Dear Meena,
Thank you for highlighting the Mercury Project call for funding proposals
https://www.hifa.org/dgroups-rss/call-funding-proposal
"Sharing below link for a call for funding proposal and I felt your work in HIFA with partners clearly fits with this.
The Mercury Project: Call For Proposals – Social Science Research Council (SSRC), Dr Meena Cherian"
https://www.ssrc.org/programs/the-mercury-project/call-for-proposals/
Here is some information from their website for consideration by all HIFA members:
'The Mercury Project is a $10M research consortium investigating the impacts of health misinformation and evaluating interventions to prevent its spread in the United States, Africa, Asia, and Latin America.'
'Evidence-based strategies to combat health mis- and disinformation and to increase the uptake of reliable health information are critical to an effective and equitable pandemic response.
The Mercury Project invites letters of inquiry for research projects that address one or more of the following goals:
1) estimating the causal impacts of mis- and disinformation on online and offline outcomes in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, including health, economic, and/or social outcomes, differential impacts across sociodemographic groups, and quantifying the global costs of those impacts;
2) estimating the causal impacts of online or offline interventions in the United States, Africa, Asia, and Latin America to increase uptake of Covid-19 vaccines and other recommended public health measures by countering mis- and disinformation, including interventions that target the producers or the consumers of mis- and disinformation, or that increase confidence in reliable information.'
This looks like a great opportunity for researchers/academic insitutions who are working in this area. If any HIFA members would like to consider this, please keep in mind the possibility that HIFA could be a junior partner in your research. HIFA has a unique capacity and solid experience to serve as a platform for exchange of experience and expertise among global health professionals. A research funding proposal could be strenghtened by inclusion of a modest budget line for such thematic discussions. If you are interested to explore the possibility of including HIFA in your funding proposal, whether for the Mercury Project or another funder, please let me know: neil@hifa.org
Neil Pakenham-Walsh, HIFA Coordinator, neil@hifa.org www.hifa.org
