Scholarly Working Groups Submission Guidelines

SWG Objectives should include one or more of the following:

• Increased collaboration
  • With existing groups, advancing existing partnerships and ideas
• Convenings that ultimately
  • Brought together individuals who were not previously connected
  • Shared recent advancements in research or policy around the key issue
• Advanced research and / or policy around a global health issue by
  • Generating a scoping review, literature review, policy brief, white paper, peer-reviewed paper, etc.

• Faculty Lead(s): The faculty lead(s) provides strategic direction and guides the development of the scope of work, work plan and budget for the activities related to the working group. They serve as the main liaison between the working group and HGHI. They ensure that all working group members are engaged and kept informed of all activities related to the working group, as specified in the work plan.
• Working Group Members: Members of the working group may have different levels of engagement depending on the nature of the work described in the scope of work. Members are expected to assist in the development and/or execution of the work plan. Members should be involved in the decision-making process around changes to the scope of work and budget, or at a minimum, informed of such changes.  Working group members should attend regular check-ins agreed upon in the scope of work.

• The Faculty Lead(s) must be an assistant, associate or full professor at a Harvard school, inclusive of hospital affiliates.
• The Working Group must consist of 2 or more members (not including the Faculty Lead(s)), and must represent different disciplines, typically this should mean representation from at least two different Harvard schools. Once this initial requirement is met, other working group members can be from outside of Harvard. There is no cap on working group members.

Maximum allowable budget of $20,000. A detailed breakdown must be provided, including justification for each expenditure. Examples of allowable expenses include:

• Research assistant salary support
• Focus group logistics
• Working group meeting support
• Travel and accommodation for event speakers
• Guest speaker fees (honorariums)
• Logistics for in-person events (Meals/catering, supplies, AV support, etc.)
• Publication fees (for work published within the award year)

The $20,000 award must be spent within 12 months of the award date. Specific requests for a no-cost extension will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This award could be disbursed for one or multiple activities over the award period and can be combined with other sources of funding to complement or expand work already being conducted.

Limitations of Funding

Support for faculty salary is not permitted. Travel support and conference fees for the Faculty Lead(s) and Harvard affiliated working group members are not permitted.

HGHI will provide administrative and communications support to each working group.  An HGHI project coordinator will be assigned to support each working group throughout the award year. That project coordinator will communicate directly with the working group faculty lead(s) to support the execution of the work plan and budget. Specifically, the coordinator will support the following activities:

• Schedule and support working group meetings
• Event logistics – reserve event space, arrange catering, AV, and booking travel for speakers
• Purchase items required for project implementation
• Coordinate with faculty admin staff if necessary to schedule sessions

Additionally, HGHI’s communications team will provide support to each working group in the following capacity:

• Support the identification of venues, catering & AV for WG-related events
• Generate promotional materials as needed for outward facing events
• Brainstorm around additional communication support for all WG outputs

Please note that these are the general guidelines.

• The deadline for submission is May 3rd, 2026 at midnight ET
• You must fully complete this application (you may refer to this application guide for support during the application process)
• Within that application, you will submit a budget. Please use this budget template.

• Relevance of the proposed topic to advancing excellence and equity in global health
• Potential for impact through clear deliverables
• Innovation of the proposed topic
• Clarity and feasibility of the project plan
• Alignment with interfaculty / interdisciplinary goals of HGHI