At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January 26, 2003, Bill Gates announced a $200 million grant to establish the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative, an effort in partnership with the non-profit Foundation for the National Institutes of Health Inc. (FNIH). “The initiative will identify critical scientific challenges in global health and increase research on diseases that cause millions of deaths in the developing world.” [1, 2, 3, 6]
“The initiative will identify critical scientific challenges in global health and increase research on diseases that cause millions of deaths in the developing world.” The initiative is managed by the “global health experts at the FNIH, the BMGF, the CIHR, and the Wellcome Trust”
On the Scientific Board is Dr Anthony Fauci and a BMGF representative, who are “charged with identifying specific scientific or technological innovations that are likely to:
- Have a global impact
- Show high potential for feasibility
- Potentially remove a critical barrier to solving health problems”
In 2007, the Gates Foundation launched Grand Challenges Explorations, a small scale funding initiative to “engage more of the world’s innovators more quickly.” [4]
The initiative was relaunched on October 7, 2014 as the Global Grand Challenges, to expand to “a family of initiatives fostering innovation to solve key global health and development problems” [5]