Impact Grants for Regional Priorities

The Impact Grants fund implementation research on infectious diseases of poverty that leads to health improvement of the population as well as strengthened research capacity of individuals and institutions in low- and middle-income countries. It also encourages cooperation between the research teams with national and international partners.

Overall objectives

• Strengthen the research capacity of relevant individuals and institutions in countries.
• Generate new knowledge, solutions and implementation strategies that can be applied by countries for the control and elimination of infectious diseases.
• Encourage intersectoral dialogue and a One Health approach.

A joint initiative with WHO regional offices

The Impact Grants are a joint initiative between TDR and WHO regional offices under the current TDR Strategy 2023-2029.

Projects are carried out by researchers in developing countries, while the grants are implemented and managed by the WHO regional offices for Africa, the Americas, South-East Asia, Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Western Pacific.

Since 2014 the Scheme’s focus has been on implementation research and each region has taken more responsibility for jointly identifying with TDR the research priorities to be funded. The scheme has included all WHO regions since 2016.

How much funding is available?

These are small grants of US$ 10 000–US$ 15 000 per grant.

What does the initiative support?

Impact Grants encourage health care workers and researchers to apply for grants, including those working in institutions such as regional or national tropical/communicable disease control programmes in ministries of health, academic institutions, research institutes, and nongovernmental organizations, and professional societies or civil service organizations involved in tropical disease research.

Applications that promote cooperation between researchers in different institutions, especially from more than one country are strongly encouraged.

How are applications assessed?

Proposals are selected based on a competitive evaluation by WHO staff in the relevant regional office and TDR. Scoring evaluates each project’s scientific merit and planned public health impact.

Publications resulting from the supported projects and data are made available as global public goods following the TDR Open Access policy. 

To view calls for applications, please visit our Grants page.

Outputs by region (2019)

Research projects addressed several common themes across WHO regions

• maternal and child health
• using GeneXpert – TB molecular diagnostic tool
• household burden of TB – catastrophic costs
• malaria treatment/control strategies
• leishmaniasis and vector control
• snakebite
• hepatitis C virus economic analysis
• antimicrobial/multi-drug resistance.

Policy and learning materials produced by projects

Many project teams developed practical approaches and materials that they used to inform and educate their policy-makers, public health officials, students, health care professionals, and local health advocacy groups. These materials were used to inform national public health programmes, build partners’ capacity and share research results with decision-makers.

Tools and practices with transfer potential

Many small grants principal investigators have suggested tools and practices from their projects that they feel are worth sharing. These are outputs with potential for transfer for use by other public health and research professionals to address neglected tropical diseases.

Knowledge briefings

Several "knowledge briefs" have resulted from the small grants research. They synthesize work done by several projects on common themes, to encourage wider sharing of project experience on tropical disease treatment and control:

• decentralizing TB care: transition from in-patient to out-patient model
• approaches to Leishmaniasis detection, prevention and control
• molecular diagnostics for rapid TB detection (Gene Xpert)
• reducing the impact of catastrophic TB costs for households.