Together for a world where no child suffers from a vaccine-preventable disease and every child’s health is protected

Innovating organisation

To be eligible for funding, applicants must fall into one of the following categories:

• A not-for-profit organization / civil society organisation (CSO)
• A charity or non-government organisation (NGO)
• An academic institution
• A research and technology organization (RTO)
• A business of any size

ALL of the above entities must -

• Be a legally registered entity in Nigeria or Ethiopia.
• Conduct their research and/or operations in Nigeria or Ethiopia.
• Be able to demonstrate a track record in these regions.

Please note, government entities are not eligible.

Project submission

Save the Children is inviting submissions of innovative interventions that address barriers to child immunisation in Nigeria or Ethiopia.

• Innovations may be on the supply or demand side, be a product, service, approach, or a system change, or be behavioral or educational in nature.
• The innovation must be at the testing/evidence generation stage of the innovation cycle, with some initial indication of successfully addressing or showing promising work towards addressing a priority immunisation barrier.
• Your project submission should indicate how funding and support from the Accelerator will enable you to generate new and actionable evidence regarding the effectiveness of your new (or newly applied) approach in addressing an immunisation barrier OR if you already have a strong evidence base, how funding and support from the Accelerator will otherwise help you to advance your innovation to the next stage.

We will not support -

• Projects that lack an innovative component and primarily replicate existing approaches without significant adaptation or novel implementation.
• Concepts that are purely theoretical or have not been tested in any form of practice, pilot, or prior implementation.
• General healthcare interventions that do not specifically address barriers to vaccine access, uptake, or delivery.
• Proposals that rely solely on awareness campaigns without integrating measurable engagement or behaviour change strategies.

As well as answering all of the questions within the application, you must also attach a supporting budget using the supplied format.

For some illustrative examples of the type of work we are interested in, please see 'How your application is assessed'.

• The grant can be used to fund direct costs related to the project only, which includes costs for equipment, fieldwork and data collection, consumables and research assistance, travel to conferences, subsistence, and conference fees.
• The grant can only be used to deliver the objectives stated in the grant application.
• The grant may be used to contract out elements of the work where required; however, the grantee is not permitted to make sub-grants. For the purposes of these conditions, to "contract out" means to hire someone outside of your organization to do a job or service for you. This usually means making a formal agreement about what they will do and how much they will be paid.
• Organisational overhead costs will be paid not exceeding 8% of direct costs.

You must submit your application using our online form. You cannot save your application, so will need to complete the application in one sitting. We recommend you draft your answers to the application questions in a word document or similar format and when you are ready to submit your answers copy and paste them into the application form.  

• Applications must be completed in English.
• Applications will only be accepted via the online application form. If you have any difficulties completing the application online please get in touch and we will be happy to help.
• Make sure you complete all sections of the online form as incomplete forms will be ineligible.
• Submissions without a budget using the template format are also ineligible.
• Applicants may only submit one application.

Before applying for funding, we recommend becoming familiar with the Immunisation Accelerator’s impact principles and our eligibility criteria to clarify what we will look for in an application.

If you have questions not answered here, please see our FAQs page or contact us by email at: immunisationaccelerator@savethechildren.org.uk

We’ll also hold a one hour webinar one week before the closing date for applications. Details to be released in due course.

Once we’ve received an application, we will send a confirmation of receipt within five working days.

If your application does not meet our eligibility criteria, we will email to tell you that we will not be able to consider it. If you have made a mistake in your application, then we may enable you to correct this, if that is the only reason that the application is considered ineligible.

If your application meets all our eligibility criteria, then it will proceed to assessment by a panel of technical and field experts.

During the assessment process, we will contact you by phone or email to ask for more information, in which case it may take us longer to reach a decision on your application.

We expect to notify successful applicants 6-8 weeks after the closing date for applications.

The outcome of the selection of funded proposals will be final, and not open to appeal.

Please find below some illustrative examples of the kind of project focuses we may support. Please note these are examples only and it is not a requirement that your project resembles any of these. If you are unsure if your proposed project is relevant, please contact us and we will be happy to advise.

• Improving community engagement and healthcare worker training. e.g. Improving engagement of community members, local leaders and/or healthcare workers in decision making processes and/or community mobilisation; e.g. Harnessing structured support and participation of influential, non-formal health workers (for example, traditional healers) in extended health system pathways to immunization;
• Enhancing logistics and infrastructure for vaccine availability.
• Strengthening data management and surveillance systems. e.g. Innovations in tracking vaccine coverage rates, reminders and alerts for child’s care takers. E.g. Predictive service-level tools to identify which families in a community are most likely to have zero-dose children (ZDC) or under-immunised children (e.g. antenatally), enabling more targeted use of limited resources for follow-up.
• Promoting collaboration among stakeholders for improved practices.

A submission will typically be assessed on criteria such as: potential of the innovation to address a barrier to immunisation, evidence of success to date, potential for adaptation and transfer to other contexts, sustainability and strength of the team. We particularly invite proposals that on focus on barriers faced by historically marginalised communities; as well as proposals from small localized organisations and NGOs.

If we decide in principle to take your application for funding forward, we will issue a formal but conditional expression of interest in funding your project (an ‘Offer Letter’). Following a final formal due diligence process we will issue you with a contract and finance agreement.