Program Information

Gilead Sciences Research Scholars Program in HIV

The Global Public Health Awards support the development of independent investigators from low and middle-income countries with an interest in supporting country driven research priorities to meet sustainable development goals for people infected with or at risk for viral Hepatitis (B,C,D) and/or HIV.

Research proposals should be exclusively focused on implementation science or clinical epidemiology and be centered around strengthening the cascade for surveillance, screening, linkage to care/treatment, and prevention. Applicants need not focus on all aspects of the care cascade but can focus on any one or more of the aspects or helping populations enter and/or navigate the care cascade.

Examples of research topics could include, however are not limited to:

  • Advancing health equity/addressing societal barriers to care

  • Community-led models (e.g., community ART refill groups, KP-led models, peer health models)

  • Person-centered models of care 

  • Digital health initiatives including the use of AI, Machine learning to improve outcomes

  • Self-care including self-testing, self-collection/swabbing, etc.

  • Strategies to improve treatment outcomes 

  • Barriers/facilitators to novel therapies (e.g., LA ART, LA PrEP)

  • Modelling (cost effectiveness/infectious disease dynamics)

  • Surveillance (e.g., burden of infection, drug resistance, causes/predictors of mortality and/or advanced HIV diseases

  • Stigma and discrimination as barriers to care

Research proposals can focus on more than one of the above topics, however, should be limited to populations living with or vulnerable to HIV and/or viral hepatitis (B,C,D).

We encourage proposals that seek to work with the following:

  • people who engage in transactional sex
  • people who inject drugs
  • people who are incarcerated
  • transgender people
  • men who have sex with men
  • children and adolescents  (<18 years)
  • women

Awards granted under the program may not be duplicative of funding from institutional or hospital, other governmental, non-governmental, or industry sources. Applicants seeking an award for research projects that are currently receiving or may receive partial funding from other sources are required to submit appropriate evidence, including budget information related to the other sources, to demonstrate that there is no direct overlap in funding.

Proposals utilizing Gilead product(s) are not eligible for funding through the Research Scholars Program. Proposals involving Gilead product(s) should be submitted for review under the Investigator-Sponsored Research Grant Program through the ISR online portal.

Proposals are reviewed by an independent Scientific Review Committee, (no Commercial involvement in review or selection, i.e., Marketing, Sales, and Commercial Strategy), and are reviewed based upon the criteria outlined on this website.

While the Research Scholars Program is intended to support independent research by emerging investigators that is unrelated to Gilead’s strategy, all research projects selected by the Scientific Review Committee will need to be approved by an internal validation committee that may, in rare circumstances, be unable to support research if it directly compromises the existing Gilead Virology portfolio of evidence.