Grand Challenges Canada: Transition to Scale

Grand Challenges Canada (GCC) seeks to support the transition to scale and sustainability of Bold Ideas with Big Impact®. They accept applications from innovators in the following areas: maternal and newborn health, digital health, medical products and technology, community health worker models, urban sanitation and hygiene, and options for safe pregnancy termination.

Visit the Grand Challenges Canada website for more information on Transition to Scale.

Value and Duration

• $150,000 to $3 million CAD
• For project periods of six months up to five years

Overview

The main purpose of the Global Health Innovation funding program is to support bold approaches that challenge existing practices and have the potential to generate substantially greater lives saved or improved, in order to best achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Due to the gender-associated barriers combined with poverty and global health challenges, GCC supports health innovations that are designed to promote gender equality. They fund innovations that meet critical challenges in reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health in low- and middle-income countries, with a focus on solutions that save and improve the lives of people who are currently unserved and underserved in Sub-Saharan Africa.

GCC funds five global health areas: (i) maternal and newborn health, (ii) saving brains, (iii) sexual and reproductive health and rights, including options for pregnancy termination, (iv) global mental health and (v) sanitation. Across these areas, most of their funding supports projects that aim to explore digital innovations, medical products and technologies, and community health worker models. These areas of innovation target SDG3 (Good Health and Well-Being), SDG4 (Early Childhood Development For Girls and Boys), SDG5 (Gender Equality) and SDG6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), and together strengthen primary health care on a systemic level. Their goal is to reach 64M lives improved and 1.78K lives saved by 2030.

At Transition to Scale, GCC supports innovations that have achieved proof-of-concept or demonstrated initial positive results and have potential to achieve lasting and sustainable impact at scale or as it reaches more people. Funding is provided in the eastly stages of projects, between the experimental and scaling phases, often referred to as the missing middle. GCC provides funding that is patient, allowing innovators the room to fail fast and repeat along a non-linear path to scale, while also encouraging accountability through project objectives during the funding period, with funding provided in stages upon meeting each milestone. GCC offers grants and other funding, such as loans and equity instruments, structured to maximize an organization’s sustainability and ability to bring in other funders. Since access to capital alone is insufficient, they also provide opportunities for peer-to-peer learning and individual support in areas that strengthen organizations and their innovations, such as fundraising, financial management, governance, gender equality, and monitoring and evaluation.

Eligibility

Applications will be screened for eligibility based on the following criteria:

1. Innovators must be invited to apply for funding under this request for proposals. GCC may extend invitations to previous or current grantees of GCC, as well as external applicants who meet GCC priorities.
2. Applicants must be either a non-profit organization, for-profit company, research/academic institution, or another recognized institution that is incorporated in a low- or middle- income country, with a current priority in Sub-Saharan Africa and is capable of receiving and managing funding.
3. A majority of applicants’ activities and budget must be carried out/spent in an official development assistance eligible country (or countries) with priority in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Deadlines

• Faculty deadline: consult your Faculty Research Facilitator
• Office of the Vice-President (Research, Innovation and International) (OVPRII) Approval Form deadline: one week before submission
• Submission to sponsor: no deadline

Submitting Your Application

1. Submit an internal Approval Form through our central awards management database cuResearch.
2. Submit an external application to Grand Challenges Canada by following their submission guidelines.

Contact Us

Heloise Emdon: HeloiseEmdon@cunet.carleton.ca

Potential applicants are also encouraged to discuss this funding opportunity with their Faculty Research Facilitator.