Grand Challenges Canada

A new organization devoted to fusing S&T and innovation with Canada's international assistance efforts has chosen point-of-care diagnostics as the first of five major challenges to combat health challenges in the developing world. Funded through the recently established Development Innovation Fund (DIF), Grand Challenges Canada (GCC) will receive $225 million over five years to develop and implement solutions through the integration of scientific and technological innovation with social and business innovation.

Modelled along the lines of the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Gates Foundation's Global Challenges Program, GCC is a partnership between the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). Hosted at the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health and arm's length from government, the independent, not-for-profit organization will also work closely with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which has spearheaded similar work through its Global Health and Global Development initiatives.

"The model is pretty innovative to have us outside of government but linked to the international development and international assistance envelope," says Dr Peter Singer, who will serve as GCC's CEO. "This is a nice example of open institutional innovation … combined with a novel, purpose-built organization. It's a whole-of-Canada approach to complex, important challenges."

With IDRC as the government lead on the DIF, GCC will leverage that agency's 40-year track record of building science and research capacity in the developing world. CIHR will be responsible for the peer review of competitions for the five grand challenges, which will be fully rolled out over the next two years. The presidents of both organizations will sit on the GCC's 10-member board of directors (see chart).

GCC defines a grand challenge as a specific barrier that needs to be removed to alleviate a key health problem plaguing the developing world. An estimated nine million children in the developing world die before the age of five and diagnostics could save more than 100,000 lives a year from malaria alone and eliminate millions of unnecessary treatments.

GCC's initial focus is to identify, fund and support scientific, social and business innovation relating to point-of-care diagnostics. A $12-million request for proposals was launched simultaneously with the May 3rd announcement of the organization's creation and closely follows a $30-million RFP that the Gates Foundation launched.

combines resources with gates foundation

While both RFPs are in support of point-of-care diagnostics — an area considered neglected but with high impact potential — the GCC and Gates RFPs differ in several ways. Whereas the Gates Foundation RFP is geography neutral, the GCC RFP is focused specifically on the developing world, includes an additional category of implementation research and can support development workshops at the letter of intent stage. Expertise within the developing world will be supported where required with Canadian expertise augmenting that talent to fill gaps when they emerge.

"There will be a $42-million community of innovators working on this problem. It's a plug-and-play approach … This is innovation at the coal face. We need to be part of a community and at a global standard of excellence," says Singer, adding that diagnostics is a necessary prelude to treatment. "

Perhaps the most novel aspect of GCC's strategy is the integrated nature of its approach for addressing health issues in the developing world. A three-step process is used to identify challenges, support research and innovation initiatives, as well as seek private sector and philanthropic individuals for investment to make the solutions broadly available. Singer says the integrated strategy marks a significant departure from the way developed nations typically provide assistance to developing countries and puts Canada at the forefront of a fresh approach that helps build research capacity in recipient countries in collaboration with Canadian expertise.

"We think about integration right up front … The sweet spot is between the three types of innovation (scientific and technological, social and business) and bringing innovation to each. We're also innovating our approach to innovation in the types of challenges we pick and the projects we fund," says Singer. "May 3rd (GCC's launch date) may prove to be an exciting moment in our country and our ability to do our part in the developing world."

Singer credits the government for the creation of the DIF in the 2008 Budget, signalling its intention to break with past practices. Certainly the size of GCC's budget has gotten the attention of many, which dwarfs any previous programs linking innovation with international development.

While the features of GCC are similar to programs run by the IDRC, there are significant differences. One is simply its scale. With a budget that averages out to $45 million annually, GCC is far larger than the 16 to 18 programs currently managed by IDRC, which range between $5 million and $15 million. Indeed, GCC boosts IDRC's allocation from $165 million to $210 million, an increase of nearly one third.

"GCC is also focused much more heavily on the hard sciences angle than the programs we tend to support," says Rohinton Medhora, IDRC's VP programs. There's also the partnerships between research teams in Canada and the developing world which will lead to the creation of a global network of researchers focused on global health."

Medhora says the launch of GCC has created a lot of excitement within IDRC as it provides a perfect complement to the organization's mandate and anticipation for what such a large and ambitious program can deliver. But he says that excitement is also tempered with some caution.

How well GCC does in addressing key health challenges will determine whether the program has a life beyond its current lifespan.

If it performs best-in-class in Canada and internationally then it should have a life beyond five years. Our responsibility is to to perform," says Singer. "We need to keep a focus on the ones we seek to serve."

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