BiotechnologyIndustryResearchAssistanceCouncil (BIRAC)

AGovernmentofIndiaEnterprise

AnnouncesaGrandChallengeIndiaFundingOpportunity AchievingHealthyGrowththroughAgricultureandNutrition WithFundingSupportFrom DepartmentofBiotechnology(DBT),MinistryofScienceand Technology,GovernmentofIndia & Bill&MelindaGatesFoundation(BMGF)

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Table of Contents 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................... 3 2 3 4 Program Goal ..................................................................................................................................................... 5 Background ........................................................................................................................................................ 6 Program Scope .................................................................................................................................................. 7 4.1 4.2 4.3 5 Fields of innovation ............................................................................................................................... 7 Characteristics of successful proposal .......................................................................................... 9 Solutions developed through this program Impacting India and beyond its border9

4.4 Examples of what we are not looking for .................................................................................. 10 Program Structure ....................................................................................................................................... 10 5.1 5.2 6 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 Grant types and funding levels ...................................................................................................... 10 Collaboration ......................................................................................................................................... 11 Application instructions and schedule ....................................................................................... 12 Evaluation criteria ............................................................................................................................... 13 Eligibility criteria ................................................................................................................................. 14 Allowable Costs .................................................................................................................................... 14 Warranty ................................................................................................................................................. 14 Intellectual Property ........................................................................................................................ 144

Rules and Guidelines ................................................................................................................................... 12

6.7 Confidentiality.15 7 RESEARCH ASSURANCES .......................................................................................................................... 15 7.1 7.2 7.3 Data Access Principles ....................................................................................................................... 16 Indemnification .................................................................................................................................... 16 Research Ethics and Regulatory Approval16

8. Contacts16
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1. INTRODUCTION
On June 2012, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) signed an umbrella Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to collaborate on missiondirected research and build a Grand Challenges India to support health research and innovation. The MOU aims to support initiatives that could dramatically change the health and development landscape in India and other countries facing similar challenges. Specifically, it identifies the following priorities for cooperation: (1) Reduction of maternal and child mortality and morbidity; (2) Scientific and technical solutions for infectious diseases; (3) Strengthening Indias scientific translation capacity; (4) Scientific and technical advances related to agriculture, (5) Scientific advancement in food and nutrition; (6) Other joint interests that may arise. Grand Challenges initiatives would follow these core principles, which partners have agreed to at the annual Grand Challenges meeting in Delhi in 2011: 1. Strategic and wellarticulated grand challenges serve both to focus research efforts and to capture the imagination and engage the worlds best researchers. 2. Projects are selected based on national and societal need and transparent calls for proposals seeking the best ideas. 3. Funders, investigators and other stakeholders actively collaborate to accelerate progress and integrate advances to ensure these advanced technologies reach to developing countries masses 4. Projects are selected not only for scientific excellence, but also for their likelihood to achieve the desired impact, and they are milestonedriven and actively managed to that end. 5. Projects and investigators will have to follow global access commitments to ensure the fruits of their research are available to those most in need. This program joins others within the Grand Challenges family of grant programs supported by the Gates Foundation and its partners that target healthy birth, growth, and development, and agricultural productivity. Thus, it will expand a global network of scientists working on similar issues, increasing opportunities for exchanging ideas and lessons learned. Two related Grand Challenges programs that have been awarding grants include Preventing Preterm Birth, which seeks to explore the underlying mechanisms leading to preterm birth or stillbirth, emphasizing the role of infection, inflammation, and poor nutrition; and Discover New Ways to Achieve Healthy Growth, which seeks to explore
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molecular pathways that will directly inform the development of interventions for the prevention of stunting and wasting of young children in the developing world. One related Grand Challenge program is ongoing: Saving Lives at Birth A Grand Challenge for Development, which seeks to address obstacles to healthy pregnancies and births by fostering innovation in medical technology, in delivery of quality health services, and in stimulating demand for these services. In addition, two Grand Challenges Explorations topics: Protect Crop Plants from Biotic Stresses from Field to Market, and Labor Saving Strategies and Innovations for Women Smallholder Farmers, aim to address barriers that smallholder farmers face in agricultural productivity through innovative solutions raising yield and reducing labor. This goal of capturing diverse types of innovation to improve womens and childrens health, nutritional status and agricultural productivity is shared by the Grand Challenges India program. BIRAC announces Achieving Healthy Growth through Agriculture and Nutrition as the first Grand Challenges grant program to be launched in India (hereby stated as GCI) as a result of collaboration between DBT, BIRAC, and the BMGF. This Request for Proposals (RFP) is specific to India and open to anyone who is interested in applying including academics, research institutions, medical research institutions, forprofit companies, not forprofit organizations, and foundations. Grants will be to researchers and innovators who are Indian individual or Indian entities *, but we encourage partnerships with researchers in other countries, especially where the opportunity exists to build on established collaborations. The research agenda will support a comprehensive set of approaches spanning multiple fields of innovation to reduce the high incidence of low birth weight (LBW), early stunting and wasting in Indian children less than 2 years of age, and prevent undernutrition in women of reproductive age and in children from 02 years of age.

*AnIndividualshouldbeaCitizenofIndia
*Indianentitiesaredefinedasthoseestablishedunderanyrelevantstatute,agreement,ruleor regulationinIndia.

2. PROGRAM GOAL
The goal of the Achieving Healthy Growth through Agriculture and Nutrition Grand Challenges Program is to fund a portfolio of Indianled pilot projects that seek to target the relationship between agriculture, nutrition, and health to reduce the high incidence of low birth weight and early stunting and wasting among Indian infants and through interventions it aims at empowering women in their multiple family roles. While there are increasing numbers of initiatives linking agriculture and nutrition, this program seeks specifically to harness innovation in India and to target women and children in resourcepoor settings. The primary measures of success will be an improvement in the survival, health, development, and quality of life of Indian children from 02 years of age and in women of reproductive age. To achieve the desired impact, we seek proposals which are strong in innovation and span multiple fields focusing on innovative research on Nutrition Science, Agricultural Practice, intervention which target improved health, behavioral changes or services delivery mechanism. These would be in the following 3areas:

A. Nutrition innovation
Understanding the causes and consequences of LBW, including the role LBW plays in stunting and wasting in children < 24 months Understanding the role of determinants and interventions during adolescence, and the role of intergenerational factors, in risk for LBW, and stunting and wasting in children < 24 months Designing scalable intervention that impact LBW, stunting and wasting in children, under nutrition in adolescent girl, women of reproductive age and young children. Designing scalable interventions that combine ways to improve household diet diversity through local sources of food (e.g., fruits, vegetables, milk, eggs, and other local foods) and animal husbandry with education to prevent LBW and promote healthy growth of infants and children.

B. Agricultural Innovation
Developing time and laborsaving technologies and practices applicable in between pre and postharvest stages to increase the income of women smallholder farmers, and empower them to improve their own health and nutrition, and that of their children. Developing scalable interventions that leverage income from agricultural production and animal husbandry to achieve improved nutritional outcomes of smallholder farm families, particularly among pregnant mothers, women of reproductive age and children 624 months.
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C. Social Innovation
Identifying and overcoming cultural and social barriers to improving maternal and child nutrition, with a focus on barriers that contribute to LBW and early infant stunting and wasting. Design strategic tools and process for communication, incomegenerating mechanisms, community mobilization, and social network analysis to encourage production of healthy foods by women smallholder farmers and develop better consumption patterns by households, particularly pregnant mothers, women of reproductive age, and children 624 months. All proposals must be designed to test the proof of concept for a specific actionable and measurable intervention or delivery of an innovation. Solutions developed through this program could have a broad impact both within India and beyond its borders. The deliverables of such proposal should be assessed by studying dietary diversity & behavior change, establishing socioeconomic status of women through improved laborsaving agriculture practices, improving health status of children, adolescent girls and women at reproductive age along with community mobilization & social network approaches in agriculture and nutrition.

3. BACKGROUND
Impaired child growth and development, as manifested in early stunting and wasting, remains a stubborn problem globally with a significant burden of disease to be found in India. Despite Indias economic growthwith agriculture accounting for a significant part of that growthand advances in science, medicine, food security and information technology over the past decade, malnutrition remains unacceptably high as India is home to about onethird of the worlds malnourished children. Many of these malnourished babies are born to adolescent mothers in India; 75% of these adolescent mothers in India are anemic and put on an average of 5 kg of weight during pregnancy compared to the worldwide average of close to 10 kg. Moreover, one in three women 15 49 years of age has a Body Mass Index (BMI) below 18.5, indicating severe nutritional deficiency and undernutrition. Malnourished women are less likely to deliver healthy babies, thereby perpetuating the intergenerational cycle of undernutrition. Compared to the rest of the world, young children in India suffer from some of the highest levels of stunting and wasting due to undernutrition in the first two years of life. Rates of malnutrition among Indias children are almost five times more than in China, and twice those in SubSaharan Africa. The prevalence of child wasting (low weightforheight) in
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India (20 percent) is twice as high as the average in subSaharan Africa (nine percent) and ten times higher than in Latin America (two percent). India accounts for more than 3 out of 10 stunted children in the world and nearly half of all Indias children approximately 60 million are underweight, about 45% are stunted, 20% are wasted (too thin for their height, indicating acute malnutrition), 75% are anemic, and 57% are Vitamin A deficient.(Source: World Bank News dated May 13, 2013 http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/05/13/helpingindiacombat persistentlyhighratesofmalnutrition). Poverty, nutritional deficiencies, inadequate feeding practices, and low socioeconomic status of women are among many important factors contributing to this alarming health crisis. Therefore, it is of upmost importance to fund Indian investigators proposing to test innovations that empower women and span multiple fields including nutritional science, agricultural practices, business and social practices. It is hoped that solutions developed under this initiative will not only contribute new solutions in India, but also be applicable as solutions for other counties.

4. PROGRAM SCOPE 4.1 Fields of innovation:

There are numerous key questions whose answers could help reduce the high incidence of low birth weight and early stunting and wasting among Indian infants through interventions that target the relationship between agriculture, nutrition, and health, aimed at empowering women in their multiple family roles. These are: What are the causes of low birth weight and early stunting and wasting among Indian infants? Which are the most relevant interventions to designing preventative measures? Which prevention or treatment interventions are the most effective for any particular population or setting? To what extent can womens low status within the household their communities and in society be ameliorated to improve health outcomes for herself and for her young children? How can women in lowresource settings be empowered and targeted for new or existing interventions? For any particular intervention, is there a window of opportunity during which we have the best chances for success such as in intervening with adolescent girls in order to halt the intergenerational transfer of poverty and undernutrition? What are the most strategic and catalytic system level levers for achieving large scale changes that would lead to reductions in undernutrition?
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What are the best ways to generate demand for new interventions for achieving largescale changes that would lead to reductions in undernutrition and health services among women, families, and healthcare providers? What can be done to ensure the broad uptake of interventions proven to be effective? What are the best ways to reach the most vulnerable, distant, or socially neglected population?

To provide data to help answer these and other key questions, this program is calling for proposals from diverse researchers, innovators and implementers. In addition, we encourage partnerships that bring together researchers and implementers from diverse organizations, including academics, research institutions, medical institutions, forprofit companies, notforprofit organizations and foundations. Specifically, we seek to establish a portfolio of scalable projects that encompasses innovation in following areas: A) NUTRITION INNOVATION Healthy Growth of woman and Child To explore and develop special intervention that will directly impact the development of innovative nutrition for the prevention of stunting and wasting of young children (including < 2 years of age), and prevent undernutrition in women of reproductive age. B) AGRICULTURE INNOVATION Sustainable development in Agriculture from Field to MarketTo explore advanced technological interventions such as Precision Farming, Farm level Innovation and Eagriculture etc. and use of these tools to enable the sustainability of agriculture to be translated to food security. Once established these would then lead to understanding the strength and dynamics of the multiple pathways between agriculture and nutrition, and their impact on reduction of hunger and malnutrition. C) SOCIAL INNOVATION Operational and Implementation Research The project seeks to assess the impact of developed intervention in dietary diversity on behavioral changes, evidence generation in linking agriculture and nutrition to improved health. The interventions would be leading to increased micronutrient uptake, improved maternal and child care, feeding and healthy growth. These studies undertaken would help in generating supporting environment for improved women and children health and nutritional status.

4.2 Characteristics of successful proposal

We seek to fund research that will lead to new solutions to reduce the high incidence of low birth weight (LBW) and early stunting and wasting among Indian children from 02 years of age, and to prevent undernutrition in women of reproductive age. Successful proposals should explain how they will lead to solutions that are: A clear path to a practical, affordable, and scalable intervention that is accessible to the populations most in need and likely to have substantial and sustained impact on LBW and stunting. All proposals must be designed to test the proof of concept for a specific actionable and measurable intervention. Daring solutions that are clearly differentiated from standard practice.

4.3 Solutions developed through this program Impacting India and beyond its borders.
o Scalable interventions that combine ways to improve household diet diversity and availabilitythrough local sources of foodwith education to prevent LBW and promote healthy growth of infants and children o Behavior change interventions in demand generation for healthy food choices and content; delivery of nutrition messages to household members through various platforms o Innovations to improve womens decisionmaking ability within the household with respect to child feeding, child education, health careseeking, household expenditures, womens time allocation, and household food distribution; these innovations would need to take into account existing social and cultural barriers and the respective decisionmaking authority of other household members o Evaluate the impact of new laborsaving technologies and practices pre and post harvest on womens income, womens time constraints, and the health outcomes of women and children o Innovations to amend the agricultural responsibilities of adolescent girls to improve future birth outcomes and prevent the intergenerational transfer of poverty and poor nutrition o Evaluate the impact of current labor practices of adolescent girls on their health outcomes and explore incentives to households to reduce heavy labor burdens on adolescents girls and increase their educational opportunities o Innovations in incentives, community mobilization, and social network approaches to promote positive social and economic practices and behaviors with respect to food production and storage, food consumption, food purchases, childfeeding practices, healthseeking behaviors, and education

4.4 Examples of what we are not looking for

Examples of the types of projects we will not consider for funding are listed below: Implementation of established interventions such as home gardens, small animal husbandry, etc. Basic research that does not provide a clear path to development and testing of interventions. Studies lacking analytic methods to substantiate causal links. Projects that do not display clear potential for advancing research findings into pre clinical, early stage clinical, field or implementation evaluation Projects that are not scalable either by their nature or because they apply to small subsets of the population. Studies that propose interventions that detracts from favorable family practices. Projects without appropriate metrics to determine success or failure that would allow decisions about the appropriateness of followon funding. Solutions that are only slight improvements over existing approaches. Mobile health approaches without the potential for greatly expanded use compared with current practices or for integration of multiple information systems into one solution. Replication of an approach in a new geography in the absence of added innovation.

5 PROGRAM STRUCTURE 5.1 Grant types and funding levels

This initiative will be a public Grand Challenge India RFP exclusive to Indian investigators seeking innovations in nutrition, particularly around low birth weight and stunting, innovations in agriculture around labor saving technologies and improved nutritional quality of products and innovations in demand generation, business and social innovation with a particular focus on women. There are two categories of grants: Seed grants: Funded at up to INR 125 Lakhs [$250,000 USD] per project, these awards do not require preliminary data and are meant to provide an opportunity to test particularly bold ideas. Transitiontoscale grants: Funded at up to INR 5 Cr TO 10 Cr [$1 million to $2 million USD] per project, these awards require preliminary data and are meant to provide an opportunity to develop, refine, and rigorously test approaches that have previously shown promise in controlled or limited settings.
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BIRAC anticipates that the partners together will invest initially up to a total of 30 Cr INR [$6M USD] in this program. The committed amount could increase depending upon the interest shown by the Funding partners both National and International. The call for proposals, invites both Seed awards (up to INR 125 Lakhs) [$250K USD] and Transitionto Scale awards (up to INR 5 Cr 10 Cr) [$1M to $2M] to develop, refine, and rigorously test the impact of integrated solutions that show promise. The call will be run for two rounds depending on the response and quality of ideas. For pilot awards, proposal review criteria will include a requirement to show a pathway towards generation of evidence for an actionable and scalable intervention. For transitiontoscale awards, proposal review criteria will include a new evidenced based intervention that includes a strategy for scaling up, including service delivery and demand generation. Nevertheless, we anticipate that there will be two waves of funding. The second wave of funding would be timed so that investigators funded in the first wave could use their project results to apply for a second twoyear award. Winners of seed grants could apply for a second seed grant to strengthen their preliminary data set or they could apply for a transitiontoscale grant. Winners of transitiontoscale grants could apply for a second full grant to extend their results and establish proofofconcept at a larger scale. Whether additional funding opportunities are available through the program after the second wave of funding for seed grant winners, for instance will be established at a later date after the initial results of the program have been evaluated.

5.2 Collaboration
With this program we seek to create a consortium of individually funded projects that will benefit from sharing information between projects. We expect that such sharing will help to ensure that the goals of the innovative approaches in individual projects are ultimately integrated with each other, thereby increasing the chances that the program will be greater than the sum of its parts. Furthermore, we expect that sharing experimental methods, data, and resources will ultimately improve the ability to compare and validate local research findings and to develop interventions and products that can have impact at a greater scale. The specific terms of the collaborative activities will be negotiated prior to the grant award. Collaborative efforts include: Clinical Research Harmonization: When collaborating with projects with existing cohorts or establishing new cohorts (which will not be funded unless explicitly agreed to), investigators will be expected to participate, whenever possible, in cohort harmonization. Study sites will be expected to: o Develop and follow standard operating procedures and quality control protocols for specimen collections;

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o Participate in the establishment of a minimum common set of data and specimens to be collected across the program. Data Sharing: As a project jointly funded by DBT and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation there is an expectation data will be shared with the broader scientific community to accelerate and advance interventions for those most in need. A data sharing plan will be developed that is equitable, ethical, and efficient, and will include: o A data sharing and publication policy, o A data use agreement, o A protocol for citing the program in published manuscripts, and for acknowledging the core program investigators.

6. RULES AND GUIDELINES 6.1 Application instructions and schedule

A Letter of Intent (LOI) in response to this RFP should be submitted online no later than 31 October 2013 using the forms and process described at the following address: www.birac.nic.in. Review panels established under the Grand Challenges India partnership will evaluate the LOIs. Post LOI Review and a full proposal shaping meeting will be held to ensure we have the opportunity to strengthen proposals and build synergies with other proposals within the consortium. Applicants who qualify and projects of further interest to the partnership will be invited to submit a full proposal. Instructions on the preparation of full proposals will be provided to selected applicants, and we will not be able to provide individual feedback to applicants not selected to submit full proposals. Grants will be awarded to GCI applicants who are selected through the due process. BIRAC will enter into a separate funding agreement with successful GCI grantee(s) to govern the project terms and conditions and fund disbursement modalities. A table of important dates is given below. All deadlines and notification dates are subject to change, and applicants will be notified by email in a timely manner of any such changes. Table 1: Application schedule August 28, 2013: Launch of RFP October 31, 2013: Last date for submission of LOI November 30, 2013: LOI Review meeting by TAG and selection of full proposal December 15, 2013: Meeting of selected applicant with TAG January 31 ,2014: Full proposals submission last date Feb 4, 2014: Proposals distributed to reviewers Feb 26, 2014: Review of full proposal complete and meeting with TAG.
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March 5, 2014: March 20, 2014: April 30, 2014:

EC Meeting for Award Selection Award Announcement Agreement Signing

6.2 Evaluation Criteria

Novelty and Innovation Landscape [15]: How the proposal capture the unique innovation to address the barriers. Social Impact [15]: How will this proposed intervention lead to a behavior change in the target population? Do the assays, technologies, and systems for analysis proposed have broad applicability? Future Deliverable/ Translational Feasibility [15]: Is there potential for advancing research findings into preclinical development? Investigators proposing to test innovations that empower women and span multiple fields including nutritional science, agricultural practices, business and social practices. Scope and Significance [15]: Is the approach likely to add dramatically to knowledge about the causative mechanisms underlying health problems and the most appropriate treatments for the problems specific to Indian women of reproductive age and in Indian children from 02 years of age? Approach [10]: Are the conceptual framework, design, methods, and analyses innovative, adequately developed, well integrated, and appropriate to the aims of the proposal? Do the approaches or methods appear to be feasible for scaling up in a manner consistent with the overall goals of this request for proposals? Does the proposal acknowledge potential problem areas and consider alternative tactics? Is the likelihood of successful project completion high within the funding period? Are the proposed timelines and interim milestones appropriate, feasible, and technically sound? Organizational and investigator capability [10]: Is the research and development team appropriately trained, experienced, and positioned to carry out this work? Is the work proposed appropriate to the experience level of the principal investigator and other proposed researchers? Is there strong evidence of substantive organizational capability and commitment? Is there experience in development of partnerships, and in multiinvestigator projects? Are collaborative arrangements in place? Is there evidence of an infrastructure for adoption of standard operating procedures, data collection, transfer, and sharing? Willingness to collaborate [10]: Are the applicants, including all subcontractors, willing to collaborate and share experimental methods, data, and resources among the other independently funded members of the program consortium?

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Best value [10]: Is the cost of the proposed effort reasonable relative to the complexity of the proposed work and the degree of risk and advancement proposed?

6.3 Eligibility criteria

The Grand Challenge India (GCI) application can be made by an Indian Individual Researcher / Entrepreneur or an Indian entity / consortium established under any relevant statute, agreement, rule or regulation in India as the Lead applicant. GCI Applicant organizations must be nonprofit organizations, forprofit Companies, recognized institutions such as academia, National laboratories, research institutions, medical research institutions and foundations that have the required facilities to successfully execute the activities in their technical area. Where the opportunity exists or project requires, we encourage research organizations in other countries to be partners/ collaborators in the GCI Application. The goal of this program is to fund a portfolio of Indianled pilot projects.

6.4 Allowable Costs

Direct Costs: Manpower (up to 30%), Consumables, travel and contingency Facilities: Equipment and accessories (up to 20%) Reimbursement of Facilities: Outsourcing, Operational cost of each Collaborating Partners/ Affiliated Organizations

6.5 Warranty
The GCI Applicants shall warranty that the statements and particulars contained in LOI, full proposal and supporting documents are correct.They have to further warrant that they are under no contractual restrictions or legal disqualifications or any other obligations which would prohibit them from undertaking the present Project, entering into any Agreement in this regard etc.

6.6 Intellectual Property Project IP

The initiative is guided by the Memorandum of Understanding on the collaboration between the Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation signed on July 18, 2012 and as such must consistent with the commitment that projects and investigators funded under initiatives make global access commitments to ensure the fruits of their research are available to those most in need. This will include, but not limited to, the ability to license any technology developed under this agreement to manufacturers in India subject to these global access commitments and to the relevant provisions of the Indian laws including specific requirements on licensing under the Patents Act 1970.

To this end, project IP means intellectual property generated during the conduct of the Project by the GCI applicants, but excluding the intellectual property generated
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before initiation of this Project and any IP generated outside the scope of this Project even during the term of this Project. The ownership and control of the intellectual property shall remain with the GCI grantee(s), or other collaborating organizations or institutions as agreed with the grantee, subject to any applicable local policies and the collaborative process described above, including arrangements between the grantee and other individuals or institutions. GCI grantee(s) agree to conduct and manage the Project and the resulting products, services, processes, technologies, materials, software, data or other innovations (collectively, Funded Developments) and any IP that arises in the manner that ensures Global Access. Global Access requires that 1) The knowledge and information gained from the Project be promptly and broadly disseminated 2) The Funded Development is made available and accessible at an affordable price to people most in need within developing country. Establishing suitable Global Access agreements among the GCI grantees will be a condition of receiving funding.

6.7 Confidentiality:
During the tenure of the Project, BIRAC will undertake to maintain strict confidentiality and refrain from disclosure thereof, of all or any part of the information and data exchanged/generated from the Project for any purpose other than purposes in accordance this RFP. Please note that all proposals, documents, communications and associated materials submitted (collectively, Submission Materials) will become the property of BIRAC and will be shared with other funding partners or potential funding partners. Number of applications received and the countries from which they originated will be published. The proposals will be subject to confidential external review by independent subject matter experts and potential cofunders, in addition to in house analysis.

7. RESEARCH ASSURANCES 7.1 Data Access Principles

BIRAC has the right to the technical data generated during the project for all the GCI funded projects. The fund recipient shall permit BIRAC through its authorized representative access to the premises, during regular business hours, where the Project is being/shall be carried out and provide all information and produce or make available the concerned records for inspection and monitoring of the Project activity, required by BIRAC or the concerned committee under the RFP. BIRAC will as needed share this data with a Technical Advisory Group or with the funding partners.
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7.2 Indemnification
GCI applicants shall, at all times, indemnify and keep indemnified the Funding Agency/ BIRAC against any claims or suits in respect of any losses, damages or compensation payable in consequences of any accident, death or injury sustained by the employees of the Company or by any other third party resulting from or by any act, omission or operation conducted by or on its behalf. Further GCI applicants shall, at all times, indemnify and keep indemnified PMU or Funding Agency/ BIRAC against all claims/damages etc. by any infringement of any Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) while carrying out its responsibilities/work under the Project and this Agreement.

7.3 Research ethics and regulatory approvals

GCI Grantee(s) shall be responsible to obtain all the necessary requisite approvals, clearance certificates, permissions and licenses from the Government/local authorities for conducting its activities/ operations in connection with the Project.

8. CONTACT
Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) 1. Dr. Renu Swarup, Adviser DBT & Managing Director BIRAC, Email: swarup@dbt.nic.in

2. Dr. Jyoti Shukla, Manager Technical(Discovery & Product Development), BIRAC Email: jshukla.birac@nic.in.
Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council, (A Government of India Enterprise) A 254, 3rd Floor, Bhisham Pitamah Marg, Defence Colony, New Delhi 110024. Web: www.birac.nic.in

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