The conventional understanding of women's health - which mainly centers on reproductive and maternal health - must be redefined: the health of women includes the overall health and well-being of women's bodies and minds across their life course, as well as the consideration of sex and gender in all aspects of disease and treatment. When using the term women in the context of ‘women's health' we are also inclusive of both sex as a biological variable and gender as a social variable across the life course (including girls and adolescents) and people assigned female at birth, transgender women, transgender men, and non-binary people.
Tailoring prevention, screening, diagnostics, and treatments for diseases and conditions to account for sex and gender differences, as well as for women's context and environment, is crucial to support their health and well-being. By addressing intersectional and underlying social and structural factors, we can empower women to make informed decisions, pursue their ambitions, and live healthier lives. When women globally have access to appropriate, high-quality care, they can plan their families, increase their households' resilience to shocks, and advance their education. As women frequently serve as family caregivers, healthy mothers contribute to healthier households with better nutrition, improved child development and education, and higher household earnings. Healthy women transform societies.
Women's health is currently an underserved area for innovation, facing disproportionately low R&D funding relative to its burden. As recently as 2020, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) represented nearly 60% of funding for sexual and reproductive health R&D. While stakeholders are beginning to address innovation gaps in women's health, no coordinated agenda across sectors with a global focus exists to align their efforts. The result is less innovation in the women's health space and limited data to support business cases for new products.
The Women's Health Innovation team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is looking for innovations and ideas that address opportunities outlined in the Opportunity Map. While not all opportunities in the Opportunity Map are in scope for this RFP (see list below and Table 1), we are looking to fund proposals that address a wide range of issues.
The ultimate goal of this RFP is to kickstart work to address gaps in women's health R&D. The overall objectives are to:
- Advance bold ideas that address opportunities in the Opportunity Map
- Enhance overall funding and resources for women's health R&D
- Demonstrate effectiveness of investments in women's health R&D
Deadline: Dec. 6, 2023
This initiative is open to nonprofit organizations, for-profit companies, international organizations, government agencies and academic institutions. We particularly encourage applications involving projects led by women or from women-led organizations and applications from institutions based in low- and middle-income countries. Proposals should be aligned to local public health systems. Additionally, collaborations are highly encouraged.
The funding level for each award is a total of up to USD $150,000 for a project lasting up to 2 years, based on the scope of the proposed project. We intend to fund up to 3 proposals for each of the 8 in-scope Opportunity Areas listed above and in Table 1. The proposed budget must realistically reflect the technical work and project deliverables within a time frame of up to 2 years; in some cases, a smaller budget and/or shorter grant period may be justified. Budgets and scope may be negotiated with applicants as part of the review process to ensure the foundation's ability to fund a robust and balanced portfolio with good geographic scope with the existing available budget.