Deadline: 30-May-22
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has launched an open call to solicit Letters of Intents (LOIs) from organizations that could coordinate a multi-site study inclusive of approximately 6-8 countries in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa to gain a better understanding of HPV burden among girls and women in these regions.
The primary aim of the study is to determine the burden of HPV infection among girls and women in LIC/LMICs to inform intervention implementation and prioritization of research and development efforts that have the greatest potential public health impacts.
Funding Information
- The target budget is approximately $10,000,000 USD, inclusive of coordination costs, sub-grants to participating sites and collaborators, lab costs, and indirect costs.
- They encourage applicants to be bold and creative in potential approaches with the anticipation of proposal shaping in close coordination with BMGF.
Outputs
The outputs of these studies will inform
- their understanding of prevalence
- provide data to support decision-making for countries that have not yet introduced the prophylactic vaccine
- help prioritize potential future site selection for intervention trials and/or priority countries for future secondary intervention delivery
Criteria
BMGF will evaluate submissions based on:
- The quality of the organizational approach and proposed study design as related to the primary aim of the program
- Demonstrated experience with similar work
- Demonstrated quality and capacity of the team
- Speed at which the study can be up and running, while not sacrificing quality
- Quality of organizational approach to in-country capacity building
Submission Requirements
The LOI should be completed in the template that is provided when you select “apply”. The LOI should be in English, and should not exceed 4 pages in length. Any other supportive documents may be attached as an appendix, not counting against the LOI total, but are not guaranteed to be reviewed.
- Background
- Organizational and principal investigator(s) experience, skills, capacity, expertise to conduct and coordinate high-quality HPV burden study across multiple LIC/LMIC sites, including sites in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Preference for sites with experience with clinical study/trial enrollment and retention
- Organizational experience coordinating harmonized, multi-site studies using standardized operating procedures, working in collaboration with local ethics review boards, government ministries, and community advisory boards
- Organizational experience with data management, data-sharing, quality assurance/quality control, data analytics, sample shipments, lab capacity and coordination
- Deliverables, including publications, from past work can be provided as an appendix
- Project Scope
- Outline vision, key goals, and proposed high-level activities for a study of 3-5 years’ duration
- Overview of proposed process for achieving desired goals, including how to ensure strong governance and coordination across sites
- Outline how a full range of skills needed to design, support, and implement the project will be incorporated, including any collaborators beyond the sites
- Suggest important phasing, timeline, and sequencing of activities
- Include a brief assessment of risks and challenges to successful implementation, and how those will be mitigated
- In-country Presence and/or Partnerships
- Provide details on your organization’s in-country presence and/or experience in conducting studies in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa including any pre-existing collaborations, or explain how you would identify and partner with in-country organizations
- Propose how you would work with country sites to build capacities identified/requested by sites, and provide examples of where/how you have done so in the past
- Brief Budget Narrative
- Briefly detail any major anticipated drivers of cost, estimating those costs to the extent possible at such an early stage
- If there are multiple objectives or sub-studies, understanding at high-level the relative costs of different components is helpful
For more information, visit https://submit.gatesfoundation.org/prog/global_hpv_burden_study/