The Stars in Global Health program supports Bold Ideas with Big Impact® from the best and brightest scientists and innovators, both in low- and middle-income countries and in Canada, to address some of the most pressing global health challenges. It provides funding to explore transformative ideas at proof-of-concept that bring together scientific/technical, social and business innovation.
The Problem
Ensuring good health and well-being is essential to sustainable development, yet intolerable inequities in health between high- and low-income areas in the world persist. Innovation is crucial to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, yet promising innovations are often limited in their ability to achieve scale and sustainability. The goal of Grand Challenges Canada’s Stars in Global Health program is to solve complex global health challenges by supporting bold ideas with the potential for big impact, resulting in improved health and wellbeing for people and communities in low- and middle-income countries.
Our Approach
The Stars in Global Health program is Grand Challenges Canada’s flagship portfolio to test the potential of new pipeline in areas of strategic interest for Grand Challenges Canada and our funders. The platform serves as an opportunity to test new strategies in order to improve the inclusivity and representation of innovations across the organization. It is also a flexible and responsive platform that allows adaptability at each round of funding to meet the most salient development needs.
The Stars program provides funding to explore transformative ideas at proof-of-concept that apply Integrated Innovation® – the coordinated application of scientific/technological, social and business innovation – in order to sustainably bring solutions to scale. Grand Challenges supports innovators as they iterate on their ideas and develop strategic partnerships that can improve sustainability and achieve meaningful impact.
Portfolio Results
Since 2010, the Stars in Global Health portfolio has supported 813 unique innovations implemented in 84 low- and middle-income countries with CAD $83.3 million over eleven rounds of funding.
Of the projects funded through the program:
- 70% have been led by institutions based in low- and middle-income countries
- 40% have been led by women-identified innovators
- In the last 4 rounds of funding, gender balance of project leadership has improved – with 50% of projects led by women.
Funding Opportunities
Through this Stars in Global Health funding call, GCC seeks to create an opportunity to landscape the state of innovative ideas seeking to address adaptation needs as climate change continues to impact health and wellbeing. This funding call is looking for projects that address the following challenge statement:
The Stars program is seeking bold ideas that address the human health impacts of climate change in low- and middle-income countries. These innovative solutions are expected to address the adaptation gaps and build resilience against the effects of climate change on the human health and wellbeing of underserved communities. Solutions should consider the fact that older adults, women, young people, Indigenous peoples, people with disabilities, LGBTQI+ individuals, and other traditionally underserved and minority groups are most vulnerable to the health impacts of climate change in many contexts.
We encourage locally-led organizations who are meaningfully connected with the communities they are looking to work with and for to apply to the Request for Proposals. We also want to particularly encourage Francophone entities based in Western and Central Africa, and organizations led by women or non-binary individuals to apply.
Successful proposals will be awarded seed grants of up to $150,000 CAD for up to 18 months to develop and test the proposed innovation.
The applicant registration deadline is December 15, 2022 at 2:00pm EST (7:00pm UTC).
The application submission deadline is December 22, 2022 at 2:00pm EST (7:00pm UTC).
The Stars in Global Health team hosted an applicant information session with a Q&A period – the recording can be found here and the deck accessed here. We will be hosting another Q&A session on December 8th – register here.
Relevant Round 12 Documents
Request for Proposals in English
Request for Proposals in French
Frequently Asked Questions in English
Frequently Asked Questions in French
2 Pager | Overview in English
2 Pager | Overview in French
Application questions in English
Application questions in French
NOTE: The application questions are being shared here for ease of reference, but applications MUST be submitted through the Fluxx Portal. Please review the Request for Proposals for additional details.
Click to start your application on Grand Challenges Canada’s Fluxx Portal.
