The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Natural Science Foundation of China announced the first request for proposals (RFP) for the Grand Challenges (GC) China Program on Feb 3.

The RFP calls for innovative concepts for safe, effective, affordable and widely utilized interventions, such as vaccines and therapeutics, with the potential to protect against the acquisition, progression or transmission of infectious diseases that disproportionately affect the world's poorest.

The GC China Program was jointly launched by the Gates Foundation and NSFC in October 2015 at the GC Annual Meeting in Beijing, with the aim to support scientific and technological research projects focused on tackling major infectious diseases, reducing maternal and child mortality, strengthening translation capacity, advancing agriculture, food and nutrition outcomes, and alleviating challenges in other key areas that will benefit people in need in both China and beyond.

With the RFP, the Gates Foundation and NSFC aim to solicit novel concepts and candidates for vaccines that can serve as transformative tools in the efforts to prevent, control or eliminate major infectious diseases. Additionally, the RFP also seeks to explore new therapeutic options to treat infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria and diarrheal diseases in infants that burden those living in low-resource settings.

Research projects must involve substantive collaboration between Chinese and international teams to be eligible to apply. Grants will be up to $1 million and four years, with joint funding from the Gates Foundation and NSFC.

Grand Challenges (GC) - a family of initiatives fostering innovation - was created in 2003 and has proven to be a successful model in catalyzing innovations for global health and development priorities over the past over 10 years. GC China is the latest addition to the Grand Challenges family, joining other members including Grand Challenges Canada, Brazil, India, Thailand and Africa.