Global Innovation Challenge Award Funds Groundbreaking Research for Northwestern Investigators

March 2026

For Robert J. Havey, MD Institute for Global Health members, seed research funding is pivotal to the development of partnerships and data gathering to support initial findings. Ultimately, this can lead to increases in important scientific discoveries, improvements in quality of life and advancements in healthcare. Recognizing that need, the Havey Institute for Global Health created the Global Innovation Challenge Award.  

Introduced in 2022 through the support of donors, the Havey Institute for Global Health Global Innovation Challenge Award has created opportunities for faculty who aim to catalyze research and educational programs. The award funds high-risk/high-reward research with $250,000 in funding for two-year projects. In the four years since the award’s inception, the Havey Institute has funded 17 Global Innovation Challenge Awards, creating a $4.25 million investment in faculty research. These projects have addressed pressing topics such as the development of a COVID-19 genomic testing capacity-building program in Latin America, an avian influenza test for point-of-care diagnosis in low-resource settings, an African Network for HPV-associated cancer prevention and control and improving stroke care for better health outcomes in Nigeria, and many others. 

The Global Innovation Challenge award is intended to encourage exploratory and cutting-edge research by providing support for early and conceptual stages of project development geared towards addressing healthcare needs worldwide. 

One such project is led by Igor Koralnik, MD, chief of Neuro-Infectious Disease and Global Neurology in the Department of Neurology and director of the Program for Global Neurology at the Havey Institute for Global Health, who is researching cognitive rehabilitation with his project, Treatment of Post-Concussion Syndrome and Long COVID Brain Fog with Cognitive Rehabilitation in Nigeria. 

"Our work focuses on determining if the response to cognitive rehabilitation in Nigeria compared to the U.S. is similar for treatment of Long COVID brain fog,” Koralnik said. “The Global Innovation Challenge Award has allowed us to bring this treatment modality to Nigeria, which did not exist before. In addition, we have included in this study a group of patients suffering from post-concussion syndrome, which will be treated with cognitive rehabilitation as well. Therefore, Long COVID research is actually bringing cognitive rehabilitation to Sub Saharan Africa, where it could benefit millions of people suffering from traumatic brain injury and post-concussion syndrome.”

To improve the performance of the Malawi’s healthcare system, Senta Berggruen, MD, vice chair of Education and Health Equity in the Department of Radiology and professor of Medical Education created the Malawi District Hospital Essential Ultrasound Training Program for Surgical Clinical Officers project to provide access to basic diagnostics services in rural Malawi. 

"The support of the Global Innovation Challenge Grant has enabled us to foster our partnership between Northwestern Radiology and Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital Radiology in Malawi, bolstering our collaborative work with the innovative comprehensive ultrasound,” Berggruen said. “With this funding, we look forward to integrating point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) to enhance diagnostic availability in resource-limited regions in Malawi by training ultrasound trainers at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in a longitudinal training program and thereby improving quality of care and streamlining referrals in an under-resourced population.” 

In Botswana, Lisa Hirschhorn, MD, MPH, director of the Ryan Family Center for Global Primary Care at the Havey Institute for Global Health and professor of Medical Social Sciences (Implementation Science) and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and principal investigator (PI) Mosepele Mosepele, MBBS, from the University of Botswana, are  planning to develop targeted and contextually relevant strategies to attain population blood pressure control through her project Strengthening Hypertension Care into Primary Care in Botswana. 

“Botswana has shown tremendous success in addressing the HIV epidemic and from this experience, we are now learning what we can do to strengthen hypertension diagnosis and management in primary care centers,” Hirschhorn said. “The funding from the GICA has been essential to support the design and testing of how to strengthen the care needed to reduce this growing burden of cardiovascular disease in Botswana.”

Ashti Doobay-Persaud, MD, co-director of the Center for Global Health Education at the Havey Institute for Global Health and associate professor of Medicine (Hospital Medicine) and Medical Education, is PI on The Partnerships for Advancement in Global Health Professions Education (PAGHE), which aims to contribute to the sustainable development of health professions education programs. 

“The Global Innovation Challenge Award has enabled us to deepen and expand our global health education partnerships in transformative ways,” Doobay-Persaud said. “With this support, we nearly completed a yearlong professional educator program with colleagues at Maseno University in Kenya and strengthened collaborations in Master of Health Professions Education (MHPE) programs across the continent, including faculty teaching in Rwanda and joint work with the Consortium of Medical Schools in Africa (COMSA) to develop evaluation standards and advanced plans to launch a new global health fellowship. This award has truly made it possible for us to build sustainable, high-impact educational pathways that benefit learners here at Northwestern and with our partner faculty at Maseno University and University of Global Health Equity in Rwanda and provide opportunities to grow collaborations with partners across the continent through COMSA.” 

The Global Innovation Challenge Award is open to Northwestern faculty at Havey Institute for Global Health members who are involved in global health research. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.

To learn more about the Global Innovation Challenge Award, read IGH news stories highlighted throughout March and visit their website. 

For details on events, news and funding opportunities, sign up for the Havey Institute for Global Health newsletter.