Ten Impact Grants have been awarded following a call for applications jointly issued by TDR and WHO’s Regional Office for the Western Pacific (WPRO), who have a common interest in strengthening the capacity for health research in low- and middle-income countries. The call reflects a commitment to support implementation research that inform the delivery of high-quality and cost-efficient health care solutions to people in resource-poor settings.
Over the last few decades, the Western Pacific Region has seen marked economic growth, urbanization, innovation, and action on health. Yet the benefits have not been shared equally across all populations. Many people struggle to access quality health services and experience poor health outcomes. Within countries, it is the most disadvantaged and marginalized people who are most at risk. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown how systems that cannot efficiently reach the unreached compromise health responses at all levels while highlighting the great extent to which healthy economies depend on healthy people.
Implementation research to address access to health services by populations in most need can contribute to leveraging political commitments for health. It can also enhance multisectoral collaboration and create cross-programmatic efficiencies, as well as engage unreached communities in developing, implementing and evaluating strategies.
The selected research proposals address the following priority areas:
- promoting integrated service delivery;
- promoting innovations and systems approaches to reach the unreached; and
- promoting multisectoral and One Health approaches.
The Impact Grants for Regional Priorities support researchers and public health practitioners as part of TDR’s collaboration with all WHO regional offices. The objectives of the impact grants are to strengthen the research capacity of relevant individuals and institutions in countries; generate new knowledge, solutions and implementation strategies that countries can apply for the control and elimination of infectious diseases; and encourage intersectoral dialogue and One Health approaches.
The selected grant recipients and their research projects are listed in the table below:
For more information, please contact Dr Garry Aslanyan at TDR or Dr Manami Yanagawa at WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific.