比尔及梅琳达盖茨基金会自2008年9月起开始接受第二轮“探索大挑战”（Grand Challenges Explorations）资助申请书。“探索大挑战”是一项始于去年、总额达一亿美元的五年计划，该计划鼓励开展大胆的非传统研究，旨在探索新的全球健康解决方案。该项奖金的首要目标之一是鼓励全球科研人员的积极参与，包括非洲、亚洲和其他发展中国家/地区拥有创新观点的科研人员、私营部门的工作人员和年轻的调查者。
该计划采用一种灵活的、快速的资助流程，申请书只需包含两页的内容，不要求提供初步资料。基金会和一个独立评审团将选择最具创新性的申请书，自申请书提交截止日期起约三个月内拨付赠款。每笔探索资助金将为100,000美元，效果较好的项目将有可能进而获得1,000,000美元或更多的资金。
申请方可以在线提交资助申请，网址为www.gcgh.org/explorations，申请截止日期为2008年11月2日。
“探索大挑战”第二轮将考虑如下六大领域的申请书：
· 研发能预防腹泻、艾滋病、疟疾、肺炎和结核病的新疫苗；
· 研发能快速消除疟疾的新工具；
· 研发能预防传染病的新方式，包括传统接种疫苗的替代方案；
· 研发能限制致病介质产生耐药性的药物和服务提供系统；
· 研发能预防或治疗HIV感染的新方式，且这些方式不在当前有关疫苗以及其他生物医学和行为改变策略的研究范围内；
· 探索结核潜伏期的根源，旨在开创新技术来找出和消除潜伏感染。
第二轮申请书征集遵循第一轮的轨迹。第一轮申请书征集已于今年5月份结束，共收到了100多个国家的科研人员提交的近4,000份申请书。基金会有望在今年10月份宣布第一轮获得资助的申请人名单。
有关申请书主题和申请指南，请访问www.gcgh.org/explorations。
Gates Foundation Now Accepting Proposals for Grand Challenges Explorations Round 2
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is now accepting grant proposals for Round 2 of Grand Challenges Explorations, a five-year US$100 million initiative to encourage bold and unconventional research on new global health solutions. Proposals for six topics will be accepted online at www.gcgh.org/explorations through November 2, 2008.
Round 2 follows on the heels of the initiative’s first funding round, which closed in May of this year, and generated nearly 4,000 applications from scientists in more than 100 countries. Two new topics are being introduced in Round 2 along with the initial four topics from Round 1.
One of the primary objectives of Grand Challenges Explorations is to involve scientists around the world who do not typically work in global health. This includes those with innovative ideas in Africa, Asia, and other parts of the developing world; people working in the private sector; and young investigators.
The initiative uses an agile, accelerated grant-making process. Applications are two pages, and preliminary data about the proposed research are not required. In addition, the online application process has been streamlined for Round 2.
The topic areas for which proposals will be accepted in Round 2 are:
· Create new vaccines for diarrhea, HIV, malaria, pneumonia, and TB
· Create new tools to accelerate the eradication of malaria
· Create new ways to protect against infectious diseases, including alternatives to traditional vaccination
· Create new drugs and delivery systems to limit the emergence of resistance in the disease-causing agent
· Create new ways to prevent or cure HIV infection that fall outside current research on vaccines and other biomedical and behavior-change strategies
· Explore the basis for latency in TB, with the goal of discovering new ways to identify and eliminate latent infection
The foundation and an independent group of reviewers will select the most innovative proposals, and grants will be awarded within approximately three months from the proposal submission deadline. Initial grants will be $100,000 each. Projects showing success will have the opportunity to receive additional funding of $1 million or more. Round 1 grants are expected to be announced in October.
Full descriptions of the topic areas and application instructions are available at www.gcgh.org/explorations.
