Fund Launched To Sustaining the Future of Global Health

Britain’s Wellcome Trust has launched a global funding scheme to seed research into ‘new thinking’ around the impact of a changing world and sustaining the future of health.

The Sustaining Health fund will support pilot research projects to investigate the issues around the environment, nutrition and health, as well as the impact of individuals behaviour and societies.

“The ultimate goal is to develop fresh approaches to prevent and mitigate the risks to human health,” the Acting Director of the Wellcome Trust, Dr Ted Bianco said.

"Our world is changing. A burgeoning population, relentless urbanisation and changing climate are expected to have significant consequences for the health of humanity, yet the evidence base to inform policy to meet these challenges remains limited.

"We need to find the levers for change that will drive the agenda to find solutions to these complex problems, for the sake of our children and future generations to come.

"We believe this journey begins with better defining the problem and the power to unlock human data will be of paramount importance on the road to meeting these challenges.

“Understanding the factors that influence lifestyle decisions and human behaviour at the individual and population level are crucial for achieving this goal, to improve public health for today and tomorrow," Dr Bianco said.

“We welcome proposals from a broad range of disciplines and we particularly encourage applications from cross-sector collaborations, involving academic organisations, industry/business, non-governmental organisations and/or government agencies based in the UK and overseas.

“An initial fund of £5 million has been committed to launch the scheme, and the aim is to build research capacity for interdisciplinary research in this area that will be eligible to seek larger-scale funding from the Trust's existing biomedical and translational funding programmes.

“Proposals with the potential to 'unlock the power of data' are particularly welcomed, recognising the value of the explosion of data – such as mobile phone data, retail store cards, public transport and insurance records – in the public and private domains.

“Mobile phones are already being used to track the spread of emerging diseases. Combining these data with health, climate and environmental projections could provide a powerful resource for better understanding and predicting human behaviour and likely health outcomes of different environments.

Under the new scheme, researchers can apply for up to £250, 000 support for up to two years to kick-start pilot projects in the areas of behaviour change, global nutrition, health impacts of climate change and ecological public health. Extraordinary projects will be eligible to apply for up to £500 000. The scheme is open to both academic and Not for Profit research institutions and commercial companies.

Click here to find out more about Sustaining Health proposals.