hcf programs

Grants Program

The Health and Climate Foundation provides grants to qualified individuals and organizations to support scientific research and development, travel to attend scientific meetings, and workshops related to improving our understanding of the connections between health and climate and to delivering health benefits to the public. 

The HCF will make periodic announcements of opportunity about the availability of grant funds. Currently there are no open announcements. HCF does not accept unsolicited proposals unless they are in response to a published announcement of opportunity.

The next announcement will be published on the HCF website in March 2008.

Major Initiatives

The Health and Climate Foundation aims to support a variety of Health and Climate related activities.  In particular it is keen to initiate dialog between health practitioners and climate scientists to improve health outcomes related to climate sensitive diseases such as meningitis and malaria. With this in mind we are focusing our efforts on developing the Meningitis Environmental Risk Information Technologies (MERIT) project with colleagues from the World Health Organization, the Group on Earth Observations, the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, World Meteorological Organization, and other institutions.

As part of MERIT, HCF is also keen to see the Open Health, WHO’s new public health information system, used to provide early warning and assessment of epidemic risks in Africa.

All of the activities within MERIT are designed to accelerate the implementation of new operational solutions.

Health and Climate Forum

Given the importance of climate change to public health outcomes, we are in process of finding partners to create an annual Health and Climate Forum with the aim of bringing together the leading experts in the health and climate communities to provide an assessment of the role that climate change is playing in driving disease burden and health outcomes; the issues facing the public health sector in providing solutions to climate-sensitive diseases; and to improve the integration of climate knowledge and information into health decision-making processes as a way of mitigating the negative and strengthening the positive aspects of climate-health interactions. 

Assessing the changing nature of health risks is a key element in reducing the future burden of disease on vulnerable societies.

Active participation in this forum is possible by joining the President's Circle or the HCF Council.