The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its funding partners in the Grand Challenges family of grant programs are inviting innovators to apply for four new grant opportunities:

1) Grand Challenges Explorations, an initiative to encourage innovative and unconventional global health and development solutions, is now accepting grant proposals for its latest application round. Applicants can be at any experience level; in any discipline; and from any organization, including colleges and universities, government laboratories, research institutions, non-profit organizations and for-profit companies.

Proposals are being accepted online until November 12, 2013 on the following topics:

• Innovations in Feedback & Accountability Systems for Agricultural Development

• Inciting Healthy Behaviors: nudge, leapfrog, disrupt, reach

• Novel Enabling Tools and Models Supporting the Development of Interventions for Severe Diarrhea and Enteric Dysfunction

• Develop the Next Generation of Condom

• The “One Health” Concept: Bringing Together Human and Animal Health

Initial grants will be US $100,000 each, and projects showing promise will have the opportunity to receive additional funding of up to US $1 million. Full descriptions of the new topics and application instructions are available at: www.grandchallenges.org/explorations.

2) Achieving Healthy Growth through Agriculture and Nutrition, the first program launched through the Grand Challenges India partnership, is now accepting applications. This program joins others within the Grand Challenges family of grant programs supported by the Gates Foundation and its partners. It seeks a comprehensive set of approaches – spanning innovation in  nutrition and agriculture and social innovation – to 1) reduce the high incidence of low birth weight, early stunting, and wasting in Indian children less than 2 years of age and 2) prevent undernutrition in women of reproductive age and in children from 0-2 years of age.

The application deadline is October 31, 2013. Details on how to apply for a grant can be found at http://www.grandchallenges.org/GrantOpportunities/Pages/GCIndia_healthygrowth.aspx.

3) The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has launched Records for Life: A Design Contest that can Save Lives. This new grant opportunity seeks individuals or teams to re-examine the current child health record and design new ways to accurately track vaccine doses, increase ease of interpretation and use, and incite behavior change to make the record a valued asset for health professionals and families alike.

The application deadline is October 31, 2013. Details on how to apply for a grant can be found at http://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/General-Information/Grant-Opportunities/Records-for-Life-RFP.

4) This October researchers are invited to attend Advancing Vaccines in the Genomic Era, a meeting held as part of the Keystone Symposia Global Health Series supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The meeting will be held October 31 – November 4, 2013 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. More information can be found at http://www.keystonesymposia.org/13T1.

We are looking forward to receiving innovative ideas from around the world and from all disciplines. If you have a great idea, please apply. If you know someone else who may have a great idea, please forward this message.

Thank you for your commitment to solving the world’s greatest health and development challenges.

The Grand Challenges Team