19th May 2016 Los Angeles, USA
Funding: Global Challenges Research Fund
Agriculture and Food Systems call (~£15M)
The challenge of ensuring access to a safe, sufficient and nutritious diet for a healthy life – whilst maintaining a healthy agri-environment – will intensify as demand for food rises with an increasing global population, urbanisation and changing diets. At the same time as ensuring a sustainable food supply chain, food production systems need to cope with climatic, political and financial instabilities, changes in cultures of consumption, and the need to protect and manage finite natural resources in order to foster more resilient systems, and align with public health goals.
These challenges are particularly acute in Lower and Middle Income Countries (LMICs) thus addressing these will help delivering the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. New research is needed to help produce sufficient levels of safe food for a healthy life-course, using less land, water and energy, ensuring maintenance of the natural capital stocks and ecosystems services for future generations, whilst also engaging with the needs of local communities.
BBSRC’s usual eligibility rules will apply to this food security call with an emphasis on providing the foundations for ODA-relevant research by UK institutions – including the establishment/strengthening of partnerships with colleagues in LMICs who may be named in proposals as project partners.
The recent outbreaks of Ebola and Zika, annual bird/swine flu endemics, threats to the safety of our food, the growing danger of antimicrobial resistance and the on-going global burden of foot and mouth disease, malaria and tuberculosis illustrate the large-scale challenge that infectious diseases continue to pose to human and farmed animal health.
This challenge arises from a complex interplay between social, cultural, ecological and biological factors and is exacerbated by our rapidly changing climate and increased urbanization and globalisation. Understanding and addressing the challenge of infectious disease, including its prevention and management, requires a systems approach, able to map and interrogate the broad range of driving factors and the linkages between them. Such an approach benefits from the pooling of expertise and knowledge of sector specialists in inter-disciplinary teams.
Non-communicable diseases call (~£19M)
The health needs of LMICs are evolving. With improving infrastructures for the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases and increasing relative prosperity driving urbanisation and changing patterns of physical activity, diet, and tobacco and alcohol consumption, non-communicable diseases represent the new health challenge These health challenges were responsible for 63% of all global deaths in 2008, a figure projected to rise to 75% by 2030.
A more complete global research approach to non-communicable disease will benefit medical science and interdisciplinary research in developed countries as well as LMICs. Understanding wider and more extreme variation in diet, in environment, in behaviours or in early life; and a more complete understanding of human biological and cultural variability, will undoubtedly give new insights into universal processes in human health and disease.
These funding opportunities are open to teams with an international component. However, the team must have a UK PI to be eligible. The closing date for all three calls is 22 June 2016.