Grant Overview
The purpose of Ramani Fund seed grants is to support early-career researchers from low-income countries who study the interplay of medicine, technology and behavioral economics with the goal of improving public health. Each grant of up to 3000 USD will support relevant scientific research with clearly defined questions and strong methodology including appropriate statistical analysis.
Deadline
22 May, 2026
Who is eligible to apply?
In order to be eligible for this grant, the applicant
- Must have a strong, formal association such as staff or student of an organization that is legally registered in a current World Bank designated low-income country.
- Must be resident in the same low-income country as above.
- Must have graduated from a relevant, accredited bachelor’s, master’s or PhD program within the past five years.
What do I need to apply?
Please satisfy the following requirements by the RFP deadline.
An online application that succinctly describes the research question you are asking, relevance of the research topic to your community, study design, timeline of the study, and how you plan to spend the grant money.
Proof of strong, formal association between the applicant and an organization that is legally registered in a current World Bank designated low-income country.
Proof of residency of the applicant in the same low-income country as above.
Proof of graduation from a relevant, accredited bachelor’s, master’s or PhD program within the past five years.
Budget and timeline for the proposed project.
Technical application
- Describe a real situation from your own work where you encountered the problem you want to solve. What happened step-by-step? Who was involved (roles, not names)? What made it difficult to solve? 300 word limit
- What has already been tried to solve this problem? Why have those attempts failed? 150 words
- What are you proposing? Why do you believe this will work in your specific setting? State your core idea in 1–2 sentences. 150 words
- A clear, succinct hypothesis that you want to test as a solution to the problem described above. What is the specific measurable outcome that would demonstrate success? 75 words
- Describe your study design to test your hypothesis. Your design must include a comparison strategy such as: Before vs after; Intervention vs control group; Alternating or phased implementation. Include: Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome, Timeframe. 200 words
- What statistical methods will you use to compare your groups or time periods? What assumptions must hold for your conclusion to be valid? What are the biggest risks of bias or confounding? 200 words
- How will you determine whether your intervention worked? What effect size would be meaningful in your setting? Why is your expected sample sufficient to detect this? 150 words
- What exactly will you do in the first 90 days? Who will be involved? What constraints do you anticipate? 150 words
- What could go wrong scientifically? What have similar efforts struggled with? 150 words
- What are the 2–3 most essential components of your study that must be preserved for your results to remain valid? If you had to reduce your budget by half, what would you remove? What mitigation would you have to do so that your study still produces credible evidence? 150 words
- Name one reference (person, organization) in your setting who would support or challenge this work, and why. 75 words
- Explain the public health (100 words) and economic impact (100 words) in your community of interest if your hypothesis is proven to be true by your results.
- Provide a brief timeline of your study with milestones. Required milestones are
- Contract signed between Ramani Fund and institution to receive grant money
- Preparatory work prior to starting data collection or intervention
- Create study team/collaborators
- Study equipment/tools purchased/developed and tested
- Ethics approval obtained
- Start of data collection/intervention
- End of data collection/intervention
- Data analysis
- Preparing manuscript for publication
- Close out of Ramani Fund grant
- One page budget and budget narrative table (a description of each item). All costs must be in US dollars. Budget categories are:
- Personnel
- Equipment or software
- Supplies and consumables
- Other