Deadline: 10 April 2019
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is seeking proposals for the Round 23 of the Grand Challenges Exploration on the topic of “Increasing Demand for Vaccination Services”.
Within this call to increase demand for vaccination services, and thus increase the number of children vaccinated globally, they are looking for innovative ideas in the following specific areas:
- Novel approaches for providing practical knowledge about vaccines and vaccination services to caregivers, which may include:
- Familiarizing caregivers with information on where and when routine and/or campaign services are provided
- Educating caregivers about how many times a child should be vaccinated and the importance of timely vaccination. Please explain how a proposed intervention would very tactically increase the knowledge of when a child needs to be brought in for his or her first, subsequent, or campaign-related vaccination. (Suggestions may include helping caregivers plan for completing subsequent visits.)
- Addressing common concerns (multiple injections, post-vaccination discomfort) that may result in missed opportunities for vaccination
- Empowering caregivers to ask for full vaccination services
- Novel ideas for improving the convenience and/or caregiver seeking of vaccination services; these may focus on:
- Approaches that use human-centered design to improve the convenience of accessing services from a caregiver perspective
- Approaches that minimize wait time for caregivers, such as scheduling appointments, providing information as to wait times, and/or providing information regarding stock availability (may be linked to electronic registries)
- Approaches that reduce the “cost” of seeking services (i.e., time, lost wages, transport cost, discordance with social norms, etc.) while increasing the “benefit” (appreciation of vaccines, integrated services.) (Please exclude direct monetary incentives)
- Approaches that provide an innovative “nudge” for seeking vaccination services and translating intention into action. (Please do not submit proposals based on SMS reminders given their current emphasis/on-going support in operational research.)
Funding information
Awards of $100,000 USD are made in Phase I. Phase I awardees have one opportunity to apply for a follow-on Phase II award of up to $1,000,000 USD.
Eligibility Criteria
GCE is open to both foreign and domestic organizations, including non-profit organizations, for-profit companies, international organizations, government agencies, and academic institutions.
How to Apply
Applicants can apply online via given website.
For more information, please visit https://gcgh.grandchallenges.org/challenge/increasing-demand-vaccination-services-round-23