted paradigms.  Such work will not be funded under Grand Challenges Explorations.

• Proposals will be reviewed by a panel with broad expertise and a track record in identifying innovations – these reviewers may not be deep domain experts in your field.  Ideas should be described in clear language without the use of jargon unique to a particular field.

• Proof-of-concept for ideas need not be completed in Phase I. However, credible evidence supporting the validity of an idea, sufficient proof to warrant expanded support, and next steps for the project should be provided.

• Grant seekers must select only one of the topics under which to submit and may submit only one proposal. Submit your best idea. You may submit multiple ideas in partnership with collaborators, but an individual PI may lead the submission of only one proposal each round of Grand Challenges.

• You must select a topic prior to submitting a proposal. View the detailed topic descriptions and determine which topic best suits your idea. You may change your topic and edit your proposal any time before the application deadline.

A full description of the Grand Challenges Explorations initiative and application instructions is available at:

http://www.grandchallenges.org/Explorations/Pages/ApplicationInstructions.aspx.

If you have questions, contact Martha Coleman, Director of Principal Gifts for Foundation Relations at OSU Foundation by phone at 541-737-6961 or via email at Martha.coleman@oregonstate.edu.