Funds enhance the Mercury Project, a $25 million consortium to identify cost-effective and scalable solutions that build vaccination demand around the world.
New York January 23, 2023—The Social Science Research Council announced new funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to expand the Mercury Project, a consortium of social and behavioral scientists evaluating cost-effective and scalable solutions to build vaccination demand and healthier information environments.
The funding enables an additional $2 million to support projects that evaluate the causal impacts of interventions designed to increase demand for vaccinations, including childhood vaccines, HPV, polio, measles, and Covid-19 vaccinations, in low- and lower-middle income countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Social Science Research Councils welcomes the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to the consortium funding the $25 million Mercury Project, whose members include The Rockefeller Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, and the National Science Foundation. Teams in the Mercury Project consortium are currently evaluating a portfolio of interventions in 17 countries that vary in settings, target populations, and risk/reward ratios, with the goal of identifying those interventions that most cost-effectively and scalably vaccination demand and healthier information environments.
The Mercury Project is now accepting proposals and will make awards on a rolling basis following rigorous review. Applicants are encouraged to submit their proposals as soon as possible. More information about the application process and criteria can be found here on the Social Science Research Council’s website.
The Mercury Project is the unique product of collaborative philanthropic investment and scientific innovation. It funds rigorous social and behavioral science aimed at ensuring that vaccines turn into vaccinations, matching the global commitment to increase vaccine supply with a commitment to increase vaccine demand.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation investment comes as UNICEF announces not only low and inequitable uptake of the Covid-19 vaccine but also “the largest sustained backslide in childhood vaccination in a generation.” The Mercury Project seeks ambitious teams worldwide to bring together social and behavioral scientists with practitioners and policymakers to rigorously test locally grounded solutions to improve demand for vaccinations across the life course.
The US government alone invested over $30 billion in developing Covid-19 vaccines. But that investment—and other private and public investments in bench science and supply chains around the world—is undermined if vaccines remain on shelves rather than getting into arms. “Funding high-quality social and behavioral science is a force multiplier; it helps us find solutions to complex problems that can be deployed broadly by governments, NGOs, and the private sector,” says Anna Harvey, President of the Social Science Research Council. “The unique structure of the Mercury Project helps move this important work forward efficiently and in a coordinated way so that funders see maximum return on their support.”
“We are delighted to welcome the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to this landmark collaborative effort alongside the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and Craig Newmark Philanthropies,” says Bruce Gellin, Chief of Global Public Health Strategy at The Rockefeller Foundation. “Understanding and influencing human and system behavior, in the way pursued by The Mercury Project, is an essential part of building a modern public health infrastructure, saving lives, and making opportunity universal and sustainable.”
The Mercury Project, which alludes to the ancient Roman god Mercury of messages and communication, is currently supporting 90+ researchers and practitioners, working in twelve teams across seventeen countries on locally and globally policy-relevant evaluations.
Grounded in the Mercury Project’s research framework, applicant teams will pursue the goal of increasing vaccine demand by evaluating strategies to lower the search, decision, and logistical costs to accessing vaccination while increasing the benefits, including social benefits, that drive vaccination.
About the Social Science Research Council
The Social Science Research Council, a nonpartisan nonprofit founded in 1923 by seven professional associations in the social and behavioral sciences, mobilizes policy-relevant social and behavioral science for the public good. Learn more about our history at 100.ssrc.org.
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