Framework domain | Guidance | How to uphold the guidance: Corresponding feature of grant programme design | Examples from existing grants programmes |
Research population | Target health research to badly-off countries and populations within them | 1a. Restrict host countries to those badly-off in health terms OR 1b. Restrict host countries to those badly-off in terms of multidimensional poverty 2. Require or prioritise research performed with or focussed on those considered disadvantaged, marginalised and/or vulnerable within countries, for example, populations or communities exhibiting worse health status or multidimensional poverty status relative to the national average | 1a. Focal countries of grant programme are countries where the under-five mortality rate is above 80 per 1000 live births and/or where the maternal mortality rate is above 300 per 100 000. 1b. Focal countries of grant programme are largely low-income, including fragile and post-conflict states. 2. Grantmaking principle: Priority will be given to research that benefits the most vulnerable populations. |
Research topics and questions (process) | Promote LMIC ownership of the research agenda | 1a. Restrict applicants to LMIC institutions/researchers OR 1b. Require and support LMIC researchers to lead priority-setting AND/OR 1c. Require and support demonstrated shared decision-making between LMIC researchers and HIC researchers in priority-setting 2. Require and support community members to share priority-setting decision-making or, at a minimum, be consulted as part of priority-setting 3. Require and support those considered disadvantaged or marginalised within host countries to share priority-setting decision-making or, at a minimum, be consulted as part of priority-setting | 1a. Require lead applicants be from LMIC institutions only 1b. Require that if the principal investigator is based in a HIC, there must be clear scientific leadership from LMIC co-investigators. Assess in the grant application by asking applicants to describe the leadership role of LMIC co-investigators. 1c. Require applicants to submit an expression of interest and, for a proportion of those expressions of interest, fund all partners to come together to develop the full proposal. Assess in the full grant application by asking applicants to describe how principal and co-investigators shared decision-making in research priority-setting and research design. 2. Support planning grants or phases for researchers to engage with LMIC community members in order to develop subsequent grant applications or to inform funded projects’ design, respectively. 3. Grantmaking principle: Consulting and engaging others, particularly marginalised groups. |
Research topics and questions (outputs) | Focus research on improving equitable healthcare and systems | Require research to generate new knowledge to improve access to high-quality health services and/or financial protection for those considered disadvantaged or marginalised within countries | Grantmaking principle that calls for research to address the root causes of unequal access to primary health services. |
Research capacity development | Develop independent LMIC research capacity at individual, teams, institutional and systems levels | Require and support applicants to help create a ‘critical mass’ of LMIC researchers, teams and research institutions, with networks connecting them, that can obtain funding and perform research on their own | Require applicants to have capacity building strategies and have selection criteria assessing their quality, including having realistic and achievable plans for building independent LMIC capacity at individual and institutional levels, for example,
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Ancillary care | Deliver ancillary care to study participants | Require and support the identification of ethically essential ancillary care and support its provision by study investigators. (See table 1 for more information on what comprises ethically essential ancillary care.) | Budget permits support for systems that enable researchers to identify ancillary care needs (eg, epidemiological surveys, clinic data collection systems or gathering information from local clinical staff) and for providing ethically essential ancillary care. |
Knowledge translation | Have a lasting impact on health disparities |
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HIC, high-income countries; LMIC, low- and middle-income countries.