First In The World Challenge Initiative:
Aimed at encouraging Indian scientists to come up with innovative ideas for finding solutions to difficult health problems, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has announced a new initiative called “First in the World Challenge”.
- The “First in the World” Challenge, inspired by the success of Chandrayaan-3, is a major initiative of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) designed to promote the development of groundbreaking health technologies.
- The scheme aims to foster novel, out-of-the-box, futuristic ideas, new knowledge generation, and discovery/development of breakthrough health technologies (vaccines, drugs/therapeutics, diagnostics, interventions, etc.) that have never been thought of, tested or tried in the world till date.
- This high-risk, high-reward program will provide funding for projects at various stages, from proof-of-concept to prototype and final product development.
- The proposal must have bold research ideas with significant wide-ranging impact and, if successful, should have potential ‘first of its kind’ biomedical and technological innovations for better health outcomes in the global context.
- Proposals aiming for ‘incremental’ knowledge’ or ‘process innovation ‘will not be funded through this scheme.
- The proposals can be submitted by an individual or by a team of researchers either from a single institute or from multiple institutes
- Every team application must designate one Principal Investigator from the team who will be responsible for technical, administrative, and financial deliverables.
- A selection committee will be formed by experts of high repute, innovators, policymakers and scientists with outstanding record of conducting research and innovation in the biomedical domain.
- This initiative will inspire our scientists to come up with innovative ideas for finding solutions to difficult health problems.
