Our programs deliver results for cancer patients and contribute to enhancing freedom and prosperity.
Since our inception, we have funded more than 140 grants that have
impacted people across the world in over 20 countries.
Although extensive data on economic freedom is available, much of it lacks on-the-ground expertise and the moral commitment to reforming discriminatory and oppressive policies that disproportionately affect women. Atlas aspires to change that by providing real-world examples that document how economic liberty empowers and elevates women by creating opportunity, growth, and prosperity. Their vision is to break down the legal obstacles that prevent women from equal rights and opportunities. Using their successful grant program Liberating Enterprise to Achieve Prosperity (LEAP) as a model, they're challenging their partners to (1) identify projects that would improve their country's rank on the Gender Disparity Index and other indices, (2) create and implement reform strategies, and (3) publicize non-governmental solutions that help reduce poverty among women.
In too many countries, women find themselves enslaved by circumstance rather than free to make autonomous decisions. This project aims to reduce the opportunities and reasons for authorities to repress women as they try to better their lives. Solutions designed to improve the rights and living standards of women often focus on doling out more aid money, only to fail
because local policies and customs prevent women from taking advantage of their own talents. This project would illustrate the value of targeting specific repressive public policies that make it impossible for women to forge their own paths out of poverty.
Atlas Network believes that institutional change is unlikely to last if imposed by outsiders who are unfamiliar with local customs. Change must be developed from within, both to ensure buy-in and, more importantly, to discover the unique cultural mechanisms necessary for informal norms to transition smoothly to well-functioning formal systems. By working with local institutions to build support for change, the project is laying a lasting foundation for freedom to flourish.
Organization: Atlas Network
Country: United States of America
Funding Year: 2019
Project Duration: 3 years
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
West Bengal has digitized most land records and developed an on-line platform for citizens to access records and transfer rights from sale or inheritance. Unfortunately, many of the digitized records are inaccurate. Women are particularly affected, as their names are rarely listed as co-owners or heirs on older records, which means many are not able to legally claim land and leverage it to improve their economic and social conditions. Landesa is an international non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of the worlds poorest women and men by securing land and property rights and improving the institutional environment in countries around the world. They have identified an alternative path to securing property rights in West Bengal building the capacity of rural women who are members of self-help groups providing information and property records updating services, for which they will charge a small service fee. At the same time, community members will gain access to the information they need quickly and at a lower cost by working with a member of their community.
This project will help to secure the land and property rights of up to 300,000 men and women living in the Indian state of West Bengal by scaling a new, entrepreneurial approach to strengthening land records. A strong and secure system of private property rights is widely recognized as part of the essential foundation of a free and prosperous society. It enables autonomous decision making, allowing individuals and families the freedom to choose how to use the resources they control to improve their lives and, in the process, enabling more and different kinds of entrepreneurship. Importantly, providing more secure rights to property devolves power and enables women and men to have a room, a home, a field, a factory of their own; a place largely free from the interference of those in authority, as is essential to protecting and preserving privacy and freedom (as Hayek says in The Road to Serfdom).
Read more about this project and how it transforms lives of West Bengali communities here
Organization: Landesa
Country: India
Funding Year: 2020
Project Duration: 3 years
Private Sector Solutions
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
There is often a disconnect between classical liberal theory and its application in the real world. At the same time, there is a prevailing tendency for individuals to look towards government as the normative solution to complex social challenges. The Liberty in Action project from Universidad Francisco Marroquin (UFM) will provide a collaborative hands-on, multidisciplinary student experience that will develop bottom-up solutions to social challenges using classical liberal principles. Through the CoLab, students will drive innovative solutions to existing social problems in Guatemala that are private, voluntary, and free-market.
Each individual is unique, inherently social, and has the capacity for creative activity. The Liberty in Action project, through the CoLab, will place an emphasis on these defining aspects of the human person to develop bottom-up solutions to complex social challenges where top-down bureaucratic programs and schemes have typically served as the default.
The program will impact the landscape of freedom in two tangible ways: (1) students at UFM will increase their appreciation and understanding of market principles through active and experiential learning, and (2) projects developed through the CoLab will accelerate human progress through market-based solutions that reduce the scope and desire of government intervention.
In the long-term, UFM aims to cultivate a mindset shift by demonstrating the viability and practicality of market-based solutions to complex social problems. They aim to reach thousands through market-based interventions that materially improve human lives.
Organization: Universidad Francisco Marroquin
Country: Guatemala
Funding Year: 2020
Project Duration: 3 years
Private Sector Solutions
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
High-quality tertiary education provided by private institutions is nearly inaccessible to the vast majority of the population in Latin America. This erects a barrier to disadvantaged youth in Latin
America that proves hard to overcome. Fundacion Educacion, through providing scholarships to young and promising students from low-income families, seeks to unlock the potential of select disadvantaged Latin American youth, cultivating new perspectives that serve as a catalyst for job creation, increase in innovation, and greater economic growth. Students that receive support from Fundacion Educacion sign a so-called Compromiso de Honor through which they commit to voluntarily repay their bursary so that new students can be supported. Rising Tide will finance the tertiary education of 15-20 students over the next three years.
Access to quality education is foundational for advancing freedom and prosperity. Through this scholarship program, Fundacion Educacion is equipping high-capacity underprivileged youth with the resources they need to realize their potential in the marketplace. As they only partner with local universities and technical schools that are firmly steeped in principles of entrepreneurship, the free market economy, and democracy, scholarship recipients will be inculcated with classical liberal values throughout their tertiary education.
As students complete their education, Fundacion Educacion expects 95% of their scholarship recipients to find well-paid employment with a 98% graduation rate. These students will contribute to the prosperity of their own families as well as their countries' economic and social progress.
Organization: Fundacion Educacion
Country: Latin America
Funding Year: 2020
Project Duration: 4 years
Private Sector Solutions
Empowerment of Individuals
The Wildlife Tourism College (WTC) in Kenya's Greater Maasai Mara region, one of the last major wildlife refuges on earth, aims to develop an innovative, sustainable, long-term method of wildlife conservation which simultaneously maintains economic freedom and mobility for the Maasai people. The WTC is part of a broader initiative in the Mara region to preserve, sustain, and scale the triple-use Pardamat Conservation Area (PCA), where wildlife, livestock and people live together in harmony. The campus merges a teaching college - targeting the 80% of unemployed among Maasais from 18 to 35 years of age paired together with an educational tourism camp for international students and volunteers where profits realized go directly to supporting the college and the community. The hoped-for success of the triple-use conservation area counts on sustainable socio-economic growth through education, employment, and for-profit tourism, all of which the area lacks significantly.
This project is an example of a non-governmental/private sector solution to a tragedy of the commons situation that had resulted in a loss of biodiversity and wildlife in PCA, which is in turn linked to income loss and limited potential of economic development for the local Maasai community. Based on market mechanisms, a system is developed together with the local communities, that results in socio-economic development through participation in the tourism industry and conservation of the biodiversity and wildlife in PCA.
Organization: Basecamp Explorer Foundation
Country: Kenya
Funding Year: 2020
Project Duration: 3 years
Private Sector Solutions
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
The traditional approach to fighting poverty in the United States is through the alleviation of symptoms rather than employing strategies that seek to enhance human flourishing. This approach sees the poor as objectsobjects of pity, compassion, and charityinstead of seeing
the poor as subjects, the protagonists of their own lives. As Ismael Hernandez says, self-reliance is in eclipse todaythis directly affects outcomes in education, health, and security. The Freedom & Virtue Institute has created Self-Reliance Clubs (SRCs) with the goal to integrate efforts within existing school activities by adopting the initiatives and giving them new meaning, empowering students to meet their needs through work. This allows children to better understand work as a means of wealth creation and economic opportunity.
Many of todays social programs contribute to a prevailing mindset of victimhood and dependency. If this mindset is to be shifted in the future, it must start with childrenthey must be sent a contrary message. A message that tells them they have what it takes to meet their needs, that they are agents of choice.
Through SRCs, the Freedom and Virtue Institute will connect children to practical projects that connect reward to accomplishments. As the SRCs follow students year after year, they continue a journey of engagement and discover that they are engines of wealth creation.
The Freedom & Virtue Institute aims to launch over 200 SRCs and impact up to 5,000 students with their activities over the next three years. This will equip young individuals with character traits and virtues that facilitate enterprise and the love of freedom that motivates them to become free and productive citizens, entrepreneurs, and workers.
Organization: Freedom & Virtue Institute
Country: United States of America
Funding Year: 2020
Project Duration: 3 years
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
In colorectal cancer, the most important parameter for prognosis and determining patient management is tumor spread according to the Tumor-Nodal- Metastasis (TNM) classification. However, the TNM system may show considerable differences in tumors within the same stage. Therefore, additional biomarkers for a more personalized risk stratification in certain CRC patient groups are needed.
Tumor budding, namely single tumor cells and small clusters of tumor cells at the invasive tumor front, is such a biomarker. However, tumor buds do not account for other factors, such as the bodys protective response. Especially T-cells, a type of inflammatory cell, have been extensively examined as a protective factor. Our own preliminary data demonstrates that a combined assessment of tumor budding and T-cell infiltrates in CRC (termed the Budding/T-cell Score or BTS) may better reflect how aggressive a tumor is than either marker alone.
In this project, we want to further investigate the BTS using graph-based deep learning. On images of slides used to diagnose CRC, graph-based representations are created based on detected tumor buds and T-cells. We believe that this approach will be beneficial for the combined assessment of tumor buds and T-cells, because it captures not only the raw count of the cells but also their structural arrangement, which, we hypothesize, might play a central role for predicting important information for patient treatment. In a third step, geometric deep learning, which extends deep learning beyond the domain of Euclidean geometry, is applied to the graphs to predict clinical endpoints, such as survival time.
Grantee Name: Heather Dawson
Organization: Bern University Hospital
Country: Switzerland
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2018
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 3 years
In 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) called for action towards achieving the global elimination of cervical cancer. A strategy for achieving this goal was ratified by member states in August 2020. The WHO plan calls for an aggressive approach of vaccination against the human papillomavirus (HPV), the single cause of cervical cancer, and screening and treatment of precancerous lesions caused by HPV infections before they progress to invasive disease. In low- and middle-income countries (LMIC), which bear 90% of cervical cancer incidence globally, it is estimated that these goals will not be reached until 2120 a century from now. One way to markedly shorten this timeline is to provide widespread high-performance testing for cervical precancer followed by immediate treatment of any abnormalities.
Currently, the most commonly used method of treatment of pre-cancer is using gas-based cryotherapy. Although gas-based therapy is effective, it is difficult to have widespread scale-up because gas tanks are heavy and difficult to transport, tanks need to be refilled and equipment requires maintenance to function properly. The purpose of this study is to examine alternatives to gas-based cryotherapy including non-gas-based cryotherapy (funded by NIH) and thermal ablation (funded by rising tide). This is a randomized controlled trial which will compare cure rates of high-grade cervical precancer after treatment with cryotherapy and the 2 alternative approaches. Upon successful completion of this trial low-cost, portable, effective treatment for cervical pre-cancer will be clinically validated. Clinically validated tools for treatment of pre-cancer are crucial for worldwide elimination.
Grantee Name: Miriam Cremer
Organization: Cleveland Clinic Foundation
Country: United States
Focus Area: Early Intervention
Funding Year: 2017
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 4 years
Career Pathway Grants in Symptom Management
The goal of this program is to recruit and retain individuals committed to conducting symptom management research. This unique approach will support young physician-scientists at a critical time in their academic careers when they transition from training to principal investigators and begin to set up labs of their own.
The recipients of the 2020 Conquer Cancer Rising Tide Foundation for Clinical Cancer Research Career Pathway Grants in Symptom Management are:
Antonio Di Meglio, MD, Institut Gustave Roussy
A Comprehensive Bio-behavioral Approach to Tackle Cancer-related Fatigue in Breast Cancer Survivors
Mentor: Ines Vaz-Luis, MD, PhD
Nicole Grogan, MD, University of Michigan Cancer Center
A Single Center Phase 2 Trial to Evaluate Use of Cannabidiol (CBD) to Treat Aromatase Inhibitor-Associated Musculoskeletal Symptoms (AIMSS) in Early Stage Breast Cancer Patients
Mentor: Norah Lynn Henry, MD, PhD
Daniel Lage, MD, MSc, Massachusetts General Hospital
A Care Transition Intervention for Hospitalized Patients with Advanced Cancer
Mentor: Jennifer Temel, MD
Risa Wong, MD, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
SuPPORT: Screening for Psychosocial Distress in Prostate Cancer and Offering Referrals for Treatment
Mentor: John Gore, MD, MS
Grantee Name: Nancy Daly
Organization: Conquer Cancer Foundation
Country: United States
Focus Area: Disease and Treatment Burden
Funding Year: 2019
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 4 years
Over 75% of the patients with epithelial ovarian cancer are diagnosed with advanced disease that has spread beyond the ovaries to the peritoneal surface (stage III-IV). Optimal treatment for advanced disease involves surgery and six cycles of intravenous chemotherapy. The overall 5-year survival is 30-40% for patients with advanced stage disease. The chance of getting recurrent disease within two years is 80%. To improve outcome, additional strategies for these patients are warranted. Supplement with hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) to interval debulking surgery (IDS) improve the progression free survival and overall survival in patients with stage III ovarian cancer. The impact of HIPEC in addition to primary debulking surgery (PDS), is still uncertain.
Objective: The primary objective of this study is to evaluate the effect of HIPEC on overall survival when added to primary cytoreductive surgery in patients with FIGO stage III ovarian cancer who are eligible for primary cytoreductive surgery resulting in no residual.
Study design: An international, randomized, un-blinded, phase III trial, including 538 patients with ovarian cancer stage III for whom upfront surgery is feasible.
Intervention: PCS with HIPEC is performed with cisplatin (100mg/m2) for 90 minutes at a temperature of 41-42oC in the abdominal cavity at the end of surgery.
Main study endpoints: Primary endpoint is overall survival. Secondary endpoints are recurrence-free survival, time to subsequent anticancer treatment, toxicity and morbidity. Time to second subsequent anticancer treatment, quality of life analysis and economic- and cost evaluation are exploratory endpoints.
Grantee Name: Berit Mosgaard
Organization: Copenhagen University Hospital
Country: Denmark
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2020
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 4 years
Pregnancy is a major concern for premenopausal breast cancer survivors. Conception after breast cancer in women with hormone receptor positive (HR+) disease is affected by the standard 5-10 years of anti-hormonal therapy during which pregnancy is contraindicated.
The POSITIVE study evaluates whether it is safe, in terms of risk of breast cancer recurrence, to temporarily interrupt adjuvant endocrine therapy to attempt pregnancy. It is also an exceptional opportunity to investigate the biology of breast cancer in young patients, a subset that is well-known to be biologically distinct, yet poorly studied particularly at the molecular and genomic level.
The Central Pathology Review is a crucial component of multicenter tumor trials. Therefore, within the POSITIVE Study, it is integral to centrally collect patient tumor tissue and review tumor biological characteristics (such as ER, PR, Ki67 and HER2) alone and in combination with clinical-pathological parameters (grade of tumor, size of tumor, nodal status and patient age). The aim is to evaluate whether treatment interruption for some women with high-risk tumors may be detrimental and whether pregnancy might modify the risk of cancer relapse.
The data obtained will therefore permit individualized assessment of patient outcomes according to the biologic characteristics of the tumor as well as a better understanding of the overall results of the POSITIVE study. In addition, the results of the Central Pathology Review will enable future molecular subtyping in order to better tailor treatment in this population and help future patients fulfill their motherhood wish, without risking breast cancer relapse.
Grantee Name: Giuseppe Viale
Organization: International Breast Cancer Study Group
Country: Switzerland
Focus Area: Disease and Treatment Burden
Funding Year: 2020
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 2 years
The team had found in an earlier study that epigenetic therapy appears to sensitize patients to subsequent treatments including chemotherapy, and very excitingly, to immunotherapy, targeting reversal of immune tolerance.
Two new clinical trials will investigate an approach to reverse gene silencing associated with increased tumor growth using DNA methyltransferase inhibitor (azacitidine) and histone deacetylase inhibitor (entinostat). The first clinical trial will investigate the proposed therapy to address chemoresistance and the second trial will sensitize patients for immunotherapies. If validated, the study could in a delimited time span, introduce new therapies to radically alter the management of cancers like NSCLC.
Grantee Name: Stephen Baylin and Julie Brahmer
Organization: John Hopkins University
Country: United States
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2014
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 4 years
Brain tumors are the most common solid cancers affecting children and adolescents. Medulloblastoma and ependymoma are common brain tumors that require treatment with radiation following surgical resection. While radiation is an essential component of curative treatment, radiation to the developing brain contributes to adverse health effects that can impair quality of survivorship. There are two major types of external-beam radiation: photon-based and particle (proton) radiation. Both radiation modalities are alike in their cure rates and biological effectiveness.
However, compared with photons, proton radiation has better physical properties that localizes the radiation dose in the tumor target while sparing proximal normal tissues. We need to follow patients for a long time after treatment to determine if the dosimetric advantages of protons translate to an improvement in health outcomes. Supported by the Rising Tide Foundation, our study compares neurocognitive function and quality of life between brain tumor survivors greater than five years out from treatment with protons at Massachusetts General Hospital or with photons at Emory University Hospital.
Participants complete a comprehensive clinical evaluation, neurocognitive assessment, and PedsQL survey. DICOM radiation treatment plans are collected to assess dosimetric differences to the brain and its sub-regions. We hypothesize that patients treated with protons will have better neurocognitive outcomes and quality of life scores than patients treated with modern photon radiation due to the ability of protons to spare more normal brain. Our research will guide future treatment decisions and advocate for access to the radiation technology that maximizes quality of life for survivors.
Grantee Name: Torunn Yock
Organization: Massachusetts General Hospital
Country: United States
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2018
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 10 years
This phase I/II proposal will assess the dose and safety of a combination of an antibody currently used for the treatment of multiple myeloma with a radiolabel element that will generate images on PET scan for disease detection and treatment response monitoring.
The central hypothesis is that targeted imaging of CD38, which is expressed on the surface of virtually every myeloma cell, will allow non-invasive immuno-PET imaging of myeloma in human patients. This would be a transformative, non-invasive strategy for the detection of myeloma and treatment response monitoring.
Grantee Name: Ola Landgren
Organization: University of Miami
Country: United States
Focus Area: Early Detection
Funding Year: 2018
Funding Scheme: LLS
Project period: 5 years
Close exchange with cancer patients and patient organizations is vital for the further development of new and improved cancer therapies that seek to improve the chance of a cure and patients quality of life. SAKK therefore set up the Patient Advisory Board in November 2015 with the aim of gaining a better understanding of the needs of cancer patients and their families, in order to improve SAKK research projects.
The Patient Advisory Board currently has eight members with a very wide range of experience and background knowledge. The members of the Patient Advisory Board undertake further training on an ongoing basis and contribute with their valuable knowledge to our projects.
For example, the Patient Advisory Board participates in the development of information for patients and in this way makes these documents easier to understand.
In the coming years, the Patient Advisory Board will also be involved more intensively in the planning and development of trials to include the needs of patients in the trial design. The first pilot projects have started and are being refined continually.
Another important project is the preparation of lay summaries of SAKK trial results, in order to make the results understandable and available for the patients and the public. Pilot projects to gather experience in writing lay summaries for various SAKK trials are ongoing.
Twice a year, the Patient Advisory Board organizes the SAKK Patient Forum. This public event, focusing on a different cancer-related topic each time, allows patients and interested individuals to learn more about the latest research findings and provides an opportunity to ask questions and participate in related discussions.
The Patient Advisory Board is contacted frequently by external partners (the federal government, research institutes, healthcare organizations and universities), and asked to actively work on their projects to include the patients point of view and needs.
Grantee Name: Peter Durrer
Organization: Swiss Group For Clinical Cancer Research (SAKK)
Country: Switzerland
Focus Area: Other Areas
Funding Year: 2019
Funding Scheme: SAKK
Project period: 3 years
Worldwide more than 450000 patients are diagnosed with breast cancer every year. It accounts for one-third of all cancer diagnoses among women and causes more than 130000 deaths per year. Until the mid-nineties, the complete removal of all lymph nodes in the armpit was the standard treatment for patients with breast cancer, causing massive morbidity in one-third of patients with decreased quality of life. Over the past 25 years, this radical operation was slowly abandoned in patients without tumor signs in their lymph nodes. However, it is still standard of care in patients with cancer detected in their lymph nodes before surgery.
This study addresses the questions if radical surgery of the lymph nodes can be safely replaced by a novel limited surgery concept called tailored axillary surgery in combination with radiotherapy, and if this new treatment combination results in better quality of life compared to the standard radical procedure. One half of the 1500 patients will undergo radical surgery and the other half will receive the new combination treatment.
If this study is positive, it is likely to establish a new worldwide treatment standard with less side effects and better quality of life, while maintaining the same efficacy as radical surgery. This would help to decrease surgical overtreatment of patients with breast cancer on a global scale.
Grantee Name: Walter Weber
Organization: University Hospital Basel
Country: Switzerland
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2020
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 5 years
Every year around 450 men in Switzerland develop testicular cancer, which is the most common type of cancer in men aged between 18 and 35. About half of those tumors are seminomas, most of which diagnosed with the tumor confined to testis and cured by removal of the affected testis. Around 15% of all patients do however present with disease which has spread to lymph nodes in the abdomen and pelvis, thus classified as having stage II disease and requiring further treatment. Standard therapy for a stage IIA or IIB seminoma is chemotherapy or radiotherapy. The two standard treatments are not usually combined. Although these treatments are extremely effective, they are intensive and bear the risk of long-term side-effects such as damage to the heart, blood vessels, kidneys, intestines and the inner ear, or the development of a second cancer. As the patients are often young, it is particularly relevant to reduce the risk of these side-effects as much as possible. The trial SAKK 01/18 is thus examining a new therapeutic approach: the combination of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, with a much weaker form of each therapy being used. This combination is designed to produce high rates of local control (by means of radiotherapy) and the eradication of micrometastases (by means of chemotherapy). Additionally, the trial aims to investigate how treatment affects the patients quality of life. SAKK 01/18 is the follow-on project to the completed trial SAKK 01/10 trial. The trial is running in Switzerland and Germany and 135 patients will be included.
Grantee Name: Alexandros Papachristofilou
Organization: University Hospital Basel
Country: Switzerland
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2018
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 6 years
This multinational, phase III clinical trial seeks to investigate the hypothesis that a multimodal intervention delivered during chemotherapy in the advanced lung or pancreatic cancer is effective in preventing and/or delaying cancer cachexia, and as a consequence, will improve weight, food intake, physical function and quality of life.
If proven positive, the proposed cachexia intervention can be immediately adopted into current practice and can be easily implemented across the healthcare system to become the new standard of care.
Grantee Name: Marie Fallon
Organization: University of Edinburgh
Country: United Kingdom
Focus Area: Disease and Treatment Burden
Funding Year: 2015
Funding Scheme: Marie Curie UK
Project period: 4 years
Chondrosarcoma is a rare invasive cancer that affects bones and large joints. Extensive surgical resections with wide margins are necessary to cure this disease and surgeries can lead to significant morbidity. Radiation and chemotherapy have been largely ineffective for primary disease or for locally recurrent and metastatic disease. A pharmacologic agent that can potentially lead to function preserving surgical treatment, fewer local recurrences, and better control of systemic disease, would help improve the overall quality of life. Zoledronic acid is a widely used agent for treatment of metastatic cancer to the bone and to treat osteoporosis. Our pre-clinical studies have shown that zoledronic acid may help control the local destruction of bone by chondrosarcoma. Hence, we are conducting a clinical trial repurposing zoledronic acid by giving a dose prior to standard of care surgical resection and evaluating its impact on the resected tumor specimen. A second dose is given post operatively and time to local or metastatic recurrence as well as overall survival will be determined. The study is ongoing and 11 out of planned 15 patients have been enrolled. We hope to use this information to design a larger trial using zoledronic acid as an adjuvant therapy.
Grantee Name: Varun Monga
Organization: University of Iowa
Country: United States
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2016
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 3 years
Background:
Approximately 70-80% of all breast cancers are hormone receptor-positive. After tumor removal, these patients are recommended anti-hormonal therapy, with the use of an aromatase inhibitor (AI) being standard of care in postmenopausal women. AI-therapy can cause side effects ranging from disturbing to debilitating, especially joint/muscle pain and stiffness, but also fatigue, hot flashes, etc.
Research Question:
The benefit of physical activity on manifested muscle/joint pain and stiffness under AI-therapy is well established. The purpose of our patient focused trial is to investigate whether physical activity has a preventive effect on side effects of AI-therapy.
Trial Intervention:
Patients are randomly allocated at the beginning of an AI-therapy to either an intervention arm (consisting of walking outdoors continuously for at least 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week for 24 weeks) or a control arm (no specific recommendation regarding physical activity). Patients in both arms wear a wrist-worn activity tracker with customized display (intervention arm: feedback about activity performed; control arm: no feedback).
Aim of the Trial:
The aim of this trial is to investigate if a simple outdoor walking intervention, beginning at the start of AI-therapy, can prevent muscle/ joint pain and stiffness and can positively affect symptom burden and quality of life in general.
Follow-Up:
During a follow-up phase of 1.5 years, the trial will assess whether the trial shows a lasting effect on pain, treatment adherence, an active lifestyle, and quality of life in general in the intervention arm compared to the control arm.
Grantee Name: Friedemann Honecker / N. Hoefnagels, MSc
Organization: Tumor- und Brustzentrum, ZeTuP St. Gallen
Country: Switzerland
Focus Area: Disease and Treatment Burden
Funding Year: 2017
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 5 years
Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) is often a side effect of cancer treatment and can diminish a patients quality of life (QOL) by affecting everyday activities such as driving a car, putting on clothing, using utensils, and walking. CIPN also leads to treatment delays, dose reductions, and chemotherapy discontinuations which negatively affect treatment outcomes. Only two therapies have been shown to be effective to treat CIPN, neurofeedback (NFB) and duloxetine. Neurofeedback is a treatment that is customized to the individual, relatively inexpensive, non-invasive, and provided alongside conventional medicine. It is a reward system comprised of a brain-computer interface where participants are taught to change activity in brain regions that contribute to symptom perception. In our prior studies of NFB to treat CIPN, we found that patients with CIPN can learn to control activity in brain areas that are associated with CIPN, leading to QOL improvements such as restoration of normal exercise and recreational activities. This project aims to address three major obstacles to clinical improvement in CIPN symptoms. First, this project will help us understand CIPN at the level of individual brain function and will explore neurofeedback training in conjunction with duloxetine to maximize benefit to patients. Second, we will also discover the optimal amount of neurofeedback sessions needed to result in long-term relief of CIPN in a large group of participants and across socioeconomic groups. Lastly, this project will provide valuable information on the interplay between pain perceptions, treatments, and brain function.
Grantee Name: Sarah Prinsloo
Organization: The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Country: United States
Focus Area: Disease and Treatment Burden
Funding Year: 2019
Funding Scheme: American Cancer Society
Project period: 4 years
Patients with advanced cancer frequently experience severe multiple physical, emotional symptoms. These are associated with major morbidity in cancer care, poor quality of life, and impact overall survival. Their family members also experience physical and emotional distress. At the same time, patients and their families need to discuss the goals of care and to participate in advance care planning. These issues are even more urgent in medically underserved regions of low middle-income countries. Provision of access to quality palliative care can address these needs effectively. One of the main reasons is the lack of health professional education, training and support to health care providers taking care of this vulnerable patients. There is a great need to train the physicians, nurses, volunteers helping the patients with life limiting illnesses (palliative care clinicians) with skills required to provision of quality palliative care. We are proposing a collaborative ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) telementoring project between the MD Anderson Cancer Center, Aga Khan University(Kenya), Korle-Bu Hospital (Ghana), University College Hospital(Nigeria), Tata Memorial Hospital (India), and The African Cancer Institute (South Africa). The Palliative ECHO will consist of one-hour, twice monthly teleECHO clinics with participants ECHO. We will also examine the effects of ECHO on patient quality of life symptoms and caregiver experience over a period of 1 year.
Grantee Name: Yennu Sriran
Organization: The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Country: United States
Focus Area: Disease and Treatment Burden
Funding Year: 2019
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 2 years
There is an urgent need to develop and evaluate new therapies for children with brain tumours given their high mortality rates. This is particularly true for Diffuse Midline Gliomas (DMGs), which include Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Gliomas (DIPGs), which affect over 2,000 children and young adults in the US and Europe every year. Sadly, despite decades of research, there are no effective treatments for this disease and over 90% of children die less than 2 years from being diagnosed.
Promising drugs and treatment strategies are emerging, but they require extensive research at the preclinical stage. This is both to understand the mechanisms of action of these drugs, but also to identify clinically relevant predictive biomarkers of drug efficacy. Clinically relevant predictive biomarkers allow us to gauge, in real time, how well they will respond to treatment.
Our project's aim is to assess tumor response to therapy. Such studies will allow for designing more effective therapies for patients diagnosed with DMG. Our study is designed as a multi-arm trial based on different disease stages to provide access for the largest possible population of patients. This trial offers a new and promising agent to children in Europe where little to no innovative therapies are available, and limited clinical phase 1 trials are open. The results of our study will have a global impact on treatment strategies for children suffering from DMGs.
Grantee Name: Javad Nazarian
Organization: University Children's Hospital Zurich
Country: Switzerland
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2020
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 6 years
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) has a long latent period of years before its aggressive and deadly clinical presentation. This latent period is characterized by the clonal expansion of preleukemic hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (preL-HSPCs) carrying recurrent leukemia related somatic mutations. Spliceosome machinery mutations (SMMs) occur many years before AML, and accurately predict the progression to AML. As such, they are considered promising targets for preventive interventions.
Our aim was to reveal an Achilles heel of cells that harbor the SRSF2 mutation, as well as the mechanistic role of this weak point. For this, we established 5 cell lines (MARIMO, K562, OCI-AML2, OCI-AML3 and MOLM14) in which we inserted the SRSF2 mutation using CRISPR that have served as platform for our overarching research goal. Using these lines, we conducted a drug screen that resulted in the discovery of 39 potential molecules which demonstrated selectivity against the SRSF2 mutation. These hits included ROCK pathway inhibitors (ROCKi). The top performing ROCKi molecule was RKI-1447 with an IC50 value of roughly 100nM in the SRSF2 mut lines. Therefore, we chose RKI-1447 for the final validation step and screened its selectivity against five different biological replicates from each of the cell lines. We discovered that both OCI-AML2 and MOLM14 cell lines carrying SRSF2 mutations were significantly more sensitive to ROCKi compared to the WT isogenic line and specifically to RKI-1447. We then stained MOLM14 carrying SRSF2 mutation and WT for Actin and Tubulin. Results demonstrated a unique phenotype observed in the SRSF2 mutant cell lines, which was aggravated by the addition of ROCK inhibitors. Cells carrying the SRSF2 mutant had a significantly more indented and lobulated nuclei. While we have established that ROCKi are effective against SRSF2 mutant cells, it remains crucial to understand why they are active.
Grantee Name: Liran Shlush
Organization: Weizmann Institute of Science
Country: Israel
Focus Area: Early Detection
Funding Year: 2018
Funding Scheme: LLS
Project period: 5 years
Within the past decade, the growth of immunotherapy as a method to treat cancer has been astounding. However, while new immunostimulatory therapies have shown great success in the treatment of many types of breast cancer, not all types of cancer respond. A major challenge remains identification of mechanisms to effectively treat the majority of patients with so-called "non-inflamed" breast tumors. Work in the laboratory has shown that the DNA repair ability of a tumor may impact its potential for immune recognition and sensitivity to immune therapies. We hypothesize that enhanced DNA damage and cell death induced by DNA damage repair inhibition in tumors will also enhance anti-tumor immune responses. To examine this, we are conducting a clinical trial exploring the DNA damage repair inhibitor olaparib either alone or in combination with the human monoclonal antibody atezolizumab in patients with BRCA1/2 mutated locally advanced or metastatic non-HER2-positive breast cancer. In addition to producing a prominent clinical advancement, the Rising Tide award is allowing us to perform experiments to demonstrate fundamental concepts linking DNA repair, specific genomic landscapes, and anti-tumor immune response. Ultimately, the results from this study have the potential to impact patient care by supporting the clinical development of a novel and biologically driven treatment combination to treat breast cancer.
Grantee Name: Patricia LoRusso
Organization: Yale University
Country: United States
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2017
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 2 years
According to government reports, deep-rooted gender inequality is the most pervasive form of inequality that operates in India across all classes, castes, and communities, posing a big challenge to India's potential to translate economic growth into inclusive development. To diminish gender differences in households and society, policies need to address the combined influence of social norms and beliefs, womens access to economic opportunities, the legal framework, and womens education and skills. To limit the reproduction of gender inequality across generations, it is important to reach adolescents and young adults because this is the age when they make decisions that determine their acquisition of skills, future health, economic prospects, and aspirations.
The Leadership Foundation of India invests in and empowers the next generation of women leaders in India. It primarily carries out this mission through support of its partner institution, Avasara Academy, a first-of-itskind secondary school for exceptionally talented girls in Pune, India. With a mission to empower girls of promise to lead lives of distinction and impact, Avasara Academy was established in 2011. It welcomed its first cohort of 50 students in 2015. This grant will allow 214 girls to attend the Avasara girls school over a 3 year period.
When you give a girl, regardless of her economic status, the highest quality education possible, and equip her with skills to lead her community, she will not only change the minds of those around her, she will change the world.
Empowering young girls through scholarships to Avasara Academy will increase womens voices in society while fostering and training future women leaders. An education at Avasara Academy will facilitate the transition from school to work through job and life skills training programs and shift aspirations from exposure to role models who challenge prevailing social norms.
Organization: Leadership Foundation of India
Country: India
Funding Year: 2019
Project Duration: 4 years
Empowerment of Individuals
The ability to fluently read, write and speak English has emerged as a crucial determinant of opportunity, choice, employability, social inclusion and mobility in India. There are growing aspirations for English speaking even among Indias poorest - demonstrated by increasing parental preference for private schools perceived as sites for better learning and opportunity primarily because of English education. With the recent trends in the Indian economy towards service industries, there is also an increasing market demand for an English-speaking workforce. However, a large proportion of Indias people cannot read, write or speak the language - only 4 percent of the population speaks the language fluently. English language education continues be poor in low income schools with poorly trained teachers, misaligned assessments, and lack of investments. Education in India, along with the popular media and public discourse also continues to harbor a predominantly statist and socialist bias with the result that young students and teachers have had little exposure to libertarian ideas and values and an understanding of their potential to transform their lives and life chances.
The project aims to train 5,000 teachers to improve spoken English skills for students currently attending low-fee private schools in India incorporating classical liberal content into the curriculum. The project will create a mobile-based app called Bolo English with conversational English and libertarian content while also conducting in-person training for teachers and students.
Learn more about Bolo English here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZYxkCJ7A_U.
Through English proficiency, the project seeks to foster better opportunities for education and employment, as well as social inclusion and mobility amongst low-income communities. This project from the Centre for Civil Society addresses these two pervasive challenges in Indian society: (1) poor knowledge of English, particularly in disadvantaged communities, and (2) a prevalent bias towards Nehruvian socialism.
Organization: Center for Civil Society
Country: India
Funding Year: 2019
Project Duration: 3 years
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
Despite the success of low-cost private education in the developing world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, governments often attempt to hinder their growth and flourishing. One of the most frequent criticisms is that the teachers within these schools do not have the same level of training and certification as those in government schools. Critics also argue that even if most research shows that the pupils in these schools outperform those in public schools, the quality of education remains low across both sectors.
The University of Buckingham, in partnership with the Association for Formidable Educational Development (AFED) in Nigeria, and the Centre for Teacher Accreditation (CENTA) in India is seeking to address this significant challenge by bringing an internationally recognized, educationally effective, technologically innovative, and affordable training program for educators in the low-cost private sector. The program will empower teachers and school managers and increase the quality of teaching and learning in these schools.
The project will demonstrate to governments the commitment of the low-cost private sector to improving the quality of teaching and learning in their schools, and thus allow private school associations to argue the case for a more liberal regulatory framework. A leaner regulatory framework will empower educational entrepreneurs and school managers with the freedom to innovate and experiment.
These schools also operate under regimes where the Rule of Law is not necessarily observed, which increases the likelihood of bribery and corruption, as regulations tend to be arbitrarily applied. One way of reducing corruption is to reduce the purview of the state; this project will facilitate that process by showing that self-regulation within the private sector can lead to higher standards of education through international teacher accreditation.
The teacher training program will improve teachers potential for living independent and self-determined lives by increasing their sense of self-efficacy and self-confidence, as well as their teaching skills and marketability. Better teaching and learning outcomes in these schools will also increase the dignity and self-respect of the children involved, and better their opportunity for obtaining gainful employment, further education study or entrepreneurship. Each of these will impact on their families freedom too.
Organization: University of Buckingham
Country: Nigeria & India
Funding Year: 2019
Project Duration: 4 years
Private Sector Solutions
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
It is often believed that those living in informal settlements or in households with low socio-economic status are reliant upon the state or charitable means for basic quality services. This representation of development typically hides the story of community solutions. This project focuses on three informal settlements in Delhi, India. It aims to show how communities overcome the absence of basic quality service provision by providing services themselves through community and private means as well as by developing approaches to enterprise and employment that circumvent the need for formal provision.
What is important for development is freedom of choice and freedom to control ones own life. This project will promote best practice from the communities that stimulate sustainable lives overcoming barriers to employment and entrepreneurial activity. Newcastle University in partnership with Kings College London, St. Marys University, the Centre for Urban and Regional Excellence (CURE), and Indus Information Initiatives will provide knowledge for change, knowledge to inform, and knowledge to empower individuals to control their own lives.
You can find more information about this project here.
This project will promote and enhance individual freedom in a number of ways, first it will discover how individuals, enterprises, and communities are able to provide basic services for themselves, promoting policy change that will put such private solutions at the heart of public policy. Second, by spreading best practice, it will ensure that communities can better adapt to the circumstances in which they find themselves and live lives that are characterized by gainful employment and enterprise, thus promoting empowerment, resilience, and reduced dependence. Third, by spreading best practice, it will promote approaches to providing essential basic services through the community and private enterprise. Ensuring accessibility, acceptability, and adaptability of these services for all community members including young people, women, and migrants.
Organization: University of Newcastle
Country: India
Funding Year: 2019
Project Duration: 3 years
Private Sector Solutions
System Change
Unemployment in Kenya among youth aged 15-24 is over 60%, and the struggle to generate sufficient income is even harder for vulnerable youth such as teen moms, those struggling with alcohol and drugs, school dropouts, or those with criminal records. COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact on youth living in informal settlements, worsening their pre-existing vulnerable situation.
One of the key challenges for these forgotten youth is that, as they look around them, they see the same, hopeless story played out in almost every person around them. These youth chronically fail at benefitting from typical entrepreneurship and business-skills programs because they are either over-looked or dont believe they fit or are able to succeed. Instead, they wait for help from others like parents, government, or big business.
To break this cycle of inter-generational poverty, Emerging Leaders project in Kenya will work with vulnerable, unemployed youth in urban informal settlements of the Nairobi and Naivasha regions. The program focuses first on changing mindsets to unlock youths potential. Then the program builds on this with financial literacy and entrepreneurship skills, typically seeing upwards of 70-80% of participants start a small income-generating business - one they identify, plan, and deliver and which more than doubles their monthly income.
This four-year project will focus on scaling-up delivery of the Leadership for Life program to 18,000 poor urban youth through a train-the-trainer model. The program is delivered by youth themselves - who have been transformed through their own leadership and entrepreneurship journey.
Our goal is to see:
70% start income-generating projects
40% linked with other programs or companies that can help them to grow their businesses
5% to be employing at least one other person.
Every single day the story of our lives is being written; the question is who has the pen? Emerging Leaders approach to enhancing freedom is to help youth re-imagine and then re-write their story by empowering them with the mindsets, motivations, and skills to flourish. This
enables them to navigate the challenges of life and make choices that will enable them and those around them to thrive. The program helps create flourishing communities by unlocking human potential and unleashing entrepreneurial creativity. When youth realize they are free to lead themselves and have agency over their choices and future, their entrepreneurship, energy, and growth is unstoppable and a catalyst for transformative change.
True freedom means no one - not us, nor any other entity - can tell youth what they should want or should dream. So flourishing is not defined by us, instead youth define it for themselves. And then they are coached to lift up their heads to see the needs around them, and how their own actions can help solve those needs. And thus, the link from mindsets to entrepreneurship to flourishing is born
Grant Details
Organization: Emerging Leaders
Country: Kenya
Funding Year: 2021
Project Duration: 4 years
Funding Areas
Private Sector Solutions
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
Clinical stage III melanoma patients have poor outcomes when treated with upfront surgery and adjuvant therapy. Neoadjuvant, or pre-operative therapy, can potentially improve outcomes for this high-risk patient population. Researchers at MD Anderson Cancer Center and the Melanoma Institute of Australia have recently reported that approximately 50% of clinical stage III melanoma patients with BRAF V600 mutated disease achieve a pathologic complete response (pCR) or complete melanoma death, after exposure to neoadjuvant dabrafenib and trametinib (DT) treatment. Patients who do have pCR have improved survival outcomes compared to those that do not have a pCR. We do not understand which features will predict development of pCR but have identified preliminary molecular, immunological and pathologic data in pre-treatment tumors we believe may be predictive of long-term outcomes. Additionally, while pCR patients are less likely to develop relapse than non-pCR patients, there are still some pCR patients who relapse, and we believe there are distinct features in these patients surgical samples that determine subsequent relapse risk. Finally, patients who do not achieve a pCR are at higher risk of developing CNS metastases at time of relapse. We believe there are features in their tumor specimens which evolve over the course of therapy and identification of these factors will predict the risk of CNS relapse. Together, these studies aim to inform mechanisms of treatment response and resistance to BRAF targeted therapy, will enhance the field of neoadjuvant therapy, identify risk of CNS metastasis formation and ultimately improve melanoma patient outcomes.
Grantee Name: Rodabe Amaria
Organization: University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Country: United States
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2020
Funding Scheme: MRA
Project period: 3 years
The removal of all lymph nodes in the armpit through a conventional surgical method called axillary dissection has been standard care for patients with breast cancer for almost a century. In the nineties, the sentinel lymph node procedure, which involves the selective removal of the first few affected lymph nodes, was introduced in clinical practice. Today, conventional axillary dissection is still performed on many women with breast cancer that has spread to the nodes. It is the cause for undesired complications (morbidity) in the form of lymphedema, impairment of shoulder mobility, sensation disorders and chronic pain in as much as one third of all women undergoing the procedure.
The TAXIS trial will evaluate the optimal treatment for breast cancer patients in terms of surgery and radiotherapy. In particular, it will investigate the value of tailored axillary surgery (TAS), a new technique that aims at selectively removing the positive lymph nodes combined with axillary radiation. TAS combines the sentinel procedure with the removal of palpably suspicious nodes. It is a promising procedure that may significantly decrease morbidity in breast cancer patients by avoiding surgical over-treatment.
This trial has the potential to establish a new worldwide treatment standard with hopefully less side effects and a better quality of life, while keeping the same efficacy as provided by radical surgery. Tailored refinement of axillary surgery may herald an exciting era of reduced morbidity for breast cancer patients.
Grantee Name: Florian Fitzal
Organization: Austrian Breast and Colorectal Cancer Study Group
Country: Austria
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2018
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 5 years
Metastatic cancer can range from a single metastasis to widely disseminated metastases, making it the leading cause of cancer death. Oligometastases are considered an intermediate state between locoregional cancer and widespread metastases with a limited number of lesions and organs involved. Retrospective studies have shown that aggressive metastasis-directed therapy (surgery or radiation) added to standard of care systemic therapy achieved long-term survival or even cure in about one quarter of the patients. Evidence is mostly based on the common cancer sites: lung, colorectal and prostate cancers. It has however been proposed that this intermediate oligometastatic cancer stage may also exist in other cancer types, opening a curative window for many more cancer patients.
The 1945-OligoRare is an academic clinical study led by the EORTC in 6 countries in Europe (BE,CH,IT,DE,FR,UK) with a transatlantic collaboration with British Columbia Cancer Agency in Canada. It will be the first study to use the stereotactic body radiotherapy -SBRT- approach (targeted radiotherapy) in cancers where the oligometastatic state is uncommon, thus where data is severely lacking. Patients with oligometastatic cancer, including all solid cancer types except lung, breast, colon and prostate cancer will be eligible.
Its primary objective is to assess if the addition of SBRT improves the overall survival compared to the standard of care treatment alone, in eligible patients with a maximum of 5 oligometastatic lesions. A total of 200 patients will be recruited over a period of 5.5 years.
Further information can be found here
Grantee Name: Matthias Guckenberger
Organization: EORTC
Country: Belgium
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2020
Funding Scheme: ACF
Project period: 5 years
Women found to have breast cancer in their lymph nodes are often advised to receive radiation therapy to the lymph nodes to decrease the chance of cancer recurrence and improve survival. Because of the length of treatment (at least five weeks) and the side effects of treatment (tiredness, arm swelling, and skin and tissue changes), some women who may benefit from radiation therapy do not receive it.
An innovative shorter-duration radiation treatment regimen that delivers larger daily doses of radiation to the lymph nodes (called hypofractionation) may allow women to get the radiation they need while reducing the duration and toxicity of treatment. The SAPHIRe trial (Shortening Adjuvant PHoton IRradiation) is a randomized, clinical trial of shorter-duration (three-week) versus standard-duration (five-week) radiation therapy in 842 patents receiving radiation therapy to the lymph nodes for invasive breast cancer conducted at academic and community practices across the United States. The women who choose to take part in this trial will be assigned to one of these two treatments and will complete questionnaires about their side effects, physical function, quality of life, and financial well-being. They will also be evaluated for treatment complications, development of arm swelling (lymphedema), and cancer status. The trial is designed to demonstrate shorter-duration radiation to the lymph nodes provides similar cancer control while reducing the side effects and burden of treatment.
The development of a less toxic, less costly, more convenient, shorter-duration regimen is expected to reduce the burden of treatment and increase the utilization of curative radiation.
Grantee Name: Karen Hoffman
Organization: University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Country: United States
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2020
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 5 years
Patient outcomes in metastatic melanoma, the most deadly of common skin cancers, have improved dramatically with the approval of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI). Nonetheless, not all patients benefit from these therapies and actionable strategies to enhance the effectiveness of ICI are urgently needed. This study seeks to develop a deeper understanding of the role of a whole foods, plant-based, fiber-rich diet on the microbiome and anti-tumor immunity in patients receiving immunotherapyTo test the impact of a whole food, high-fiber diet on systemic and anti-tumor immunity in patients with metastatic melanoma on anti-PD1.
Grantee Name: Jennifer Leigh McQuade
Organization: University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Country: United States
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2019
Funding Scheme: Seerave Foundation
Project period: 3 years
Across the state of California, local governments have shifted from a more personalized approach to homelessness that respects the dignity of the individual to a one-size-fits-all program that is euphemistically called Housing First. The Housing First program dehumanizes its beneficiaries by treating them as objectives of the system rather than subjects - protagonists in their own story. Unfortunately, this program has resulted in a redirection of funds from organizations that have demonstrated success helping people leave homelessness and rise out of poverty towards initiatives that simply build housing.
To compound this issue, excess zoning regulations throughout the state of California have resulted in sky-high housing costs. These two elements housing without expectations and excessive regulations - combined together, are perpetuating the troubling state of the homeless in California.
The Independent Institute, through the Campaign for Housing and Human Dignity initiative, aims to provide a realistic alternative to California's current Housing First approach through (with the hope that successes can then be exported to other states):
We are thrilled that this initiative has now been launched; you can watch the documentary trailer here, visit the BeyondHomeless.org website, and learn more about the Urban Vision Alliance.
The vast array of regulations on housing development imposed by California abrogates property rights, reducing individual freedom, while both feeding homelessness and preventing individuals from exiting it. Coupled with the destructive Housing First narrative, California has been placed in a dire circumstance. Independent Institute effectively highlights each of these policies and their failed outcomes, and widely promotes freedom-enhancing solutions through effective promotional campaigns and working collaboratively with the Urban Vision Alliance to support a transformational approach to ending homelessness. Through this program, individuals experiencing homelessness will be provided with alternative optionsoptions that enable them to take control of their own life rather than becoming the objects of a bureaucratic system that overlooks their individuality.
Through this initiative, Independent Institute will highlight and disseminate successful, human-centered solutions to homelessness that can be employed both in San Francisco and more broadly.
Organization: Independent Institute
Country: United States
Funding Year: 2021
Project Duration: 2 years
Private Sector Solutions
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
Street vending is a low-cost enterprise and a primary source of livelihood for almost 2% of Indias urban population. Despite being ubiquitous, the economic and property rights of vendors are often at risk of abuse from government authorities. They live under the constant threat of eviction, seizure of their goods, and arbitrary fines. Approaching lawyers in every case of confiscation or eviction is costly. Harassment of vendors is rampant due to a lack of legal awareness, a systematic record of harassment data, and proper legal enforcement.
Vendors right to livelihood is at the forefront of governmental discourse, as acknowledged by Indias Prime Minister, and Centre for Civil Society (CCS) has managed to build its reputation as the go-to civil society organization for issues related to vendor livelihoods. CCS is currently developing a comprehensive mobile application (the Jeevika App) to ensure legal empowerment of vendors and to bridge information gaps through technology. The Jeevika App will become a one-stop access for vendors in Delhi by (a) creating a legal aid and SOS platform that will connect vendors to law students or lawyers in case of harassment; (b) enabling street vendors to geo-tag themselves for verifying their property rights claims; and (c) collating data on harassment and generating heat maps. This project aims to provide tools for street vendors to defend their rights and fight harassment. The empowerment of vendors will ultimately deter public officials from abusing their powers.
For over two decades now, CCS has championed the economic freedom and right to earn a dignified livelihood for the poorest of poor in the informal sector, such as the street vendors in India, a vulnerable group of nano-entrepreneurs. CCS has won the 2021 Asia Liberty Award and the 2021 Templeton Freedom Award for its work on street vendor livelihoods. The government of India, through its Parliamentary Standing Committee on Urban Development, acknowledged and accepted the recommendations proposed by CCS on protecting the rights of street vendors.
CCS has recorded instances of street vendors standing up to judicial officials, representing their cases in the court, and mitigating harassment while proactively working to make them legally aware of their rights and the law. Through a methodical identification of stakeholders and dissemination, the Jeevika App will positively impact the business landscape for street vendors in India. If the application is successful, then (a) the number and severity of harassment cases and extortion of street vendors will reduce; and (b) policymakers will speedily and comprehensively rectify legal barriers. As some vendors become empowered to fight against harassment, they will inspire others to do the same. The project will eventually help improve the prosperity, freedom, and dignity of street vendors in India. Once the issue of harassment is addressed, it will help the urban poor to work their way out of poverty.
Organization: Center for Civil Society
Country: India
Funding Year: 2021
Project Duration: 2 years
Private Sector Solutions
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
The term capitalism is oftentimes misunderstood both in the United States and more broadly around the world. These misperceptions around capitalism are often a result of the pervasive trend toward corporate welfare in the western world. While the topic of wealth distribution is typically accompanied by debates for levels of welfare benefits, taxation vs. voluntary assistance, or optimal levels of taxation that encourage work but provide a safety net to the poor, Free to Choose Network (FTCN) believes that all reasonable people (while maybe disagreeing on the previous issues) can broadly agree on the ill effects of upward wealth redistribution where the low and middle class provide subsidies to business owners and politicians.
FTCN aims to generate a culture shift as a solution to the pervasiveness of corporate welfare in the western world today. They will aim to generate this cultural shift through (a) creating a film for distribution on public television; (b) establishing a community engagement program that helps provide local citizens with knowledge and tools to combat the problems of cronyism; and (c) producing and distributing video-based classroom education materials highlighting the partnership between government and business that causes cronyism to flourish.
Though this project, FTCN will highlight the work of ordinary people who are making systemic changes in their communities and then subsequently promote these efforts to others. They will be able to raise awareness around the issue of corporate welfare and then inspire those at the local level to combat it. This will result in a stronger reaction against the corporate welfare impulse in the United States, providing greater security and agency to the most marginalized in society who are disproportionately affected by this issue. Additionally, through their K-12 educational outreach, FTCN will change the future culture around corporate welfare by educating youth on the topic.
Organization: Free To Choose Network
Country: United States
Funding Year: 2021
Project Duration: 2 years
System Change
Teaching Freedom
WISDOM is the first prospective, randomized large-scale evaluation of an alternative approach to the one-size-fits-all mammographic screening introduced in the 1980s.
The present study compares annual screening with a risk-based approach that uses a comprehensive evaluation of each womans individual risk for breast cancer to develop a risk-based, personalized breast cancer screening recommendation. The goal of risk-based screening is to improve the chance of preventing breast cancer in those at risk and to reduce rates of false-positive recalls, over diagnosis and over treatment, which are significant causes of morbidity in the current annual screening approach.
The results of this study could transcend the current screening controversy and support a transition of personalized medicine screening and prevention approach. For patients, personalized care should lead to better health outcomes due to fewer indolent tumors being detected, fewer unnecessary biopsies, and less anxiety for women. We also believe this program will improve access to, and use of, preventive therapy for women at high risk, thereby modifying the incidence and progression of disease.
Grantee Name: Maria Bell
Organization: Sanford Research
Country: United States
Focus Area: Early Detection
Funding Year: 2021
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 3 years
The challenge of treating the fast-growing population of elderly patients with cancer urgently requires adequate treatment, for which guidelines and evidence-based data are lacking. A recent EORTC study, demonstrated that elderly patients with advanced soft tissue sarcomas (a rare type of cancer that starts in tissues like fat or muscle) are underrepresented in clinical trials of first-line chemotherapy. This means that, due to a lack of evidence-based data, there is currently no consensus on the standard of care for the chemotherapeutic treatment of the elderly patients with inoperable or metastatic soft tissue sarcomas. There is therefore an urgent need for development of novel trials for elderly patients that include a health status geriatric screening tool and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) assessments.
The EORTC TOLERANCE is an academic clinical trial comparing different treatments for elderly patients with inoperable or metastatic soft tissue sarcomas in terms of HRQoL. Specifically, it compares metronomic schedules of doxorubicin or cyclophosphamide plus prednisolone versus the standard doxorubicin treatment (3 treatment arms). The ultimate goal of this study is to select the best experimental treatment based on patient self-reported outcomes in order to set a new standard of care in this setting. This aligns with RTFs mission to support less toxic therapeutic approaches and better disease burden management leading to increased quality of life and survival of cancer patients.
EORTC 1976-STBSG-QLG TOLERANCE is a 3-arm randomised, open label, phase 3 trial coordinated by the EORTC HQ in Brussels. A total number of 185 patients aged from 65 years-old and diagnosed with advanced or metastatic STS will be enrolled over a period of 3.5 years. The trial will open in 31 reference cancer centres in 8 countries (CY, DK, DE, IT, JO, NL, ES, UK).
Grantee Name: Winette van der Graaf
Organization: EORTC
Country: Belgium
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2021
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 4 years
Despite recent progress, Africa remains the worlds poorest and most protectionist continent. Protectionism in Africa means more poverty, less choice, and lower quality of life for one billion people across the continent. However, there is now a real prospect for change if the right support is provided, in part thanks to the recent implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) implemented on January 1st, 2021.
This historic agreement aims to remove 90% of tariffs on goods traded between member-states within five to ten years. Within thirteen years, it aims to remove 97% of tariffs. The World Bank estimates that, if successful, this Free Trade Area can lift 30 million people out of extreme poverty, 68 million from moderate poverty, boost regional income upwards of USD 450 billion, and increase average wages for both skilled and unskilled workers by about 10% by 2035. But if more states do not ratify the AfCFTA, the trade agreement could be a failure.
This three-year project from Initiative for African Trade and Prosperity (IATP) will promote freedom and prosperity by uniting more than a dozen innovative African think tanks with three esteemed UK-based organizationsthe Vinson Centre for the Public Understanding of Economics at the University of Buckingham, the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA), and the Network for a Free Society (NFS)in the development of a program to promote policy change in the area of trade liberalization. The Vinson Centre will influence public and governmental opinion in favor of the AfCFTA through marketing campaigns, targeted projects, mini-grants to partners in their network, supporting publications in leading media, and distributing educational materials broadly.
This project has massive potential, as reducing 90+ percent of trade barriers across the continent would mean substantial gains for 1 billion people. Individuals will achieve greater economic freedom, empowerment, and prosperity when they are able to more easily access global networks and benefit from reduced barriers to global exchange. This project has the capacity to change protectionist perceptions so that borders can be opened, and the benefits of greater liberalization can be enjoyed by those living across the region.
In order to change policy, minds and outlooks must be changed first. Hence, the inclusion of a component of this project that teaches individuals the power of free trade and the principles and foundations of free societies. This teaching will be done by distributing mini-libraries of classical liberal texts on CDs, books related to free trade, events (some online with many in-person), and articles across national media outlets. These avenues will in total reach millions of people. The IATP itself will also produce six professionally made videos that can be shared online. Once these videos are shared by partners in their network, it is likely they will at least attract tens of thousands of views. These videos will be intended for both policy leaders and broader audiences across the content that arent necessarily located in target countries.
Read more on the Initiative for African Trade & Prosperity at https://theiatp.org/
Organization: Institute of Economic Affairs
Country: United Kingdom and the African continent
Funding Year: 2021
Project Duration: 2 years
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
Greece has suffered for years from a tumultuous economic crisis spurred on by government debt and fiscal deficits. The Center for Liberal Studies (CLS) strongly believes that a lead contributor to this economic crisis and the subsequent rise of illiberal ideas and policies can be largely attributed to widespread economic illiteracy. To increase economic literacy throughout Greece, CLS is organizing the Greek Economics Olympiad and creating supplemental teaching materials, including a Greek edition of the award-winning economics textbook Economics in 31 Hours. They are also creating 31 basic economics education videos tailored to the Greek context that will be distributed on YouTube (and other platforms) for a high school audience.
CLS determined that the Economics Olympiad was the right initiative to reach their goal of achieving greater economic literacy in Greece through engaging high school students in a high quality and fun competition on basic economic concepts. Supplementary education materials will also serve to further influence Greek high school students.
The Greek Economics Olympiad was organized for the first time in the 2020-2021 academic year by CLS. The competition was launched in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and with the support of the Bank of Greece as well as the General Secretariat for Greeks Abroad and Public Diplomacy. The first competition attracted 1,105 students from 135 high schools from all over Greece and one school from the Greek diaspora. The Olympiad competition was mentioned 276 times in Greek media, including major television, radio, newspaper, and web outlets. Moving forward, CLS seeks to replicate and extend this success by increasing student participation while also increasing the quantity of high-quality resources available for students to gain basic economics education.
There is a pervasive problem in Greece of a lack of basic economic literacy. Currently, throughout a typical education, students may never encounter any training in basic economics whatsoever. This is likely one reason for the great economic challenges Greece faces today. Through this project, students will receive fun, relevant education in basic economic principles which will increase their human capital while at the same time benefit Greek society into the future through a more informed and educated citizenry regarding basic economic principles. The goal of the Greek Economics Olympiad is to equip students to make important decision in both the political and personal realm that are anchored in sound economics. In just 5-10 years, at the current pace, they will have trained more than 100,000 high school students in sound economic principles in a country with a population of just 10 million.
Organization: Center for Liberal Studies Markos Dragoumis (KEFiM)
Country: Greece
Funding Year: 2021
Project Duration: 2 years
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
This project aims to increase personal freedom and activate personal action through an integration of two easily accessible technologies Myne and Poverty Stoplight. Myne is an agency-oriented software using proven gamification techniques to empower participation in personal transformation. Poverty Stoplight is a global movement with an effective bottom-up methodology and technology platform that activates the potential of families to identify and own their poverty-related challenges.
This project aims to address the lack of personal autonomy within the current systems targeted at poverty reduction by joining two technologies, whose values are deeply connected, to achieve individual and system level transformation. The Myne Community App will integrate with the Poverty Stoplight tool, showing the Client Life Map, priorities, and relevant resources. Our goal is to directly connect participants to their individualized resources and show the impact of daily decisions on large goals in a smaller feedback loop. It will include gamification features that are widely used across the for-profit sector but less well utilized in social services. Three pilot projects will focus on key stakeholders: funders, organizations and with a primary focus on participants use and outcomes. Pilots will be in the UK Poverty Stoplight hub, Signal and US, including Texas hub, Dallas Lights.
Myne has three principles that govern its development and are part of its measurement strategy:
The Myne Community App provides a means to record, track, and measure the smaller actions of our daily lives, the activities we undertake regularly, and the moments that we acknowledge for ourselves. This can then be visualized to show the tangible progress that is happening. While small and often unnoticed, these moments add up to significant change. Similar to a dieter's decision to stick to an eating plan, when the scale begins to show small increments of progress (a visual representation of the progress), these small moments encourage someone to continue on a new path that is right for them.
We believe Myne and Poverty Stoplight can, together, have a significant local and global impact on the everyday lives of individuals, creating personal freedom through increased agency and ultimately drive systems change at multiple levels.
Myne is a step towards the dignity, confidence, and empowerment that characterizes this enhanced freedom. It shows individuals how their work of showing up, persisting, progressing, and achieving goals within safe relationships can add up to healthier outcomes. For all stakeholders, it encourages participation in an ecosystem that helps families and communities to thrive. Myne shows how small-scale events and activities (that are often overlooked) are significant steps to an individuals achievement (research shows us these are the building blocks of building confidence). Combining this with Poverty Stoplights ability to visualize self-driven goals through its Stoplight Life Map will produce a powerful data-driven, relationship-based, and bottom-up approach to personal liberty and self-directed poverty alleviation.
Without personal autonomy, individuals will show some progress in traditional, particularly data-extractive only programs. However, they are more likely to revert to their previous circumstances as soon as the strict parameters of the program are removed. With personal autonomy, an individual is more likely to experience sustained progress and change as they typically choose goals that will fit within their current parameters.
Daron Babcock, CEO Bonton Farms, and member of Dallas Lights, connects Myne with that principle: We believe deeply in the idea that we should not do for others what they are capable of doing for themselves. However, [sometimes we can] rob them of the dignity, confidence and empowerment that comes with an honorable exchange. TheMyne app would allow us a way to quantify and track the work that is done by people, so we can empirically show them that they are responsible for their success; that it is earned and not gifted.
On a larger level, as more communities begin to use the tool, data points about community, country and regional needs will develop. As multiple nonprofits within a city begin to use the tool, data points will begin to show if self-identified needs have commonality by region. Example: The south side of the city self-reports the need for jobs, whereas the north side of the city reports the need for childcare. Utilizing these data points, funders may target their support to programs that provide assistance with these targeted needs, thereby creating systems level shifts in program implementation.
Organization: Behind Every Door
Country: United States
Funding Year: 2021
Project Duration: 2 years
Private Sector Solutions
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
The primary means by which low-income populations get ahead economically, or even only survive, is through entrepreneurship and micro-business. This is especially apparent in developing countries: they sell soap, food, concrete blocks, gasoline by the jar, cut hair, and sell what they grow. History has proven that these entrepreneurs have the capacity to grow into more formal businesses in environments where people help one another, pool their funds, and grow their ideas.
This is where the Community Independence Initiative (CII) comes in to create a mutuality rich environment. Their approach is based on peer-driven change, acknowledging that those at the bottom of our economies are the only experts of their lives and are capable of agency. CII identifies local approaches and supports the most effective efforts by highlighting them or investing in them so that peers can follow those same paths. Low-income populations rely on families, not professional staff, to be the advisors, trainers, and role models for peers. They accomplish this work through partnerships with other organizations as well as the innovative, open source ImpactX Mutuality Platform that creates an eco-system with a core principle of working together and helping one another.
Ultimately the vision of CII is to fundamentally change current anti-poverty work of NGOs as well as UN organizations away from top-down, paternalistic approaches towards recognizing and supporting self-help efforts by low-income populations themselves. This model began in the United States under the Family Independence Initiative and is now being expanded internationally through CII by creating a naturally expanding eco-system that encourages and invests in entrepreneurial efforts that combine expectations of self-help and mutuality.
Local entrepreneurship is one of the few avenues those living in and around poverty have as a tool to get ahead or survive. Philanthropy and government cannot fill that role for the billions struggling directly, but by investing in these self-help efforts, can grow the pie for everyone. There is untapped latent potential that can be unleashed if we treat those struggling with poverty like we treat those in more privileged situations. Rather than being treated as drains on society we need to respect this population as the future builders and makers of their own economies. We are missing the talents, ideas, and energy of 75% of the worlds population.
This project aims at both creating the evidence, backed by data, that can then communicate to a global audience, the potential of entrepreneurship and of humanity when we encourage the poor to work together as peers. CII aims to see this bottom-up practice becoming the gold standard for dealing with poverty and economic mobility.
Organization: Root Change
Country: Global
Funding Year: 2021
Project Duration: 3 years
Private Sector Solutions
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
Today, 48% of Cameroonians are living below the poverty line and 98% of Cameroons businesses are small and medium enterprises (SMEs), 90% of those SMEs are micro enterprises (<5 employees). At the same time, widespread disparities in freedom of economic access exist, especially for women, hindering the contribution of SMEs to contribute to GDP growth. This project addresses the root causes of SME underperformance and job access in Cameroon through programs in the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Center of the Denis and Lenora Foretia Foundation in Cameroon. They build individual capacity of future entrepreneurs while working for overall system change to improve the climate for SMEs and enhance opportunities for women and young people. Moreover, they focus at least 25% of opportunities, including business education, resources, productive employment, fair working conditions and financial services, in conflict zones with Internally Displaced People (IDPs).
The Denis and Lenora Foretia Foundation in Cameroon was founded to catalyze the economic transformation of the country by focusing on social entrepreneurship, science and technology, innovation, public health, and the implementation of progressive policies that together create economic opportunities for all. The Small Business and Entrepreneurship Center aims to create a more robust and diverse middle class in Cameroon through fostering free enterprise.
In order to accomplish this, the Foretia Foundation is creating an advocacy campaign with their coalition of stakeholders to promote economic freedom while deepening the roots of SBEC to receive recognition as a go-to resource for entrepreneurial training and development. Along with measurable policy improvement, training programs and SME support across four regions will result in $3 million in new economic generation, 600+ SMEs improved and 4,500+ workers with entrepreneurial soft skills.
This project aims at holistically changing the business environment for SMEs in Cameroon and hence making entrepreneurship a viable option of development for its citizens, removing regulatory barriers and empowering individuals to become active contributors to the prosperity of their communities and country. With a specific focus on conflict zones, enhancing economic freedom in these areas, it will help alleviate the tensions that are contributing to ongoing conflict and help establish a lasting and sustainable peace.
Read more on the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Center here
Organization: Denis & Lenora Foretia Foundatio
Country: Cameroon
Funding Year: 2021
Project Duration: 3 years
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
There are a growing number of individuals who are highly motivated to take another step in their education but lack the financial means and do not qualify for any of the public or private scholarships. Statistics show that every year approximately 10,000 young people in Switzerland cannot follow through their educational plans due to financial shortcomings.
EDUCA SWISS offers a private sector solution where lenders offer loans to students at socially acceptable interest rates, combined with a philanthropically-funded coaching program, enhancing equal opportunity in Switzerland through access to finance without restrictions regarding financial background, social class, field of study or age. EDUCA SWISS provides loans to individuals in Switzerland who do not qualify for financial support from the government or other private scholarships for their education projects.
The approach of EDUCA SWISS is giving individuals who lack resources themselves, and do not qualify for any government support in Switzerland, the freedom to follow their educational dreams and allow them to invest in a more prosperous future. It offers an efficient and superior solution to loans or scholarships provided by the Swiss government. The combination of loans and coaching, capital and philanthropic money, allows students to access capital from individuals and institutions at reasonable interest rates and offers an attractive impact investment opportunity at relatively low risk.
EDUCA SWISS is setting an important example in the Swiss education system that market-based approaches work and often create better solutions than government. It further promotes the principles of self-determination and self-sufficiency not only to the students but its broader stakeholder base.
Organization: Educa Swiss
Country: Switzerland
Funding Year: 2021
Project Duration: 3 years
Private Sector Solutions
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
Colombia is the worlds third largest producer of coffee by volume, and a leader in quality; the coffee sector is the largest source of rural employment. And yet, farmers contend with significant challenges: small plots of land, high costs, stagnating yields, and stifling government intervention. Colombias National Federation of Coffee Growers (the Federation) provides government subsidies to farmers, including low-cost credit and free inputs, on the condition that farmers export exclusively through the Federationmaking those farmers subject to its largely undifferentiated international marketing strategy, and hurting the relative competitiveness of those who seek out other options.
Root Capital is aiming to unlock local prosperity by empowering enterprises representing thousands of small farmers to fulfill their potential in rural communities where the governmental structures of the Federation have often hindered their prospering. The credit plus capacity model helps eliminate obstacles for creative individuals in remote rural communities by equipping coffee enterprises to pursue an alternate, market-driven path through business advisory services in combination with access to finance.
No matter an enterprises stage of growth, increased access to credit builds the essential foundation for independence, competitiveness, and resilience. Root Capitals loans enable enterprises to pay their supplying small farmers higher prices for premium coffee than the Federation offers, and to pay them upfront and on time for their crop. These practices lead farmers to sell their crop consistently to the enterprise, and helps the enterprise hone the quality of its supply, boosting its reputation and market share with specialty coffee buyers.
Investing in underserved agricultural enterprises by building their entrepreneurial capacity and increasing their access to finance transforms individual lives: it enhances enterprises ability to create opportunity for thousands of people in rural communities, through quality employment for enterprise workers and improved market access for farmers. With growth and increased capacity, enterprises can improve farmer livelihoods while also increasing resilience, sustainable resource use, and market-driven social impact.
Organization: Root Capital
Country: Colombia
Project Name: Investing in Agricultural Enterprises to Build Rural Prosperity in Colombia
Project Duration: 2 years
Private Sector Solutions
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Research shows that Americans have become more risk-adverse, less adventurous, more static, and less entrepreneurial. The share of Americans under 30 who own a business has fallen 65 percent since the 1980s. This decline in entrepreneurship in America is a troubling sign. The Acton Childrens Business Fair is reigniting the entrepreneurial spirit in the United States by inspiring children to develop a taste for entrepreneurship at a very young age. Moreover, it showcases the power of entrepreneurship for tens of thousands of visitors worldwide. Since the Acton Childrens Business Fair was started in 2007, it has grown to 455 fairs around the world, serving 23,022 young entrepreneurs in 206 cities and 12 countries.
The Acton Childrens Business Fair of Washington, D.C. is a one-day showcase of the power of entrepreneurship for children. Children ages 6-14 create a business, sell to real customers, and keep the profits. Organizers provide outdoor tents and tables. Along the way children learn about entrepreneurship, but more importantly, about themselves and their character. Over the past four years, the Acton Childrens Business Fair of Washington, D.C. has grown to become the largest one-day childrens entrepreneurship event in the world, hosting around 125 young entrepreneurs who serve over 3,000 customers each year.
To further deepen childrens entrepreneurial understanding, Acton Academy is developing a new prototype curriculum an Entrepreneurship Mini-Quest. It will guide children in a four-week series of fun challenges that help them create a business for the Acton Childrens Business Fair, sell to real customers, connect their activity to larger principles of entrepreneurship, and reflect on lessons learned.
With entrepreneurship on the decline in the United States, this project inspires and empowers children to view themselves as active protagonists instead of passive participants. By convincing children that problems are best solved by private individuals engaging in peaceful, voluntary transactions, the Acton Childrens Business Fair cultivates a mindset shift that will make bureaucratic top-down solutions to social problems unattractive for these students in the future. As children participate in an open market, selling their goods to customers, they are forced to make difficult decisions, engage in peaceful and voluntary transactions, and fail or succeed on their own. Through this, children learn that they have the power to write their own story and that they are free persons with creative capacity.
Organization: Acton Academy Foundation
Country: United States
Funding Year: 2020
Project Duration: 3 years
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
Every year, Rondine Cittadella della Pace (Rondine) recruits 15 young leaders from the most conflict plagued and post-conflict societies to attend their World House Program in Arezzo, Italy. These students matriculate in an M.A. program at an Italian university while simultaneously partaking in Rondines globally recognized peace building process over two years. During their time of study, students develop their own social enterprise idea to implement upon return to their country.
The project aims to empower young peacebuilders and aspiring social innovators to become agents of change, especially in divided communities affected by conflict or post-conflict situations. Rondine believes that Peaceful societies are only possible when individuals are free to make their own choices and economically empowered to do so. Students receive training in conflict transformation and social innovation, as well as personal freedom, free-market economy, and prosperity.
Rondine has concluded that to sustain peace in conflict-ridden areas, they also need to invest in social and economic development through empowering young people to become agents of change, contributing to peace processes worldwide. Through this approach, Rondine not only contributes to enhancing freedom by promoting peace, but also by advancing local economic development. Rondines World House Program includes a combination of conflict transformation and classical liberal educational activities, with the aim of not only teaching peace, freedom, and classical liberalism, but also encouraging and supporting the development of concrete international project ideas.
Over the course of the project, approximately 50 young people from conflict or post-conflict societies will undergo this training program followed by a mentorship program that is dedicated to the development of their project ideas. Finally, the best project ideas will be selected to receive funding for implementation.
Organization: Rondine Cittadella della Pace
Country: Italy
Funding Year: 2021
Project Duration: 3 years
Private Sector Solutions
Systems Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
Many senior positions in Ecuador require a graduate degree, but few indigenous and ethnic minorities have access. Students from low-income families who are not admitted to the limited slots in public university rarely access higher education at all, with only 2.7% of the indigenous population obtaining a graduate degree. Most Ecuadoran post-graduate programs are located in Quito and Guayaquil, while Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) programs from other countries are taught in English. This presents a barrier for low-income students or minorities who primarily live in more remote communities.
Liberal Arts for All will expand opportunities for indigenous and low-income youth to access high-quality, nonpoliticized education in liberal arts. The Center for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Universidad de las Amricas (UDLA) in Quito, Ecuador, with the support of Fundacin Ecuador Libre (FEL) and the PPE program at the University of Pennsylvania, launched the first PPE Diploma in Latin America. The diploma has developed into a one-year masters degree (M.A.) based on core ethical, economic, and political ideas in the classical liberal tradition combined with practical application through a component called Ignite in Action. A scholarship program gives low-income minority students access to a postgraduate program at UDLA, a top-rated private university in Ecuador. What's more, the program - taught primarily online with an intensive series of in-person seminars - will be subtitled into Spanish and Quechua to facilitate easier access for targeted populations.
The project will empower individuals by teaching them the core ethical, economic, and political ideas in the classical liberal tradition. It will also help them live meaningful lives as free and autonomous agents by providing them with the material opportunity, skills, social connections, and mindset to thrive. Earning this masters degree will increase their ability to achieve goals that are out of reach for many people in their communities
The content of the program teaches students the mindset to thrive in a free society. It covers the moral basis of a market society, the importance of the rule of law, and the ways in which private property and exchange promote social welfare. But it will also teach them how to interpret ideas they disagree with charitably, and how to debate and argue with people they disagree with in a civil manner. This project will help to form the next generation of indigenous and ethnic minority leaders, giving them a voice and platform to act as individuals with their own voice."
Organization: Fundacion Ecuador Libre
Country: Ecuador
Funding Year: 2022
Project Duration: 2 years
Private Sector Solutions
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
There are many books that teach on free markets, individual freedom, and prosperity for adults, but there has been (and continues to be) a profound void in the childrens literature market. Libertas Institute has the unique opportunity to offer families a better alternative through an expanded suite of Tuttle Twins resources, including more of the Tuttle Twins book series and a monthly magazine which promotes the ideas of freedom and liberty to children and young adults. Simultaneously, they will produce a new American history textbook along with a supplemental curriculum. Students will be able to identify the ideas of freedom that shaped American history and, through activities in their curriculum, learn about their enduring relevance to their lives today.
The Tuttle Twins series has sold over 3.5 million copies globally, with 23 childrens books being translated into a dozen languages. They will now have books for toddlers and teenagers, selling over 4,000 books a day with a strong interest due to the surge in homeschooling and concern over the rise in authoritarian government actions. On Amazon, they have achieved 1,000s of 5 start reviews on the existing Tuttle Twins suite of books. The ultimate objective of this project is to educate children on the principles of a free society and cultivate a successful pipeline of resources for toddlers to college students that will in turn make them lifelong defenders of freedom.
Libertas Institute is growing an increasingly large audience of families dedicated to freedom. This will have a significant and lasting impact by introducing many more people to the ideas of freedom. At its core, this is a teaching freedom project - introducing and solidifying a deep understanding of individual liberty and ensuring children learn the importance of personal responsibility, understand why freedom is so important, and recognize why free markets and limited government are essential to prosperity.
Organization: Libertas Institute
Country: USA
Funding Year: 2022
Project Duration: 1 year
Private Sector Solutions
Systems Change
Teaching Freedom
Many young people in Switzerland feel that the traditional pathways offered through government education are not right for them. They increasingly choose educational pathways that are outside of the traditional system. However, support for young people that choose such a self-determined educational path has been very limited in the country. Time4 offers these young people an alternative development and education path compared to traditional vocational training, apprenticeships, or middle school. The participants of Time4 plan their educational path themselves but are supported by the Time4 team and their peers in the reaching of their self-set goals.
Time4 is now working to scale its offer in supporting them along their self-determined learning paths. Designed for young people who have a strong intrinsic motivation for learning and don't fit the paths designed by public education, the program offers support through in-person meetings, clear goal-setting and monitoring. They may go and learn a new language, set up their own company, or present their art to the public often things that were previously considered not possible.
Time4 offers an alternative to public education in Switzerland. It offers young people an environment in which they can follow their individual learning pathway towards earning their own living. This rpgram challenges the traditional system of education and offers a unique alternative with the potential to become more mainstream in the long-term.
An increasing number of young people are struggling with the pre-defined educational pathways, ending up demotivated and without objectives, as a self-determined learning path is not currently an option in the system. Time4 adds this new perspective to the Swiss educational landscape and offers young people the level of support and assurance needed that will allow them to follow pathways in a flexible manner that were unthinkable in the traditional education system. Time4 offers young people a framework in which they can discover, refine, and deepen their interests and talents. Thanks to individual, self-defined work steps and learning objectives, the young people can follow their own needs and wishes. They are given the time they need to tackle their own small and large tasks, make their own decisions, and manage the resulting consequences themselves. In it they grow up to be free and empowered adults.
Organization: Verein "Respektierung & Wahrung Natrlicher Lernprozesse"
Country: Switzerland
Funding Year: 2022
Project Duration: 3 years
Private Sector Solutions
Systems Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Low skilled, poorly-paid employment and significant underemployment are the reality for the majority of Ugandan youth who make up 78 percent of the countrys population. The main barriers for young people - including a lack of skills, progression pathways, networks, and access to capital - trap them in a futile cycle of poverty. The Teach A Man To Fish (TAMTF) project offers a path out of poverty for youth that choose to participate and are motivated to improve their own and their families economic situation.
This project is an expansion of the proven School Enterprise Challenge (SEC) program of TAMTF, in which trained teachers support students at local schools through a 14-step program to establish and run a business. The programs purpose is to unleash the creativity and power of young people to fulfill their potential in school, work, and life and contribute to their communities prosperity.
TAMTF is expecting to engage over the three years with 4,400 disadvantaged students (50% female) in 60 schools. With guidance from TAMTF, school business teams create a profit-share agreement in which 25 percent of profit is reinvested to keep the business operational for the following year and the remainder is allocated as students see fit, with some funds going towards the students and teachers that support the business. Currently existing businesses at schools in Uganda vary, with some of them engaging in vegetable farming, food processing, manufacturing (soap, charcoal), canteen and catering services, and livestock farming. One youth group started their own tent and chair rental business after recognizing the opportunity that daily village gatherings (meetings, funerals, etc.) posed. The school business provided a previously unavailable service in the community, meaning that event organizers were no longer required to travel the 82 km to the nearest town.
The SEC education model uses the challenge of launching and running a real business at school, offering the participating students the experience to discover their talents, earn money and foster competencies and character qualities such as entrepreneurial mindset, social conscience, and agency. An additional "high-flyer" component of the program is a new training to particularly committed and promising young entrepreneurs to set up their own businesses outside of school.
This project encourages graduates from an entrepreneurship program to create their own network of productivity and exchange rather than rely on government aid or NGO handouts. As part of the proposed project, participating students will also be trained to start self-managed Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs) to gain access to capital for their own individual businesses. The VSLAs provide a safe savings and loan facility to youth who lack easy access to formal financial services. This project aims to make schools an empowerment pathway for marginalized Ugandan youth, equipping youth with vital skills, agency, and confidence to fulfill their potential in life. The comprehensive program embeds skills and resources within the schools for the long-term: teachers learn to facilitate practical, student-centered entrepreneurship and skills-building education and are furnished with a wealth of resources; while school-businesses generate additional income with a profit-sharing agreement that secures the school-business in their schools as an educational tool. The project presents an exceptional opportunity for young women and men in Uganda to transform their lives, empowering participants with the skills and agency to succeed and become confident, active agents of change within their communities.
Organization: Teach A Man To Fish
Country: Uganda
Funding Year: 2022
Project Duration: 3 years
Private Sector Solutions
Systems Change
Empowerment of Individuals
While the World Bank reports that over a billion people have come out of extreme poverty in just 25 years, many women remain trapped without equal access to economic opportunities and legal rights. For those living in extreme poverty, there are often obstacles beyond their control that make progress nearly impossible from government regulations with unintended consequences to cultural attitudes that prevent women from accessing or controlling their own income.
"She Rises Up is a feature documentary film that will tell the stories of inspiring women who are pulling themselves and their families out of extreme poverty. The film will explore the explosive implications of womens economic participation and share powerful methods that work toward the eradication of extreme poverty, reclaiming the moral high ground for economic freedom. Compelling stories in Peru, Senegal, Sri Lanka, and Burundi will highlight the power and importance of economic freedom for women.
Freedom of the individual is dependent upon the culture highly embracing that value. While no one film can transform a cultural mindset, by generating interest and discussion around the benefits of free markets and entrepreneurship, Sky Films Inc hopes to ultimately contribute to systems change. Economic freedom is a necessary, though not sufficient, tool to erase poverty and generate human flourishing. "She Rises Up" can generate a narrative change in the way we view economic freedom and entrepreneurship globally.
Organization: Sky Films, Inc.
Country: USA & International
Funding Year: 2022
Project Duration: 2 years
Systems Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
Essential Scholars is a public education project aimed at educating high school and university students and young adults more broadly about the main insights of the key thinkers in the classical liberal tradition. The project comprises 15 modules, each centered on a short book written in an accessible style by an acknowledged expert and supported by short animated videos (80 total) and links to other online resources. Some 200,000 copies of the books have been distributed, while the videos have been viewed over 3.7 million times.
The Essential Scholars II project is expanding both the extent of these learning resources (by adding audio versions of the books, creating podcasts, and developing lesson plans) and their reach (by training teachers and through promotional efforts in collaboration with independent think tank partners in Australia, the UK, and the US). The podcasts will explore the core ideas of the scholars and their relevance to modern day policy questions. The lesson plans will incorporate project material for use in high schools, and webinars will be held to instruct teachers in their use. The project website (essentialscholars.org) will be overhauled to add new resources and improve functionality for high school teachers wanting to include Essential Scholars materials in their classrooms.
The ultimate goal is to achieve future systems change as students who have been introduced to the key ideas and leaders of classical liberalism enter the marketplace and become influencers themselves. Essential Scholars provides an attractive introduction for new as well as sympathetic audiences to the key ideas of liberty. The books themselves are excellent introductions to these ideas and the audio books will provide a new way for people to access them. The videos provide even easier access to the ideas of freedom and are easily adaptable for use in the classroom. Providing teachers with lesson plans that incorporate these resources and providing training will promote and enrich classroom learning about the ideas of freedom.
Organization: Fraser Institute
Country: Canada
Funding Year: 2022
Project Duration: 4 years
Systems Change
Teaching Freedom
While scholars and policymakers have decried the ineffectiveness of development assistance for many years, it remains a persistent part of the policy landscape. A growing consensus has emerged among development scholars and professionals that large-scale investment projects such as roads, bridges, and dams do not successfully generate economic growth and development. This has led to a turn to community-based interventions. Targeted community-level interventions seem to do a far better job incorporating local preferences and contexts than top-down alternatives. These initiatives focus on decision-making powers and financial control within communities, solutions that self-governing communities discover for themselves.
By bringing together scholars and practitioners to explore project strategies, approaches, and innovations in the sphere of community-driven development assistance. This project embarks on a comparative study on a range of innovative projects to better understand how these projects are implemented and explore what factors lead to more effective outcomes particularly from the perspective of intended beneficiaries. New frameworks and literature will be developed that integrate perspectives of self-governance on development to construct new principles for development assistance. This initiative will create a hub of knowledge of bottom-up development assistance and initiatives at the Center for Governance and Markets (CGM) at the University of Pittsburgh.
By bringing individuals to the center of analysis of development assistance, this project will bring about a system change in the way both scholars of applied development assistance and practitioners alike think about these issues. The project seeks to change the way that policymakers view the development assistance landscape, in ways that put individuals and communities in the drivers seat of their own flourishing.
Organization: University of Pittsburgh - Center for Governance and Markets (CGM)
Country: USA & International
Funding Year: 2022
Project Duration: 2 years
Systems Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
Objective education materials allow students to better understand the consequences of economic policies, making abstract policies such as taxes or government spending more tangible. This project, with a promising new player in the Swiss research context of economic policy, involves the creation of a twelve-part video series titled Taxes, debt and Switzerland simply explained - covering a variety of topics, including inequality, pensions, federalism, democracy, taxes, government spending, etc. The videos are aimed to be highly tangible for the student, which is ensured by starting each video lesson with a focus on how the topic is impacting the student.
The video series provides an essential individual learning opportunity for students supporting them in their recognition and understanding of economic policy interrelationships. Each five-minute video will have supporting content that includes a written summary of the topic covered and a series of exercises to ensure student understanding of the concepts introduced. The videos will be distributed through the new Swiss online learning platform Evulpo, where they will be freely available to students. Evulpo, is a young, dynamic, and fast-growing Swiss start-up that operates as a digital learning platform offering free explanatory videos, summaries, and exercises linked to the Swiss Governments education agenda for public schools.
A free and solid basic education in economic policy issues is important for the preservation and development of our prosperity and society. This school-supplementary content from an independent authority guarantees, in addition to the scientific foundation, the greatest possible individual freedom in the acquisition of new knowledge and in the understanding of economic contexts.
Organization: Institute for Swiss Economic Policy
Country: Switzerland
Funding Year: 2022
Project Duration: 1 year
Teaching Freedom
The REMBRANDT trial addresses a heavy burden for the pancreatic cancer patient population. The only curative treatment option for pancreatic cancer is pancreatic surgery, in the vast majority of cases comprising pancreatic head resection. In this complex surgery, a surgeon removes the pancreatic head, the duodenum and part of the bile duct. After removal, they perform a surgical reconstruction in which three new connections (i.e. anastomoses) are being made.
This operation is associated with postoperative complications, such as delayed gastric emptying (DGE) and anastomotic leaks (e.g. postoperative pancreatic fistulas (POPF)). DGE is characterized by prolonged requirement of a nasogastric tube, inability to tolerate solid foods, vomiting and gastric distension. It is a burden for patients, impedes their recovery and may hamper the ability to undergo adjuvant chemotherapy.
A possible mean to prevent these complications after pancreatic surgery is by adding an extra anastomosis after reconstruction for pancreatic surgery, the so-called Braun anastomosis.
Working together with the patients association Living with Hope, dr. van Laarhoven and his team aims at evaluating the effectiveness of the addition of the Braun anastomosis after standard Child reconstruction in pancreatic head resection in reducing the incidence of delayed gastric emptying (DGE) and anastomotic leaks (e.g., postoperative pancreatic fistulas (POPF)).
REMBRANDT is a randomized-controlled patient-centered trial testing for superiority of the intervention. It involves 15 centers in the Netherlands, all part of the Dutch Pancreatic Cancer Group (DPCG). It plans to recruit a total of 256 patients, 128 per arm.
The ultimate goal of this study is to ameliorate the procedure of pancreatoduodenectomy with Child reconstruction so to decrease its burdensome postoperative complications.
Grantee Name: Kees van Laarhoven
Organization: Radboud University Medical Centre
Country: The Netherlands
Focus Area: Disease and Treatment Burden
Funding Year: 2022
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 4 years
This trial is a phase II-study testing the combination of mFOLFIRINOX, a chemotherapy already used to treat pancreatic cancer today, and high-dose SBRD (Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy), followed by surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy (if appropriate) in patients with an adenocarcinoma who have not undergone previous treatment for pancreatic cancer. 256 patients will be enrolled in at least 10 Belgian hospitals. The key objectives are to assess efficacy of treatment in improving success rate of the surgical intervention and increases the disease-free survival of patients.
The trial is funded by Anticancer Fund and Rising Tide Foundation within a joint effort aimed at supporting high impact clinical trials testing novel strategies in the treatment of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas (PDAC) and/or biliary tract cancer (BTC*). Additional funds will be provided by the King Baudouin Foundation and Les Amis de LInstitut Bordet.
Grantee Name: Jean-Luc van Laethem
Organization: Hospital Erasme, Universit Libre de Bruxelles
Country: Belgium
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2021
Funding Scheme: ACF
Project period: 4 years
A new study testing an innovative approach to radiotherapy treatment planning, the ARCHERY study, is evaluating the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to automate several steps in the radiotherapy treatment pathway. It will assess both its quality, time and cost savings compared to the standard manual approach.
Radiotherapy is an effective treatment for many cancers. But planning a treatment that can deliver radiation to the tumour, while avoiding damage to healthy organs nearby, is a labour-intensive and highly skilled process. It requires input from expert clinicians and physicists or radiographers. This process is particularly challenging in low and middle-income countries, where there are not enough people with the necessary training and skills.
ARCHERY will test whether AI can be used to:
ARCHERY will compare the quality of plans prepared using AI with current standards of care that use manual approaches. It will also gather data on the time and cost involved, to allow evaluation of the health-economic impact of this approach.
If successful, the approach could transform radiotherapy treatment planning, speeding up the process from weeks to minutes, reducing costs and allowing more patients who need treatment to be treated. It could also help improve the consistency and quality of treatment as well as enable more complex techniques to be adopted.
The AI software being used in ARCHERY has been developed by the MD Anderson Cancer Center. If found it be effective, it will be made available as a web-based not-for-profit service for public-sector and non-profit hospitals in low- and middle-income countries
ARCHERY is the first study of its kind. It will look at treatments for three high burden tumours in a global setting: over 1000 patients with head and neck cancer, cervical cancer or prostate cancer will be enrolled in hospitals in India, South Africa, Jordan and Malaysia.
The ARCHERY study, led by Dr Ajay Aggarwal, Consultant Clinical Oncologist at Guys Cancer Centre/LSHTM and coordinated by the MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL, is funded by the US National Institute for Health and the Rising Tide Foundation for Clinical Cancer Research (RTFCCR).
RTFCCR supports the prostate cancer arm of the study. This high burden cancer is the most frequently diagnosed in men. In low-and-middle income countries radiotherapy is the major treatment modality for it, given the paucity of urological services and the consequent predominance of advanced cancers. In addition, poor quality radiotherapy planning is directly linked to an increased risk of cancer recurrence and functional morbidity for patients, such as bladder and bowel toxicity and sexual dysfunction. For these reasons, the ARCHERY study represents a great opportunity for enabling implementation of cheaper, easier and more effective radiotherapy practice also for prostate cancer treatment in low- and medium-income countries.
Collaborating centres and partners
Grantee Name: Ajay Aggarwal
Organization: University College of London
Country: United Kingdom
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2021
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 5 years
The job-skills mismatch in Cambodia impedes youth from low-income backgrounds from entering formal jobs. Career Connect Cambodia will offer a solution to this challenge that will allow these youth, and their families, a path out of poverty. The Career Connect program is the continuation of a pilot which substantially scales the number of underserved youth placed in jobs in Cambodia through compact skills training and match-making with employers.
Digital Divide Data aims to recruit and train 600 youth from underserved Cambodian communities from 2022 to 2025 with at least 80% being placed in jobs by about 10 partner-employers. Through the program, these youth will learn new skills that make them competitive in the job market, empowering them to achieve personal and economic freedom.
Career Connect helps underserved youth who do not have connections succeed through their own abilities and merits. Youth get the opportunity to increase their earnings, which they can reinvest in themselves or their families to sustain their economic growth opportunities. DDD aims to sustain and expand their impact in Cambodia and help catalyze equitable economic growth to reduce global inequality. DDD sees a future where youth, with proper education and career guidance, enhance their capacity for self-determination, improving their and their communities quality of life. As they support themselves and their families to overcome poverty and assume control of their lives, these youth attain both economic and personal freedom.
Organization: Digital Divide Data
Country: Cambodia
Funding Year: 2022
Project Duration: 3 years
Private Sector Solutions
Empowerment of Individuals
Freedom Games is a yearly gathering in Lodz, Poland of renowned international experts and intellectuals using various conference formats from lectures to panel discussions to discuss key challenges Western societies face in the 21st century, offering a creative space for exchanging ideas on culture, economics, business, and public life with the end to advance a more free and prosperous society.
The key output of the project is the organization and execution of one edition of Freedom Games: at least 3 days of events with more than 250 speakers and at least 60 sessions available both online and in-person in a dedicated conference space, with more than 1 million online viewers of Freedom Games streaming and videos, and at least 1,500 in-person attendees.
The Freedom Games forum has developed to become a powerful tool for promoting free-market ideas and personal freedoms while confronting individuals with other ideological currents. The 2023 Freedom Games event will show ideas important for Liberte! Foundations mission like free markets, rule of law, entrepreneurship, and the importance of big cities as engines of development and personal freedom, while supporting the idea of local governments to avoid centralization.
Organization: Liberte! Foundation
Country: Poland
Funding Year: 2022
Project Duration: 1 year
Teaching Freedom
The Free Market Roadshow - running for 15 years with dozens of partners throughout Europe - is a strong network of influential organizations and individuals advancing individual freedom on the continent. The joint effort of leading organizations and universities in Europe conducts an annual series of events to spread the word of freedom and prosperity to empower individuals. Prior to the pandemic, the roadshow reached 45 cities in one-year with 10,000+ attendees.
The Free Market Roadshow (FMRS) has a continuous ambition to build new networks and coalitions helping to spread the message of individual and entrepreneurial freedom, sound policy, self-responsibility and free speech all with the goal of reaching new audiences. They will host between 35 and 45 events in 2023 and hope to achieve nearly 10,000 attendees. In 2023, they will focus on growing their impact and attendee engagement, while experimenting with content innovations to attract non-traditional audiences.
Their innovative concept of touring capitals and important university cities in Europe and beyond has proven to reach the private sector (entrepreneurs and businesspeople) and empower the next generation (students). With its large network, the FMRS can play a crucial role in advancing ideas that will lead to general freedom and prosperity.
Organization: Austrian Economics Center (AEC)
Country: Austria
Funding Year: 2022
Project Duration: 1 year
Systems Change
Private Sector Solutions
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
The TOPCOP3 trial, led by Dr Shabbir Alibhai in the University Health Network in Toronto, Canada, aims at improving the care of older patients suffering from metastatic prostate cancer and undergoing androgen receptor axis-targeted agents (ARATs) therapy.
The ARATs is a new class of therapeutics that improves survival but causes substantial side effects, particularly in older men, reducing the quality of life, and potentially leading to the premature stopping of treatment. Current care consists of access to a nurse triage telephone line and clinic visits once every 1-3 months.
Dr Alibhai will test the feasibility and efficacy in improving quality of life and reducing severe side effects of treatment (including hospitalization) of two different types of care, alone and in combination: remote symptom monitoring (RSM) and geriatric assessment and management (GA+M). I am really excited to launch this trial to test two innovative supportive care strategies to improve the cancer journey for older men with advanced prostate cancer with the help of Rising Tide Foundation, says Dr. Alibhai.
Men who receive GA+M will get recommendations and monthly follow-ups from an oncology nurse. The nurse will also connect them to community resources if needed (e.g. physiotherapy, dietitian). Men assigned to RSM will have weekly symptom monitoring online or by telephone as well as symptom management provided by an oncology nurse, if needed. The control group will receive usual care. 168 patients, aged 70 or older, will be recruited at 2 centers in Canada.
Grantee Name: Shabbir Alibha
Organization: University Health Network
Country: Canada
Focus Area: Disease and Treatment Burden
Funding Year: 2022
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 3 years
Emergent Order Foundation's newest channel "Dad Saves America" promotes the idea of educational freedom through its "reimagining education" content. The reimagining education pillar of the Dad Saves America brand will encourage millions of families to reimagine what education is and how best to provide it for their kids in a way that unlocks their unique genius. They are producing videos which critique the current dominant education system, shift perspectives on what it means to get an education, and offer real alternatives.
Emergent Order Foundation will produce 20+ videos based on interviews with world class educators with a goal of reaching 1.5 million viewers across all platforms. From these videos, they will drive visits to their webpage to learn more about alternative schooling options. To inspire practical action on the part of their viewers, they will collaborate with educational partners to co-create a website connecting partners with these alternative education models.
With Dad Saves America, Emergent Order Foundation produces content for parents and their kids that models classical virtues and actively encourages the audience to take actions so that they can live those virtues out and experience them for themselves. Their videos educate dads and all parents about the merits of self-directed education systems. Their content and future partnerships will put families in direct contact with private sector alternatives to public school. And through moving kids out of a broken system and driving demand for school choice, they hope to catalyze systemic change. In this way, their program both teaches freedom and empowers individuals. And its through that individual experience, inspired by storytelling, that they promote an overall culture of freedom.
Organization: Emergent Order Foundation
Country: United States
Funding Year: 2022
Project Duration: 2 years
Systems Change
Private Sector Solutions
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
This multi-phased project of the Civil Development Forum combines research with advocacy aimed at liberalizing Polish immigration policies based on the effective reforms introduced to support Ukrainian refugees in the country. The publication and promotion of recommended legal changes in the area of migration policy would support the comprehensive framework for (non-EU) foreign employment and entrepreneurship in Poland.
The main goal is to break bureaucratic barriers and introduce changes to migration policy in Poland to enhance the smooth and effective influx of migrants. The Civil Development Forum aims to establish new narratives for the ongoing and high-priority debate on immigration in Poland. They will collaborate with local communities and governments to identify barriers and bottlenecks between local and central institutions on the regulation of the labor market and migrant entrepreneurship to create recommendations for changes in the legal system. These recommendations will reach policy- and decision-makers in Poland to influence public debate on the topic of immigration policy and ultimately change the existing approach. Through workshops, conferences, and public meetings, they will reach intellectuals, scholars, and media and business representatives, as well as local government authorities and community leaders.
Ludwig von Mises wrote that, The principles of freedom, which have gradually been gaining ground everywhere since the eighteenth century, gave people freedom of movement. Freedom of movement gave rise to modern economic growth, unprecedented improvements in the mass standard of living, and an escape from poverty. Hindering movement can take many forms, from closed borders to various discriminating regulations that hamper buying or renting an apartment, taking up a job, or starting and running a business. Whenever there are regulations discriminating against immigrants, the basic freedom of movement is violated.
The Civil Development Forum aims to remove existing impediments to immigration in Poland by showing the benefits from immigration for both the host society and incomers, identifying barriers faced by immigrants, and offering recommendations to improve policy for employment or starting a business. If policy changes are successfully implemented, this project would lead to systems change and greater freedom, by widening the right of both residents and migrants in Poland to enter mutually beneficial relations. Migrants would be empowered through the right to use their knowledge and professional qualifications in the same way as Polish citizens. Overall, a better understanding of immigration and friendlier legislation in the labor market and for entrepreneurship will lead to a more peaceful and prosperous society.
Organization: Forum Obywatelskiego Rozwoju (Civil Development Forum)
Country: Poland
Funding Year: 2022
Project Duration: 2 years
Systems Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
The Free Market Roadshow - running for 15 years with dozens of partners throughout Europe - is a strong network of influential organizations and individuals advancing individual freedom on the continent. The joint effort of leading organizations and universities in Europe conducts an annual series of events to spread the word of freedom and prosperity to empower individuals. Prior to the pandemic, the roadshow reached 45 cities in one-year with 10,000+ attendees.
The Free Market Roadshow (FMRS) has a continuous ambition to build new networks and coalitions helping to spread the message of individual and entrepreneurial freedom, sound policy, self-responsibility and free speech all with the goal of reaching new audiences. They will host between 35 and 45 events in 2023 and hope to achieve nearly 10,000 attendees. In 2023, they will focus on growing their impact and attendee engagement, while experimenting with content innovations to attract non-traditional audiences.
Their innovative concept of touring capitals and important university cities in Europe and beyond has proven to reach the private sector (entrepreneurs and businesspeople) and empower the next generation (students). With its large network, the FMRS can play a crucial role in advancing ideas that will lead to general freedom and prosperity.
Organization: Austrian Economics Center (AEC)
Country: Austria
Funding Year: 2022
Project Duration: 1 year
Systems Change
Private Sector Solutions
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
Metastatic cancer can range from a single metastasis to widely disseminated metastases, making it the leading cause of cancer death. Oligometastases are considered an intermediate state between locoregional cancer and widespread metastases with a limited number of lesions and organs involved. Retrospective studies have shown that aggressive metastasis-directed therapy (surgery or radiation) added to standard of care systemic therapy achieved long-term survival or even cure in about one quarter of the patients. Evidence is mostly based on the common cancer sites: lung, colorectal and prostate cancers. It has however been proposed that this intermediate oligometastatic cancer stage may also exist in other cancer types, opening a curative window for many more cancer patients.
The 1945-OligoRare is an academic clinical study led by the EORTC in 6 countries in Europe (BE,CH,IT,DE,FR,UK) with a transatlantic collaboration with British Columbia Cancer Agency in Canada. It will be the first study to use the stereotactic body radiotherapy -SBRT- approach (targeted radiotherapy) in cancers where the oligometastatic state is uncommon, thus where data is severely lacking. Patients with oligometastatic cancer, including all solid cancer types except lung, breast, colon and prostate cancer will be eligible.
Its primary objective is to assess if the addition of SBRT improves the overall survival compared to the standard of care treatment alone, in eligible patients with a maximum of 5 oligometastatic lesions. A total of 200 patients will be recruited over a period of 5.5 years.
Further information can be found here
Grantee Name: Matthias Guckenberger
Organization: EORTC
Country: Belgium
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2020
Funding Scheme: ACF
Project period: 5 years
The challenge of treating the fast-growing population of elderly patients with cancer urgently requires adequate treatment, for which guidelines and evidence-based data are lacking. A recent EORTC study, demonstrated that elderly patients with advanced soft tissue sarcomas (a rare type of cancer that starts in tissues like fat or muscle) are underrepresented in clinical trials of first-line chemotherapy. This means that, due to a lack of evidence-based data, there is currently no consensus on the standard of care for the chemotherapeutic treatment of the elderly patients with inoperable or metastatic soft tissue sarcomas. There is therefore an urgent need for development of novel trials for elderly patients that include a health status geriatric screening tool and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) assessments.
The EORTC TOLERANCE is an academic clinical trial comparing different treatments for elderly patients with inoperable or metastatic soft tissue sarcomas in terms of HRQoL. Specifically, it compares metronomic schedules of doxorubicin or cyclophosphamide plus prednisolone versus the standard doxorubicin treatment (3 treatment arms). The ultimate goal of this study is to select the best experimental treatment based on patient self-reported outcomes in order to set a new standard of care in this setting. This aligns with RTFs mission to support less toxic therapeutic approaches and better disease burden management leading to increased quality of life and survival of cancer patients.
EORTC 1976-STBSG-QLG TOLERANCE is a 3-arm randomised, open label, phase 3 trial coordinated by the EORTC HQ in Brussels. A total number of 185 patients aged from 65 years-old and diagnosed with advanced or metastatic STS will be enrolled over a period of 3.5 years. The trial will open in 31 reference cancer centres in 8 countries (CY, DK, DE, IT, JO, NL, ES, UK).
Grantee Name: Winette van der Graaf
Organization: EORTC
Country: Belgium
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2021
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 4 years
The REMBRANDT trial addresses a heavy burden for the pancreatic cancer patient population. The only curative treatment option for pancreatic cancer is pancreatic surgery, in the vast majority of cases comprising pancreatic head resection. In this complex surgery, a surgeon removes the pancreatic head, the duodenum and part of the bile duct. After removal, they perform a surgical reconstruction in which three new connections (i.e. anastomoses) are being made.
This operation is associated with postoperative complications, such as delayed gastric emptying (DGE) and anastomotic leaks (e.g. postoperative pancreatic fistulas (POPF)). DGE is characterized by prolonged requirement of a nasogastric tube, inability to tolerate solid foods, vomiting and gastric distension. It is a burden for patients, impedes their recovery and may hamper the ability to undergo adjuvant chemotherapy.
A possible mean to prevent these complications after pancreatic surgery is by adding an extra anastomosis after reconstruction for pancreatic surgery, the so-called Braun anastomosis.
Working together with the patients association Living with Hope, dr. van Laarhoven and his team aims at evaluating the effectiveness of the addition of the Braun anastomosis after standard Child reconstruction in pancreatic head resection in reducing the incidence of delayed gastric emptying (DGE) and anastomotic leaks (e.g., postoperative pancreatic fistulas (POPF)).
REMBRANDT is a randomized-controlled patient-centered trial testing for superiority of the intervention. It involves 15 centers in the Netherlands, all part of the Dutch Pancreatic Cancer Group (DPCG). It plans to recruit a total of 256 patients, 128 per arm.
The ultimate goal of this study is to ameliorate the procedure of pancreatoduodenectomy with Child reconstruction so to decrease its burdensome postoperative complications.
Grantee Name: Kees van Laarhoven
Organization: Radboud University Medical Centre
Country: The Netherlands
Focus Area: Disease and Treatment Burden
Funding Year: 2022
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 4 years
This trial is a phase II-study testing the combination of mFOLFIRINOX, a chemotherapy already used to treat pancreatic cancer today, and high-dose SBRD (Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy), followed by surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy (if appropriate) in patients with an adenocarcinoma who have not undergone previous treatment for pancreatic cancer. 256 patients will be enrolled in at least 10 Belgian hospitals. The key objectives are to assess efficacy of treatment in improving success rate of the surgical intervention and increases the disease-free survival of patients.
The trial is funded by Anticancer Fund and Rising Tide Foundation within a joint effort aimed at supporting high impact clinical trials testing novel strategies in the treatment of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas (PDAC) and/or biliary tract cancer (BTC*). Additional funds will be provided by the King Baudouin Foundation and Les Amis de LInstitut Bordet.
Grantee Name: Jean-Luc van Laethem
Organization: Hospital Erasme, Universit Libre de Bruxelles
Country: Belgium
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2021
Funding Scheme: ACF
Project period: 4 years
The removal of all lymph nodes in the armpit through a conventional surgical method called axillary dissection has been standard care for patients with breast cancer for almost a century. In the nineties, the sentinel lymph node procedure, which involves the selective removal of the first few affected lymph nodes, was introduced in clinical practice. Today, conventional axillary dissection is still performed on many women with breast cancer that has spread to the nodes. It is the cause for undesired complications (morbidity) in the form of lymphedema, impairment of shoulder mobility, sensation disorders and chronic pain in as much as one third of all women undergoing the procedure.
The TAXIS trial will evaluate the optimal treatment for breast cancer patients in terms of surgery and radiotherapy. In particular, it will investigate the value of tailored axillary surgery (TAS), a new technique that aims at selectively removing the positive lymph nodes combined with axillary radiation. TAS combines the sentinel procedure with the removal of palpably suspicious nodes. It is a promising procedure that may significantly decrease morbidity in breast cancer patients by avoiding surgical over-treatment.
This trial has the potential to establish a new worldwide treatment standard with hopefully less side effects and a better quality of life, while keeping the same efficacy as provided by radical surgery. Tailored refinement of axillary surgery may herald an exciting era of reduced morbidity for breast cancer patients.
Grantee Name: Florian Fitzal
Organization: Austrian Breast and Colorectal Cancer Study Group
Country: Austria
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2018
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 5 years
Essential Scholars is a public education project aimed at educating high school and university students and young adults more broadly about the main insights of the key thinkers in the classical liberal tradition. The project comprises 15 modules, each centered on a short book written in an accessible style by an acknowledged expert and supported by short animated videos (80 total) and links to other online resources. Some 200,000 copies of the books have been distributed, while the videos have been viewed over 3.7 million times.
The Essential Scholars II project is expanding both the extent of these learning resources (by adding audio versions of the books, creating podcasts, and developing lesson plans) and their reach (by training teachers and through promotional efforts in collaboration with independent think tank partners in Australia, the UK, and the US). The podcasts will explore the core ideas of the scholars and their relevance to modern day policy questions. The lesson plans will incorporate project material for use in high schools, and webinars will be held to instruct teachers in their use. The project website (essentialscholars.org) will be overhauled to add new resources and improve functionality for high school teachers wanting to include Essential Scholars materials in their classrooms.
The ultimate goal is to achieve future systems change as students who have been introduced to the key ideas and leaders of classical liberalism enter the marketplace and become influencers themselves. Essential Scholars provides an attractive introduction for new as well as sympathetic audiences to the key ideas of liberty. The books themselves are excellent introductions to these ideas and the audio books will provide a new way for people to access them. The videos provide even easier access to the ideas of freedom and are easily adaptable for use in the classroom. Providing teachers with lesson plans that incorporate these resources and providing training will promote and enrich classroom learning about the ideas of freedom.
Organization: Fraser Institute
Country: Canada
Funding Year: 2022
Project Duration: 4 years
Systems Change
Teaching Freedom
The TOPCOP3 trial, led by Dr Shabbir Alibhai in the University Health Network in Toronto, Canada, aims at improving the care of older patients suffering from metastatic prostate cancer and undergoing androgen receptor axis-targeted agents (ARATs) therapy.
The ARATs is a new class of therapeutics that improves survival but causes substantial side effects, particularly in older men, reducing the quality of life, and potentially leading to the premature stopping of treatment. Current care consists of access to a nurse triage telephone line and clinic visits once every 1-3 months.
Dr Alibhai will test the feasibility and efficacy in improving quality of life and reducing severe side effects of treatment (including hospitalization) of two different types of care, alone and in combination: remote symptom monitoring (RSM) and geriatric assessment and management (GA+M). I am really excited to launch this trial to test two innovative supportive care strategies to improve the cancer journey for older men with advanced prostate cancer with the help of Rising Tide Foundation, says Dr. Alibhai.
Men who receive GA+M will get recommendations and monthly follow-ups from an oncology nurse. The nurse will also connect them to community resources if needed (e.g. physiotherapy, dietitian). Men assigned to RSM will have weekly symptom monitoring online or by telephone as well as symptom management provided by an oncology nurse, if needed. The control group will receive usual care. 168 patients, aged 70 or older, will be recruited at 2 centers in Canada.
Grantee Name: Shabbir Alibha
Organization: University Health Network
Country: Canada
Focus Area: Disease and Treatment Burden
Funding Year: 2022
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 3 years
Over 75% of the patients with epithelial ovarian cancer are diagnosed with advanced disease that has spread beyond the ovaries to the peritoneal surface (stage III-IV). Optimal treatment for advanced disease involves surgery and six cycles of intravenous chemotherapy. The overall 5-year survival is 30-40% for patients with advanced stage disease. The chance of getting recurrent disease within two years is 80%. To improve outcome, additional strategies for these patients are warranted. Supplement with hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) to interval debulking surgery (IDS) improve the progression free survival and overall survival in patients with stage III ovarian cancer. The impact of HIPEC in addition to primary debulking surgery (PDS), is still uncertain.
Objective: The primary objective of this study is to evaluate the effect of HIPEC on overall survival when added to primary cytoreductive surgery in patients with FIGO stage III ovarian cancer who are eligible for primary cytoreductive surgery resulting in no residual.
Study design: An international, randomized, un-blinded, phase III trial, including 538 patients with ovarian cancer stage III for whom upfront surgery is feasible.
Intervention: PCS with HIPEC is performed with cisplatin (100mg/m2) for 90 minutes at a temperature of 41-42oC in the abdominal cavity at the end of surgery.
Main study endpoints: Primary endpoint is overall survival. Secondary endpoints are recurrence-free survival, time to subsequent anticancer treatment, toxicity and morbidity. Time to second subsequent anticancer treatment, quality of life analysis and economic- and cost evaluation are exploratory endpoints.
Grantee Name: Berit Mosgaard
Organization: Copenhagen University Hospital
Country: Denmark
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2020
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 4 years
Greece has suffered for years from a tumultuous economic crisis spurred on by government debt and fiscal deficits. The Center for Liberal Studies (CLS) strongly believes that a lead contributor to this economic crisis and the subsequent rise of illiberal ideas and policies can be largely attributed to widespread economic illiteracy. To increase economic literacy throughout Greece, CLS is organizing the Greek Economics Olympiad and creating supplemental teaching materials, including a Greek edition of the award-winning economics textbook Economics in 31 Hours. They are also creating 31 basic economics education videos tailored to the Greek context that will be distributed on YouTube (and other platforms) for a high school audience.
CLS determined that the Economics Olympiad was the right initiative to reach their goal of achieving greater economic literacy in Greece through engaging high school students in a high quality and fun competition on basic economic concepts. Supplementary education materials will also serve to further influence Greek high school students.
The Greek Economics Olympiad was organized for the first time in the 2020-2021 academic year by CLS. The competition was launched in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and with the support of the Bank of Greece as well as the General Secretariat for Greeks Abroad and Public Diplomacy. The first competition attracted 1,105 students from 135 high schools from all over Greece and one school from the Greek diaspora. The Olympiad competition was mentioned 276 times in Greek media, including major television, radio, newspaper, and web outlets. Moving forward, CLS seeks to replicate and extend this success by increasing student participation while also increasing the quantity of high-quality resources available for students to gain basic economics education.
There is a pervasive problem in Greece of a lack of basic economic literacy. Currently, throughout a typical education, students may never encounter any training in basic economics whatsoever. This is likely one reason for the great economic challenges Greece faces today. Through this project, students will receive fun, relevant education in basic economic principles which will increase their human capital while at the same time benefit Greek society into the future through a more informed and educated citizenry regarding basic economic principles. The goal of the Greek Economics Olympiad is to equip students to make important decision in both the political and personal realm that are anchored in sound economics. In just 5-10 years, at the current pace, they will have trained more than 100,000 high school students in sound economic principles in a country with a population of just 10 million.
Organization: Center for Liberal Studies Markos Dragoumis (KEFiM)
Country: Greece
Funding Year: 2021
Project Duration: 2 years
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
Every year, Rondine Cittadella della Pace (Rondine) recruits 15 young leaders from the most conflict plagued and post-conflict societies to attend their World House Program in Arezzo, Italy. These students matriculate in an M.A. program at an Italian university while simultaneously partaking in Rondines globally recognized peace building process over two years. During their time of study, students develop their own social enterprise idea to implement upon return to their country.
The project aims to empower young peacebuilders and aspiring social innovators to become agents of change, especially in divided communities affected by conflict or post-conflict situations. Rondine believes that Peaceful societies are only possible when individuals are free to make their own choices and economically empowered to do so. Students receive training in conflict transformation and social innovation, as well as personal freedom, free-market economy, and prosperity.
Rondine has concluded that to sustain peace in conflict-ridden areas, they also need to invest in social and economic development through empowering young people to become agents of change, contributing to peace processes worldwide. Through this approach, Rondine not only contributes to enhancing freedom by promoting peace, but also by advancing local economic development. Rondines World House Program includes a combination of conflict transformation and classical liberal educational activities, with the aim of not only teaching peace, freedom, and classical liberalism, but also encouraging and supporting the development of concrete international project ideas.
Over the course of the project, approximately 50 young people from conflict or post-conflict societies will undergo this training program followed by a mentorship program that is dedicated to the development of their project ideas. Finally, the best project ideas will be selected to receive funding for implementation.
Organization: Rondine Cittadella della Pace
Country: Italy
Funding Year: 2021
Project Duration: 3 years
Private Sector Solutions
Systems Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
Freedom Games is a yearly gathering in Lodz, Poland of renowned international experts and intellectuals using various conference formats from lectures to panel discussions to discuss key challenges Western societies face in the 21st century, offering a creative space for exchanging ideas on culture, economics, business, and public life with the end to advance a more free and prosperous society.
The key output of the project is the organization and execution of one edition of Freedom Games: at least 3 days of events with more than 250 speakers and at least 60 sessions available both online and in-person in a dedicated conference space, with more than 1 million online viewers of Freedom Games streaming and videos, and at least 1,500 in-person attendees.
The Freedom Games forum has developed to become a powerful tool for promoting free-market ideas and personal freedoms while confronting individuals with other ideological currents. The 2023 Freedom Games event will show ideas important for Liberte! Foundations mission like free markets, rule of law, entrepreneurship, and the importance of big cities as engines of development and personal freedom, while supporting the idea of local governments to avoid centralization.
Organization: Liberte! Foundation
Country: Poland
Funding Year: 2022
Project Duration: 1 year
Teaching Freedom
This multi-phased project of the Civil Development Forum combines research with advocacy aimed at liberalizing Polish immigration policies based on the effective reforms introduced to support Ukrainian refugees in the country. The publication and promotion of recommended legal changes in the area of migration policy would support the comprehensive framework for (non-EU) foreign employment and entrepreneurship in Poland.
The main goal is to break bureaucratic barriers and introduce changes to migration policy in Poland to enhance the smooth and effective influx of migrants. The Civil Development Forum aims to establish new narratives for the ongoing and high-priority debate on immigration in Poland. They will collaborate with local communities and governments to identify barriers and bottlenecks between local and central institutions on the regulation of the labor market and migrant entrepreneurship to create recommendations for changes in the legal system. These recommendations will reach policy- and decision-makers in Poland to influence public debate on the topic of immigration policy and ultimately change the existing approach. Through workshops, conferences, and public meetings, they will reach intellectuals, scholars, and media and business representatives, as well as local government authorities and community leaders.
Ludwig von Mises wrote that, The principles of freedom, which have gradually been gaining ground everywhere since the eighteenth century, gave people freedom of movement. Freedom of movement gave rise to modern economic growth, unprecedented improvements in the mass standard of living, and an escape from poverty. Hindering movement can take many forms, from closed borders to various discriminating regulations that hamper buying or renting an apartment, taking up a job, or starting and running a business. Whenever there are regulations discriminating against immigrants, the basic freedom of movement is violated.
The Civil Development Forum aims to remove existing impediments to immigration in Poland by showing the benefits from immigration for both the host society and incomers, identifying barriers faced by immigrants, and offering recommendations to improve policy for employment or starting a business. If policy changes are successfully implemented, this project would lead to systems change and greater freedom, by widening the right of both residents and migrants in Poland to enter mutually beneficial relations. Migrants would be empowered through the right to use their knowledge and professional qualifications in the same way as Polish citizens. Overall, a better understanding of immigration and friendlier legislation in the labor market and for entrepreneurship will lead to a more peaceful and prosperous society.
Organization: Forum Obywatelskiego Rozwoju (Civil Development Forum)
Country: Poland
Funding Year: 2022
Project Duration: 2 years
Systems Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
In colorectal cancer, the most important parameter for prognosis and determining patient management is tumor spread according to the Tumor-Nodal- Metastasis (TNM) classification. However, the TNM system may show considerable differences in tumors within the same stage. Therefore, additional biomarkers for a more personalized risk stratification in certain CRC patient groups are needed.
Tumor budding, namely single tumor cells and small clusters of tumor cells at the invasive tumor front, is such a biomarker. However, tumor buds do not account for other factors, such as the bodys protective response. Especially T-cells, a type of inflammatory cell, have been extensively examined as a protective factor. Our own preliminary data demonstrates that a combined assessment of tumor budding and T-cell infiltrates in CRC (termed the Budding/T-cell Score or BTS) may better reflect how aggressive a tumor is than either marker alone.
In this project, we want to further investigate the BTS using graph-based deep learning. On images of slides used to diagnose CRC, graph-based representations are created based on detected tumor buds and T-cells. We believe that this approach will be beneficial for the combined assessment of tumor buds and T-cells, because it captures not only the raw count of the cells but also their structural arrangement, which, we hypothesize, might play a central role for predicting important information for patient treatment. In a third step, geometric deep learning, which extends deep learning beyond the domain of Euclidean geometry, is applied to the graphs to predict clinical endpoints, such as survival time.
Grantee Name: Heather Dawson
Organization: Bern University Hospital
Country: Switzerland
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2018
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 3 years
Pregnancy is a major concern for premenopausal breast cancer survivors. Conception after breast cancer in women with hormone receptor positive (HR+) disease is affected by the standard 5-10 years of anti-hormonal therapy during which pregnancy is contraindicated.
The POSITIVE study evaluates whether it is safe, in terms of risk of breast cancer recurrence, to temporarily interrupt adjuvant endocrine therapy to attempt pregnancy. It is also an exceptional opportunity to investigate the biology of breast cancer in young patients, a subset that is well-known to be biologically distinct, yet poorly studied particularly at the molecular and genomic level.
The Central Pathology Review is a crucial component of multicenter tumor trials. Therefore, within the POSITIVE Study, it is integral to centrally collect patient tumor tissue and review tumor biological characteristics (such as ER, PR, Ki67 and HER2) alone and in combination with clinical-pathological parameters (grade of tumor, size of tumor, nodal status and patient age). The aim is to evaluate whether treatment interruption for some women with high-risk tumors may be detrimental and whether pregnancy might modify the risk of cancer relapse.
The data obtained will therefore permit individualized assessment of patient outcomes according to the biologic characteristics of the tumor as well as a better understanding of the overall results of the POSITIVE study. In addition, the results of the Central Pathology Review will enable future molecular subtyping in order to better tailor treatment in this population and help future patients fulfill their motherhood wish, without risking breast cancer relapse.
Grantee Name: Giuseppe Viale
Organization: International Breast Cancer Study Group
Country: Switzerland
Focus Area: Disease and Treatment Burden
Funding Year: 2020
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 2 years
Close exchange with cancer patients and patient organizations is vital for the further development of new and improved cancer therapies that seek to improve the chance of a cure and patients quality of life. SAKK therefore set up the Patient Advisory Board in November 2015 with the aim of gaining a better understanding of the needs of cancer patients and their families, in order to improve SAKK research projects.
The Patient Advisory Board currently has eight members with a very wide range of experience and background knowledge. The members of the Patient Advisory Board undertake further training on an ongoing basis and contribute with their valuable knowledge to our projects.
For example, the Patient Advisory Board participates in the development of information for patients and in this way makes these documents easier to understand.
In the coming years, the Patient Advisory Board will also be involved more intensively in the planning and development of trials to include the needs of patients in the trial design. The first pilot projects have started and are being refined continually.
Another important project is the preparation of lay summaries of SAKK trial results, in order to make the results understandable and available for the patients and the public. Pilot projects to gather experience in writing lay summaries for various SAKK trials are ongoing.
Twice a year, the Patient Advisory Board organizes the SAKK Patient Forum. This public event, focusing on a different cancer-related topic each time, allows patients and interested individuals to learn more about the latest research findings and provides an opportunity to ask questions and participate in related discussions.
The Patient Advisory Board is contacted frequently by external partners (the federal government, research institutes, healthcare organizations and universities), and asked to actively work on their projects to include the patients point of view and needs.
Grantee Name: Peter Durrer
Organization: Swiss Group For Clinical Cancer Research (SAKK)
Country: Switzerland
Focus Area: Other Areas
Funding Year: 2019
Funding Scheme: SAKK
Project period: 3 years
Worldwide more than 450000 patients are diagnosed with breast cancer every year. It accounts for one-third of all cancer diagnoses among women and causes more than 130000 deaths per year. Until the mid-nineties, the complete removal of all lymph nodes in the armpit was the standard treatment for patients with breast cancer, causing massive morbidity in one-third of patients with decreased quality of life. Over the past 25 years, this radical operation was slowly abandoned in patients without tumor signs in their lymph nodes. However, it is still standard of care in patients with cancer detected in their lymph nodes before surgery.
This study addresses the questions if radical surgery of the lymph nodes can be safely replaced by a novel limited surgery concept called tailored axillary surgery in combination with radiotherapy, and if this new treatment combination results in better quality of life compared to the standard radical procedure. One half of the 1500 patients will undergo radical surgery and the other half will receive the new combination treatment.
If this study is positive, it is likely to establish a new worldwide treatment standard with less side effects and better quality of life, while maintaining the same efficacy as radical surgery. This would help to decrease surgical overtreatment of patients with breast cancer on a global scale.
Grantee Name: Walter Weber
Organization: University Hospital Basel
Country: Switzerland
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2020
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 5 years
Every year around 450 men in Switzerland develop testicular cancer, which is the most common type of cancer in men aged between 18 and 35. About half of those tumors are seminomas, most of which diagnosed with the tumor confined to testis and cured by removal of the affected testis. Around 15% of all patients do however present with disease which has spread to lymph nodes in the abdomen and pelvis, thus classified as having stage II disease and requiring further treatment. Standard therapy for a stage IIA or IIB seminoma is chemotherapy or radiotherapy. The two standard treatments are not usually combined. Although these treatments are extremely effective, they are intensive and bear the risk of long-term side-effects such as damage to the heart, blood vessels, kidneys, intestines and the inner ear, or the development of a second cancer. As the patients are often young, it is particularly relevant to reduce the risk of these side-effects as much as possible. The trial SAKK 01/18 is thus examining a new therapeutic approach: the combination of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, with a much weaker form of each therapy being used. This combination is designed to produce high rates of local control (by means of radiotherapy) and the eradication of micrometastases (by means of chemotherapy). Additionally, the trial aims to investigate how treatment affects the patients quality of life. SAKK 01/18 is the follow-on project to the completed trial SAKK 01/10 trial. The trial is running in Switzerland and Germany and 135 patients will be included.
Grantee Name: Alexandros Papachristofilou
Organization: University Hospital Basel
Country: Switzerland
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2018
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 6 years
Background:
Approximately 70-80% of all breast cancers are hormone receptor-positive. After tumor removal, these patients are recommended anti-hormonal therapy, with the use of an aromatase inhibitor (AI) being standard of care in postmenopausal women. AI-therapy can cause side effects ranging from disturbing to debilitating, especially joint/muscle pain and stiffness, but also fatigue, hot flashes, etc.
Research Question:
The benefit of physical activity on manifested muscle/joint pain and stiffness under AI-therapy is well established. The purpose of our patient focused trial is to investigate whether physical activity has a preventive effect on side effects of AI-therapy.
Trial Intervention:
Patients are randomly allocated at the beginning of an AI-therapy to either an intervention arm (consisting of walking outdoors continuously for at least 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week for 24 weeks) or a control arm (no specific recommendation regarding physical activity). Patients in both arms wear a wrist-worn activity tracker with customized display (intervention arm: feedback about activity performed; control arm: no feedback).
Aim of the Trial:
The aim of this trial is to investigate if a simple outdoor walking intervention, beginning at the start of AI-therapy, can prevent muscle/ joint pain and stiffness and can positively affect symptom burden and quality of life in general.
Follow-Up:
During a follow-up phase of 1.5 years, the trial will assess whether the trial shows a lasting effect on pain, treatment adherence, an active lifestyle, and quality of life in general in the intervention arm compared to the control arm.
Grantee Name: Friedemann Honecker / N. Hoefnagels, MSc
Organization: Tumor- und Brustzentrum, ZeTuP St. Gallen
Country: Switzerland
Focus Area: Disease and Treatment Burden
Funding Year: 2017
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 5 years
There is an urgent need to develop and evaluate new therapies for children with brain tumours given their high mortality rates. This is particularly true for Diffuse Midline Gliomas (DMGs), which include Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Gliomas (DIPGs), which affect over 2,000 children and young adults in the US and Europe every year. Sadly, despite decades of research, there are no effective treatments for this disease and over 90% of children die less than 2 years from being diagnosed.
Promising drugs and treatment strategies are emerging, but they require extensive research at the preclinical stage. This is both to understand the mechanisms of action of these drugs, but also to identify clinically relevant predictive biomarkers of drug efficacy. Clinically relevant predictive biomarkers allow us to gauge, in real time, how well they will respond to treatment.
Our project's aim is to assess tumor response to therapy. Such studies will allow for designing more effective therapies for patients diagnosed with DMG. Our study is designed as a multi-arm trial based on different disease stages to provide access for the largest possible population of patients. This trial offers a new and promising agent to children in Europe where little to no innovative therapies are available, and limited clinical phase 1 trials are open. The results of our study will have a global impact on treatment strategies for children suffering from DMGs.
Grantee Name: Javad Nazarian
Organization: University Children's Hospital Zurich
Country: Switzerland
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2020
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 6 years
There are a growing number of individuals who are highly motivated to take another step in their education but lack the financial means and do not qualify for any of the public or private scholarships. Statistics show that every year approximately 10,000 young people in Switzerland cannot follow through their educational plans due to financial shortcomings.
EDUCA SWISS offers a private sector solution where lenders offer loans to students at socially acceptable interest rates, combined with a philanthropically-funded coaching program, enhancing equal opportunity in Switzerland through access to finance without restrictions regarding financial background, social class, field of study or age. EDUCA SWISS provides loans to individuals in Switzerland who do not qualify for financial support from the government or other private scholarships for their education projects.
The approach of EDUCA SWISS is giving individuals who lack resources themselves, and do not qualify for any government support in Switzerland, the freedom to follow their educational dreams and allow them to invest in a more prosperous future. It offers an efficient and superior solution to loans or scholarships provided by the Swiss government. The combination of loans and coaching, capital and philanthropic money, allows students to access capital from individuals and institutions at reasonable interest rates and offers an attractive impact investment opportunity at relatively low risk.
EDUCA SWISS is setting an important example in the Swiss education system that market-based approaches work and often create better solutions than government. It further promotes the principles of self-determination and self-sufficiency not only to the students but its broader stakeholder base.
Organization: Educa Swiss
Country: Switzerland
Funding Year: 2021
Project Duration: 3 years
Private Sector Solutions
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
Many young people in Switzerland feel that the traditional pathways offered through government education are not right for them. They increasingly choose educational pathways that are outside of the traditional system. However, support for young people that choose such a self-determined educational path has been very limited in the country. Time4 offers these young people an alternative development and education path compared to traditional vocational training, apprenticeships, or middle school. The participants of Time4 plan their educational path themselves but are supported by the Time4 team and their peers in the reaching of their self-set goals.
Time4 is now working to scale its offer in supporting them along their self-determined learning paths. Designed for young people who have a strong intrinsic motivation for learning and don't fit the paths designed by public education, the program offers support through in-person meetings, clear goal-setting and monitoring. They may go and learn a new language, set up their own company, or present their art to the public often things that were previously considered not possible.
Time4 offers an alternative to public education in Switzerland. It offers young people an environment in which they can follow their individual learning pathway towards earning their own living. This rpgram challenges the traditional system of education and offers a unique alternative with the potential to become more mainstream in the long-term.
An increasing number of young people are struggling with the pre-defined educational pathways, ending up demotivated and without objectives, as a self-determined learning path is not currently an option in the system. Time4 adds this new perspective to the Swiss educational landscape and offers young people the level of support and assurance needed that will allow them to follow pathways in a flexible manner that were unthinkable in the traditional education system. Time4 offers young people a framework in which they can discover, refine, and deepen their interests and talents. Thanks to individual, self-defined work steps and learning objectives, the young people can follow their own needs and wishes. They are given the time they need to tackle their own small and large tasks, make their own decisions, and manage the resulting consequences themselves. In it they grow up to be free and empowered adults.
Organization: Verein "Respektierung & Wahrung Natrlicher Lernprozesse"
Country: Switzerland
Funding Year: 2022
Project Duration: 3 years
Private Sector Solutions
Systems Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Objective education materials allow students to better understand the consequences of economic policies, making abstract policies such as taxes or government spending more tangible. This project, with a promising new player in the Swiss research context of economic policy, involves the creation of a twelve-part video series titled Taxes, debt and Switzerland simply explained - covering a variety of topics, including inequality, pensions, federalism, democracy, taxes, government spending, etc. The videos are aimed to be highly tangible for the student, which is ensured by starting each video lesson with a focus on how the topic is impacting the student.
The video series provides an essential individual learning opportunity for students supporting them in their recognition and understanding of economic policy interrelationships. Each five-minute video will have supporting content that includes a written summary of the topic covered and a series of exercises to ensure student understanding of the concepts introduced. The videos will be distributed through the new Swiss online learning platform Evulpo, where they will be freely available to students. Evulpo, is a young, dynamic, and fast-growing Swiss start-up that operates as a digital learning platform offering free explanatory videos, summaries, and exercises linked to the Swiss Governments education agenda for public schools.
A free and solid basic education in economic policy issues is important for the preservation and development of our prosperity and society. This school-supplementary content from an independent authority guarantees, in addition to the scientific foundation, the greatest possible individual freedom in the acquisition of new knowledge and in the understanding of economic contexts.
Organization: Institute for Swiss Economic Policy
Country: Switzerland
Funding Year: 2022
Project Duration: 1 year
Teaching Freedom
This multinational, phase III clinical trial seeks to investigate the hypothesis that a multimodal intervention delivered during chemotherapy in the advanced lung or pancreatic cancer is effective in preventing and/or delaying cancer cachexia, and as a consequence, will improve weight, food intake, physical function and quality of life.
If proven positive, the proposed cachexia intervention can be immediately adopted into current practice and can be easily implemented across the healthcare system to become the new standard of care.
Grantee Name: Marie Fallon
Organization: University of Edinburgh
Country: United Kingdom
Focus Area: Disease and Treatment Burden
Funding Year: 2015
Funding Scheme: Marie Curie UK
Project period: 4 years
A new study testing an innovative approach to radiotherapy treatment planning, the ARCHERY study, is evaluating the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to automate several steps in the radiotherapy treatment pathway. It will assess both its quality, time and cost savings compared to the standard manual approach.
Radiotherapy is an effective treatment for many cancers. But planning a treatment that can deliver radiation to the tumour, while avoiding damage to healthy organs nearby, is a labour-intensive and highly skilled process. It requires input from expert clinicians and physicists or radiographers. This process is particularly challenging in low and middle-income countries, where there are not enough people with the necessary training and skills.
ARCHERY will test whether AI can be used to:
ARCHERY will compare the quality of plans prepared using AI with current standards of care that use manual approaches. It will also gather data on the time and cost involved, to allow evaluation of the health-economic impact of this approach.
If successful, the approach could transform radiotherapy treatment planning, speeding up the process from weeks to minutes, reducing costs and allowing more patients who need treatment to be treated. It could also help improve the consistency and quality of treatment as well as enable more complex techniques to be adopted.
The AI software being used in ARCHERY has been developed by the MD Anderson Cancer Center. If found it be effective, it will be made available as a web-based not-for-profit service for public-sector and non-profit hospitals in low- and middle-income countries
ARCHERY is the first study of its kind. It will look at treatments for three high burden tumours in a global setting: over 1000 patients with head and neck cancer, cervical cancer or prostate cancer will be enrolled in hospitals in India, South Africa, Jordan and Malaysia.
The ARCHERY study, led by Dr Ajay Aggarwal, Consultant Clinical Oncologist at Guys Cancer Centre/LSHTM and coordinated by the MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL, is funded by the US National Institute for Health and the Rising Tide Foundation for Clinical Cancer Research (RTFCCR).
RTFCCR supports the prostate cancer arm of the study. This high burden cancer is the most frequently diagnosed in men. In low-and-middle income countries radiotherapy is the major treatment modality for it, given the paucity of urological services and the consequent predominance of advanced cancers. In addition, poor quality radiotherapy planning is directly linked to an increased risk of cancer recurrence and functional morbidity for patients, such as bladder and bowel toxicity and sexual dysfunction. For these reasons, the ARCHERY study represents a great opportunity for enabling implementation of cheaper, easier and more effective radiotherapy practice also for prostate cancer treatment in low- and medium-income countries.
Collaborating centres and partners
Grantee Name: Ajay Aggarwal
Organization: University College of London
Country: United Kingdom
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2021
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 5 years
Colombia is the worlds third largest producer of coffee by volume, and a leader in quality; the coffee sector is the largest source of rural employment. And yet, farmers contend with significant challenges: small plots of land, high costs, stagnating yields, and stifling government intervention. Colombias National Federation of Coffee Growers (the Federation) provides government subsidies to farmers, including low-cost credit and free inputs, on the condition that farmers export exclusively through the Federationmaking those farmers subject to its largely undifferentiated international marketing strategy, and hurting the relative competitiveness of those who seek out other options.
Root Capital is aiming to unlock local prosperity by empowering enterprises representing thousands of small farmers to fulfill their potential in rural communities where the governmental structures of the Federation have often hindered their prospering. The credit plus capacity model helps eliminate obstacles for creative individuals in remote rural communities by equipping coffee enterprises to pursue an alternate, market-driven path through business advisory services in combination with access to finance.
No matter an enterprises stage of growth, increased access to credit builds the essential foundation for independence, competitiveness, and resilience. Root Capitals loans enable enterprises to pay their supplying small farmers higher prices for premium coffee than the Federation offers, and to pay them upfront and on time for their crop. These practices lead farmers to sell their crop consistently to the enterprise, and helps the enterprise hone the quality of its supply, boosting its reputation and market share with specialty coffee buyers.
Investing in underserved agricultural enterprises by building their entrepreneurial capacity and increasing their access to finance transforms individual lives: it enhances enterprises ability to create opportunity for thousands of people in rural communities, through quality employment for enterprise workers and improved market access for farmers. With growth and increased capacity, enterprises can improve farmer livelihoods while also increasing resilience, sustainable resource use, and market-driven social impact.
Organization: Root Capital
Country: Colombia
Project Name: Investing in Agricultural Enterprises to Build Rural Prosperity in Colombia
Project Duration: 2 years
Private Sector Solutions
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Although extensive data on economic freedom is available, much of it lacks on-the-ground expertise and the moral commitment to reforming discriminatory and oppressive policies that disproportionately affect women. Atlas aspires to change that by providing real-world examples that document how economic liberty empowers and elevates women by creating opportunity, growth, and prosperity. Their vision is to break down the legal obstacles that prevent women from equal rights and opportunities. Using their successful grant program Liberating Enterprise to Achieve Prosperity (LEAP) as a model, they're challenging their partners to (1) identify projects that would improve their country's rank on the Gender Disparity Index and other indices, (2) create and implement reform strategies, and (3) publicize non-governmental solutions that help reduce poverty among women.
In too many countries, women find themselves enslaved by circumstance rather than free to make autonomous decisions. This project aims to reduce the opportunities and reasons for authorities to repress women as they try to better their lives. Solutions designed to improve the rights and living standards of women often focus on doling out more aid money, only to fail
because local policies and customs prevent women from taking advantage of their own talents. This project would illustrate the value of targeting specific repressive public policies that make it impossible for women to forge their own paths out of poverty.
Atlas Network believes that institutional change is unlikely to last if imposed by outsiders who are unfamiliar with local customs. Change must be developed from within, both to ensure buy-in and, more importantly, to discover the unique cultural mechanisms necessary for informal norms to transition smoothly to well-functioning formal systems. By working with local institutions to build support for change, the project is laying a lasting foundation for freedom to flourish.
Organization: Atlas Network
Country: United States of America
Funding Year: 2019
Project Duration: 3 years
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
The traditional approach to fighting poverty in the United States is through the alleviation of symptoms rather than employing strategies that seek to enhance human flourishing. This approach sees the poor as objectsobjects of pity, compassion, and charityinstead of seeing
the poor as subjects, the protagonists of their own lives. As Ismael Hernandez says, self-reliance is in eclipse todaythis directly affects outcomes in education, health, and security. The Freedom & Virtue Institute has created Self-Reliance Clubs (SRCs) with the goal to integrate efforts within existing school activities by adopting the initiatives and giving them new meaning, empowering students to meet their needs through work. This allows children to better understand work as a means of wealth creation and economic opportunity.
Many of todays social programs contribute to a prevailing mindset of victimhood and dependency. If this mindset is to be shifted in the future, it must start with childrenthey must be sent a contrary message. A message that tells them they have what it takes to meet their needs, that they are agents of choice.
Through SRCs, the Freedom and Virtue Institute will connect children to practical projects that connect reward to accomplishments. As the SRCs follow students year after year, they continue a journey of engagement and discover that they are engines of wealth creation.
The Freedom & Virtue Institute aims to launch over 200 SRCs and impact up to 5,000 students with their activities over the next three years. This will equip young individuals with character traits and virtues that facilitate enterprise and the love of freedom that motivates them to become free and productive citizens, entrepreneurs, and workers.
Organization: Freedom & Virtue Institute
Country: United States of America
Funding Year: 2020
Project Duration: 3 years
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
In 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) called for action towards achieving the global elimination of cervical cancer. A strategy for achieving this goal was ratified by member states in August 2020. The WHO plan calls for an aggressive approach of vaccination against the human papillomavirus (HPV), the single cause of cervical cancer, and screening and treatment of precancerous lesions caused by HPV infections before they progress to invasive disease. In low- and middle-income countries (LMIC), which bear 90% of cervical cancer incidence globally, it is estimated that these goals will not be reached until 2120 a century from now. One way to markedly shorten this timeline is to provide widespread high-performance testing for cervical precancer followed by immediate treatment of any abnormalities.
Currently, the most commonly used method of treatment of pre-cancer is using gas-based cryotherapy. Although gas-based therapy is effective, it is difficult to have widespread scale-up because gas tanks are heavy and difficult to transport, tanks need to be refilled and equipment requires maintenance to function properly. The purpose of this study is to examine alternatives to gas-based cryotherapy including non-gas-based cryotherapy (funded by NIH) and thermal ablation (funded by rising tide). This is a randomized controlled trial which will compare cure rates of high-grade cervical precancer after treatment with cryotherapy and the 2 alternative approaches. Upon successful completion of this trial low-cost, portable, effective treatment for cervical pre-cancer will be clinically validated. Clinically validated tools for treatment of pre-cancer are crucial for worldwide elimination.
Grantee Name: Miriam Cremer
Organization: Cleveland Clinic Foundation
Country: United States
Focus Area: Early Intervention
Funding Year: 2017
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 4 years
Career Pathway Grants in Symptom Management
The goal of this program is to recruit and retain individuals committed to conducting symptom management research. This unique approach will support young physician-scientists at a critical time in their academic careers when they transition from training to principal investigators and begin to set up labs of their own.
The recipients of the 2020 Conquer Cancer Rising Tide Foundation for Clinical Cancer Research Career Pathway Grants in Symptom Management are:
Antonio Di Meglio, MD, Institut Gustave Roussy
A Comprehensive Bio-behavioral Approach to Tackle Cancer-related Fatigue in Breast Cancer Survivors
Mentor: Ines Vaz-Luis, MD, PhD
Nicole Grogan, MD, University of Michigan Cancer Center
A Single Center Phase 2 Trial to Evaluate Use of Cannabidiol (CBD) to Treat Aromatase Inhibitor-Associated Musculoskeletal Symptoms (AIMSS) in Early Stage Breast Cancer Patients
Mentor: Norah Lynn Henry, MD, PhD
Daniel Lage, MD, MSc, Massachusetts General Hospital
A Care Transition Intervention for Hospitalized Patients with Advanced Cancer
Mentor: Jennifer Temel, MD
Risa Wong, MD, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
SuPPORT: Screening for Psychosocial Distress in Prostate Cancer and Offering Referrals for Treatment
Mentor: John Gore, MD, MS
Grantee Name: Nancy Daly
Organization: Conquer Cancer Foundation
Country: United States
Focus Area: Disease and Treatment Burden
Funding Year: 2019
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 4 years
The team had found in an earlier study that epigenetic therapy appears to sensitize patients to subsequent treatments including chemotherapy, and very excitingly, to immunotherapy, targeting reversal of immune tolerance.
Two new clinical trials will investigate an approach to reverse gene silencing associated with increased tumor growth using DNA methyltransferase inhibitor (azacitidine) and histone deacetylase inhibitor (entinostat). The first clinical trial will investigate the proposed therapy to address chemoresistance and the second trial will sensitize patients for immunotherapies. If validated, the study could in a delimited time span, introduce new therapies to radically alter the management of cancers like NSCLC.
Grantee Name: Stephen Baylin and Julie Brahmer
Organization: John Hopkins University
Country: United States
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2014
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 4 years
Brain tumors are the most common solid cancers affecting children and adolescents. Medulloblastoma and ependymoma are common brain tumors that require treatment with radiation following surgical resection. While radiation is an essential component of curative treatment, radiation to the developing brain contributes to adverse health effects that can impair quality of survivorship. There are two major types of external-beam radiation: photon-based and particle (proton) radiation. Both radiation modalities are alike in their cure rates and biological effectiveness.
However, compared with photons, proton radiation has better physical properties that localizes the radiation dose in the tumor target while sparing proximal normal tissues. We need to follow patients for a long time after treatment to determine if the dosimetric advantages of protons translate to an improvement in health outcomes. Supported by the Rising Tide Foundation, our study compares neurocognitive function and quality of life between brain tumor survivors greater than five years out from treatment with protons at Massachusetts General Hospital or with photons at Emory University Hospital.
Participants complete a comprehensive clinical evaluation, neurocognitive assessment, and PedsQL survey. DICOM radiation treatment plans are collected to assess dosimetric differences to the brain and its sub-regions. We hypothesize that patients treated with protons will have better neurocognitive outcomes and quality of life scores than patients treated with modern photon radiation due to the ability of protons to spare more normal brain. Our research will guide future treatment decisions and advocate for access to the radiation technology that maximizes quality of life for survivors.
Grantee Name: Torunn Yock
Organization: Massachusetts General Hospital
Country: United States
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2018
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 10 years
This phase I/II proposal will assess the dose and safety of a combination of an antibody currently used for the treatment of multiple myeloma with a radiolabel element that will generate images on PET scan for disease detection and treatment response monitoring.
The central hypothesis is that targeted imaging of CD38, which is expressed on the surface of virtually every myeloma cell, will allow non-invasive immuno-PET imaging of myeloma in human patients. This would be a transformative, non-invasive strategy for the detection of myeloma and treatment response monitoring.
Grantee Name: Ola Landgren
Organization: University of Miami
Country: United States
Focus Area: Early Detection
Funding Year: 2018
Funding Scheme: LLS
Project period: 5 years
Chondrosarcoma is a rare invasive cancer that affects bones and large joints. Extensive surgical resections with wide margins are necessary to cure this disease and surgeries can lead to significant morbidity. Radiation and chemotherapy have been largely ineffective for primary disease or for locally recurrent and metastatic disease. A pharmacologic agent that can potentially lead to function preserving surgical treatment, fewer local recurrences, and better control of systemic disease, would help improve the overall quality of life. Zoledronic acid is a widely used agent for treatment of metastatic cancer to the bone and to treat osteoporosis. Our pre-clinical studies have shown that zoledronic acid may help control the local destruction of bone by chondrosarcoma. Hence, we are conducting a clinical trial repurposing zoledronic acid by giving a dose prior to standard of care surgical resection and evaluating its impact on the resected tumor specimen. A second dose is given post operatively and time to local or metastatic recurrence as well as overall survival will be determined. The study is ongoing and 11 out of planned 15 patients have been enrolled. We hope to use this information to design a larger trial using zoledronic acid as an adjuvant therapy.
Grantee Name: Varun Monga
Organization: University of Iowa
Country: United States
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2016
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 3 years
Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) is often a side effect of cancer treatment and can diminish a patients quality of life (QOL) by affecting everyday activities such as driving a car, putting on clothing, using utensils, and walking. CIPN also leads to treatment delays, dose reductions, and chemotherapy discontinuations which negatively affect treatment outcomes. Only two therapies have been shown to be effective to treat CIPN, neurofeedback (NFB) and duloxetine. Neurofeedback is a treatment that is customized to the individual, relatively inexpensive, non-invasive, and provided alongside conventional medicine. It is a reward system comprised of a brain-computer interface where participants are taught to change activity in brain regions that contribute to symptom perception. In our prior studies of NFB to treat CIPN, we found that patients with CIPN can learn to control activity in brain areas that are associated with CIPN, leading to QOL improvements such as restoration of normal exercise and recreational activities. This project aims to address three major obstacles to clinical improvement in CIPN symptoms. First, this project will help us understand CIPN at the level of individual brain function and will explore neurofeedback training in conjunction with duloxetine to maximize benefit to patients. Second, we will also discover the optimal amount of neurofeedback sessions needed to result in long-term relief of CIPN in a large group of participants and across socioeconomic groups. Lastly, this project will provide valuable information on the interplay between pain perceptions, treatments, and brain function.
Grantee Name: Sarah Prinsloo
Organization: The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Country: United States
Focus Area: Disease and Treatment Burden
Funding Year: 2019
Funding Scheme: American Cancer Society
Project period: 4 years
Patients with advanced cancer frequently experience severe multiple physical, emotional symptoms. These are associated with major morbidity in cancer care, poor quality of life, and impact overall survival. Their family members also experience physical and emotional distress. At the same time, patients and their families need to discuss the goals of care and to participate in advance care planning. These issues are even more urgent in medically underserved regions of low middle-income countries. Provision of access to quality palliative care can address these needs effectively. One of the main reasons is the lack of health professional education, training and support to health care providers taking care of this vulnerable patients. There is a great need to train the physicians, nurses, volunteers helping the patients with life limiting illnesses (palliative care clinicians) with skills required to provision of quality palliative care. We are proposing a collaborative ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) telementoring project between the MD Anderson Cancer Center, Aga Khan University(Kenya), Korle-Bu Hospital (Ghana), University College Hospital(Nigeria), Tata Memorial Hospital (India), and The African Cancer Institute (South Africa). The Palliative ECHO will consist of one-hour, twice monthly teleECHO clinics with participants ECHO. We will also examine the effects of ECHO on patient quality of life symptoms and caregiver experience over a period of 1 year.
Grantee Name: Yennu Sriran
Organization: The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Country: United States
Focus Area: Disease and Treatment Burden
Funding Year: 2019
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 2 years
Within the past decade, the growth of immunotherapy as a method to treat cancer has been astounding. However, while new immunostimulatory therapies have shown great success in the treatment of many types of breast cancer, not all types of cancer respond. A major challenge remains identification of mechanisms to effectively treat the majority of patients with so-called "non-inflamed" breast tumors. Work in the laboratory has shown that the DNA repair ability of a tumor may impact its potential for immune recognition and sensitivity to immune therapies. We hypothesize that enhanced DNA damage and cell death induced by DNA damage repair inhibition in tumors will also enhance anti-tumor immune responses. To examine this, we are conducting a clinical trial exploring the DNA damage repair inhibitor olaparib either alone or in combination with the human monoclonal antibody atezolizumab in patients with BRCA1/2 mutated locally advanced or metastatic non-HER2-positive breast cancer. In addition to producing a prominent clinical advancement, the Rising Tide award is allowing us to perform experiments to demonstrate fundamental concepts linking DNA repair, specific genomic landscapes, and anti-tumor immune response. Ultimately, the results from this study have the potential to impact patient care by supporting the clinical development of a novel and biologically driven treatment combination to treat breast cancer.
Grantee Name: Patricia LoRusso
Organization: Yale University
Country: United States
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2017
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 2 years
Clinical stage III melanoma patients have poor outcomes when treated with upfront surgery and adjuvant therapy. Neoadjuvant, or pre-operative therapy, can potentially improve outcomes for this high-risk patient population. Researchers at MD Anderson Cancer Center and the Melanoma Institute of Australia have recently reported that approximately 50% of clinical stage III melanoma patients with BRAF V600 mutated disease achieve a pathologic complete response (pCR) or complete melanoma death, after exposure to neoadjuvant dabrafenib and trametinib (DT) treatment. Patients who do have pCR have improved survival outcomes compared to those that do not have a pCR. We do not understand which features will predict development of pCR but have identified preliminary molecular, immunological and pathologic data in pre-treatment tumors we believe may be predictive of long-term outcomes. Additionally, while pCR patients are less likely to develop relapse than non-pCR patients, there are still some pCR patients who relapse, and we believe there are distinct features in these patients surgical samples that determine subsequent relapse risk. Finally, patients who do not achieve a pCR are at higher risk of developing CNS metastases at time of relapse. We believe there are features in their tumor specimens which evolve over the course of therapy and identification of these factors will predict the risk of CNS relapse. Together, these studies aim to inform mechanisms of treatment response and resistance to BRAF targeted therapy, will enhance the field of neoadjuvant therapy, identify risk of CNS metastasis formation and ultimately improve melanoma patient outcomes.
Grantee Name: Rodabe Amaria
Organization: University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Country: United States
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2020
Funding Scheme: MRA
Project period: 3 years
Women found to have breast cancer in their lymph nodes are often advised to receive radiation therapy to the lymph nodes to decrease the chance of cancer recurrence and improve survival. Because of the length of treatment (at least five weeks) and the side effects of treatment (tiredness, arm swelling, and skin and tissue changes), some women who may benefit from radiation therapy do not receive it.
An innovative shorter-duration radiation treatment regimen that delivers larger daily doses of radiation to the lymph nodes (called hypofractionation) may allow women to get the radiation they need while reducing the duration and toxicity of treatment. The SAPHIRe trial (Shortening Adjuvant PHoton IRradiation) is a randomized, clinical trial of shorter-duration (three-week) versus standard-duration (five-week) radiation therapy in 842 patents receiving radiation therapy to the lymph nodes for invasive breast cancer conducted at academic and community practices across the United States. The women who choose to take part in this trial will be assigned to one of these two treatments and will complete questionnaires about their side effects, physical function, quality of life, and financial well-being. They will also be evaluated for treatment complications, development of arm swelling (lymphedema), and cancer status. The trial is designed to demonstrate shorter-duration radiation to the lymph nodes provides similar cancer control while reducing the side effects and burden of treatment.
The development of a less toxic, less costly, more convenient, shorter-duration regimen is expected to reduce the burden of treatment and increase the utilization of curative radiation.
Grantee Name: Karen Hoffman
Organization: University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Country: United States
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2020
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 5 years
Patient outcomes in metastatic melanoma, the most deadly of common skin cancers, have improved dramatically with the approval of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI). Nonetheless, not all patients benefit from these therapies and actionable strategies to enhance the effectiveness of ICI are urgently needed. This study seeks to develop a deeper understanding of the role of a whole foods, plant-based, fiber-rich diet on the microbiome and anti-tumor immunity in patients receiving immunotherapyTo test the impact of a whole food, high-fiber diet on systemic and anti-tumor immunity in patients with metastatic melanoma on anti-PD1.
Grantee Name: Jennifer Leigh McQuade
Organization: University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Country: United States
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2019
Funding Scheme: Seerave Foundation
Project period: 3 years
Across the state of California, local governments have shifted from a more personalized approach to homelessness that respects the dignity of the individual to a one-size-fits-all program that is euphemistically called Housing First. The Housing First program dehumanizes its beneficiaries by treating them as objectives of the system rather than subjects - protagonists in their own story. Unfortunately, this program has resulted in a redirection of funds from organizations that have demonstrated success helping people leave homelessness and rise out of poverty towards initiatives that simply build housing.
To compound this issue, excess zoning regulations throughout the state of California have resulted in sky-high housing costs. These two elements housing without expectations and excessive regulations - combined together, are perpetuating the troubling state of the homeless in California.
The Independent Institute, through the Campaign for Housing and Human Dignity initiative, aims to provide a realistic alternative to California's current Housing First approach through (with the hope that successes can then be exported to other states):
We are thrilled that this initiative has now been launched; you can watch the documentary trailer here, visit the BeyondHomeless.org website, and learn more about the Urban Vision Alliance.
The vast array of regulations on housing development imposed by California abrogates property rights, reducing individual freedom, while both feeding homelessness and preventing individuals from exiting it. Coupled with the destructive Housing First narrative, California has been placed in a dire circumstance. Independent Institute effectively highlights each of these policies and their failed outcomes, and widely promotes freedom-enhancing solutions through effective promotional campaigns and working collaboratively with the Urban Vision Alliance to support a transformational approach to ending homelessness. Through this program, individuals experiencing homelessness will be provided with alternative optionsoptions that enable them to take control of their own life rather than becoming the objects of a bureaucratic system that overlooks their individuality.
Through this initiative, Independent Institute will highlight and disseminate successful, human-centered solutions to homelessness that can be employed both in San Francisco and more broadly.
Organization: Independent Institute
Country: United States
Funding Year: 2021
Project Duration: 2 years
Private Sector Solutions
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
The term capitalism is oftentimes misunderstood both in the United States and more broadly around the world. These misperceptions around capitalism are often a result of the pervasive trend toward corporate welfare in the western world. While the topic of wealth distribution is typically accompanied by debates for levels of welfare benefits, taxation vs. voluntary assistance, or optimal levels of taxation that encourage work but provide a safety net to the poor, Free to Choose Network (FTCN) believes that all reasonable people (while maybe disagreeing on the previous issues) can broadly agree on the ill effects of upward wealth redistribution where the low and middle class provide subsidies to business owners and politicians.
FTCN aims to generate a culture shift as a solution to the pervasiveness of corporate welfare in the western world today. They will aim to generate this cultural shift through (a) creating a film for distribution on public television; (b) establishing a community engagement program that helps provide local citizens with knowledge and tools to combat the problems of cronyism; and (c) producing and distributing video-based classroom education materials highlighting the partnership between government and business that causes cronyism to flourish.
Though this project, FTCN will highlight the work of ordinary people who are making systemic changes in their communities and then subsequently promote these efforts to others. They will be able to raise awareness around the issue of corporate welfare and then inspire those at the local level to combat it. This will result in a stronger reaction against the corporate welfare impulse in the United States, providing greater security and agency to the most marginalized in society who are disproportionately affected by this issue. Additionally, through their K-12 educational outreach, FTCN will change the future culture around corporate welfare by educating youth on the topic.
Organization: Free To Choose Network
Country: United States
Funding Year: 2021
Project Duration: 2 years
System Change
Teaching Freedom
WISDOM is the first prospective, randomized large-scale evaluation of an alternative approach to the one-size-fits-all mammographic screening introduced in the 1980s.
The present study compares annual screening with a risk-based approach that uses a comprehensive evaluation of each womans individual risk for breast cancer to develop a risk-based, personalized breast cancer screening recommendation. The goal of risk-based screening is to improve the chance of preventing breast cancer in those at risk and to reduce rates of false-positive recalls, over diagnosis and over treatment, which are significant causes of morbidity in the current annual screening approach.
The results of this study could transcend the current screening controversy and support a transition of personalized medicine screening and prevention approach. For patients, personalized care should lead to better health outcomes due to fewer indolent tumors being detected, fewer unnecessary biopsies, and less anxiety for women. We also believe this program will improve access to, and use of, preventive therapy for women at high risk, thereby modifying the incidence and progression of disease.
Grantee Name: Maria Bell
Organization: Sanford Research
Country: United States
Focus Area: Early Detection
Funding Year: 2021
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 3 years
This project aims to increase personal freedom and activate personal action through an integration of two easily accessible technologies Myne and Poverty Stoplight. Myne is an agency-oriented software using proven gamification techniques to empower participation in personal transformation. Poverty Stoplight is a global movement with an effective bottom-up methodology and technology platform that activates the potential of families to identify and own their poverty-related challenges.
This project aims to address the lack of personal autonomy within the current systems targeted at poverty reduction by joining two technologies, whose values are deeply connected, to achieve individual and system level transformation. The Myne Community App will integrate with the Poverty Stoplight tool, showing the Client Life Map, priorities, and relevant resources. Our goal is to directly connect participants to their individualized resources and show the impact of daily decisions on large goals in a smaller feedback loop. It will include gamification features that are widely used across the for-profit sector but less well utilized in social services. Three pilot projects will focus on key stakeholders: funders, organizations and with a primary focus on participants use and outcomes. Pilots will be in the UK Poverty Stoplight hub, Signal and US, including Texas hub, Dallas Lights.
Myne has three principles that govern its development and are part of its measurement strategy:
The Myne Community App provides a means to record, track, and measure the smaller actions of our daily lives, the activities we undertake regularly, and the moments that we acknowledge for ourselves. This can then be visualized to show the tangible progress that is happening. While small and often unnoticed, these moments add up to significant change. Similar to a dieter's decision to stick to an eating plan, when the scale begins to show small increments of progress (a visual representation of the progress), these small moments encourage someone to continue on a new path that is right for them.
We believe Myne and Poverty Stoplight can, together, have a significant local and global impact on the everyday lives of individuals, creating personal freedom through increased agency and ultimately drive systems change at multiple levels.
Myne is a step towards the dignity, confidence, and empowerment that characterizes this enhanced freedom. It shows individuals how their work of showing up, persisting, progressing, and achieving goals within safe relationships can add up to healthier outcomes. For all stakeholders, it encourages participation in an ecosystem that helps families and communities to thrive. Myne shows how small-scale events and activities (that are often overlooked) are significant steps to an individuals achievement (research shows us these are the building blocks of building confidence). Combining this with Poverty Stoplights ability to visualize self-driven goals through its Stoplight Life Map will produce a powerful data-driven, relationship-based, and bottom-up approach to personal liberty and self-directed poverty alleviation.
Without personal autonomy, individuals will show some progress in traditional, particularly data-extractive only programs. However, they are more likely to revert to their previous circumstances as soon as the strict parameters of the program are removed. With personal autonomy, an individual is more likely to experience sustained progress and change as they typically choose goals that will fit within their current parameters.
Daron Babcock, CEO Bonton Farms, and member of Dallas Lights, connects Myne with that principle: We believe deeply in the idea that we should not do for others what they are capable of doing for themselves. However, [sometimes we can] rob them of the dignity, confidence and empowerment that comes with an honorable exchange. TheMyne app would allow us a way to quantify and track the work that is done by people, so we can empirically show them that they are responsible for their success; that it is earned and not gifted.
On a larger level, as more communities begin to use the tool, data points about community, country and regional needs will develop. As multiple nonprofits within a city begin to use the tool, data points will begin to show if self-identified needs have commonality by region. Example: The south side of the city self-reports the need for jobs, whereas the north side of the city reports the need for childcare. Utilizing these data points, funders may target their support to programs that provide assistance with these targeted needs, thereby creating systems level shifts in program implementation.
Organization: Behind Every Door
Country: United States
Funding Year: 2021
Project Duration: 2 years
Private Sector Solutions
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Research shows that Americans have become more risk-adverse, less adventurous, more static, and less entrepreneurial. The share of Americans under 30 who own a business has fallen 65 percent since the 1980s. This decline in entrepreneurship in America is a troubling sign. The Acton Childrens Business Fair is reigniting the entrepreneurial spirit in the United States by inspiring children to develop a taste for entrepreneurship at a very young age. Moreover, it showcases the power of entrepreneurship for tens of thousands of visitors worldwide. Since the Acton Childrens Business Fair was started in 2007, it has grown to 455 fairs around the world, serving 23,022 young entrepreneurs in 206 cities and 12 countries.
The Acton Childrens Business Fair of Washington, D.C. is a one-day showcase of the power of entrepreneurship for children. Children ages 6-14 create a business, sell to real customers, and keep the profits. Organizers provide outdoor tents and tables. Along the way children learn about entrepreneurship, but more importantly, about themselves and their character. Over the past four years, the Acton Childrens Business Fair of Washington, D.C. has grown to become the largest one-day childrens entrepreneurship event in the world, hosting around 125 young entrepreneurs who serve over 3,000 customers each year.
To further deepen childrens entrepreneurial understanding, Acton Academy is developing a new prototype curriculum an Entrepreneurship Mini-Quest. It will guide children in a four-week series of fun challenges that help them create a business for the Acton Childrens Business Fair, sell to real customers, connect their activity to larger principles of entrepreneurship, and reflect on lessons learned.
With entrepreneurship on the decline in the United States, this project inspires and empowers children to view themselves as active protagonists instead of passive participants. By convincing children that problems are best solved by private individuals engaging in peaceful, voluntary transactions, the Acton Childrens Business Fair cultivates a mindset shift that will make bureaucratic top-down solutions to social problems unattractive for these students in the future. As children participate in an open market, selling their goods to customers, they are forced to make difficult decisions, engage in peaceful and voluntary transactions, and fail or succeed on their own. Through this, children learn that they have the power to write their own story and that they are free persons with creative capacity.
Organization: Acton Academy Foundation
Country: United States
Funding Year: 2020
Project Duration: 3 years
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
There are many books that teach on free markets, individual freedom, and prosperity for adults, but there has been (and continues to be) a profound void in the childrens literature market. Libertas Institute has the unique opportunity to offer families a better alternative through an expanded suite of Tuttle Twins resources, including more of the Tuttle Twins book series and a monthly magazine which promotes the ideas of freedom and liberty to children and young adults. Simultaneously, they will produce a new American history textbook along with a supplemental curriculum. Students will be able to identify the ideas of freedom that shaped American history and, through activities in their curriculum, learn about their enduring relevance to their lives today.
The Tuttle Twins series has sold over 3.5 million copies globally, with 23 childrens books being translated into a dozen languages. They will now have books for toddlers and teenagers, selling over 4,000 books a day with a strong interest due to the surge in homeschooling and concern over the rise in authoritarian government actions. On Amazon, they have achieved 1,000s of 5 start reviews on the existing Tuttle Twins suite of books. The ultimate objective of this project is to educate children on the principles of a free society and cultivate a successful pipeline of resources for toddlers to college students that will in turn make them lifelong defenders of freedom.
Libertas Institute is growing an increasingly large audience of families dedicated to freedom. This will have a significant and lasting impact by introducing many more people to the ideas of freedom. At its core, this is a teaching freedom project - introducing and solidifying a deep understanding of individual liberty and ensuring children learn the importance of personal responsibility, understand why freedom is so important, and recognize why free markets and limited government are essential to prosperity.
Organization: Libertas Institute
Country: USA
Funding Year: 2022
Project Duration: 1 year
Private Sector Solutions
Systems Change
Teaching Freedom
While the World Bank reports that over a billion people have come out of extreme poverty in just 25 years, many women remain trapped without equal access to economic opportunities and legal rights. For those living in extreme poverty, there are often obstacles beyond their control that make progress nearly impossible from government regulations with unintended consequences to cultural attitudes that prevent women from accessing or controlling their own income.
"She Rises Up is a feature documentary film that will tell the stories of inspiring women who are pulling themselves and their families out of extreme poverty. The film will explore the explosive implications of womens economic participation and share powerful methods that work toward the eradication of extreme poverty, reclaiming the moral high ground for economic freedom. Compelling stories in Peru, Senegal, Sri Lanka, and Burundi will highlight the power and importance of economic freedom for women.
Freedom of the individual is dependent upon the culture highly embracing that value. While no one film can transform a cultural mindset, by generating interest and discussion around the benefits of free markets and entrepreneurship, Sky Films Inc hopes to ultimately contribute to systems change. Economic freedom is a necessary, though not sufficient, tool to erase poverty and generate human flourishing. "She Rises Up" can generate a narrative change in the way we view economic freedom and entrepreneurship globally.
Organization: Sky Films, Inc.
Country: USA & International
Funding Year: 2022
Project Duration: 2 years
Systems Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
While scholars and policymakers have decried the ineffectiveness of development assistance for many years, it remains a persistent part of the policy landscape. A growing consensus has emerged among development scholars and professionals that large-scale investment projects such as roads, bridges, and dams do not successfully generate economic growth and development. This has led to a turn to community-based interventions. Targeted community-level interventions seem to do a far better job incorporating local preferences and contexts than top-down alternatives. These initiatives focus on decision-making powers and financial control within communities, solutions that self-governing communities discover for themselves.
By bringing together scholars and practitioners to explore project strategies, approaches, and innovations in the sphere of community-driven development assistance. This project embarks on a comparative study on a range of innovative projects to better understand how these projects are implemented and explore what factors lead to more effective outcomes particularly from the perspective of intended beneficiaries. New frameworks and literature will be developed that integrate perspectives of self-governance on development to construct new principles for development assistance. This initiative will create a hub of knowledge of bottom-up development assistance and initiatives at the Center for Governance and Markets (CGM) at the University of Pittsburgh.
By bringing individuals to the center of analysis of development assistance, this project will bring about a system change in the way both scholars of applied development assistance and practitioners alike think about these issues. The project seeks to change the way that policymakers view the development assistance landscape, in ways that put individuals and communities in the drivers seat of their own flourishing.
Organization: University of Pittsburgh - Center for Governance and Markets (CGM)
Country: USA & International
Funding Year: 2022
Project Duration: 2 years
Systems Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
Emergent Order Foundation's newest channel "Dad Saves America" promotes the idea of educational freedom through its "reimagining education" content. The reimagining education pillar of the Dad Saves America brand will encourage millions of families to reimagine what education is and how best to provide it for their kids in a way that unlocks their unique genius. They are producing videos which critique the current dominant education system, shift perspectives on what it means to get an education, and offer real alternatives.
Emergent Order Foundation will produce 20+ videos based on interviews with world class educators with a goal of reaching 1.5 million viewers across all platforms. From these videos, they will drive visits to their webpage to learn more about alternative schooling options. To inspire practical action on the part of their viewers, they will collaborate with educational partners to co-create a website connecting partners with these alternative education models.
With Dad Saves America, Emergent Order Foundation produces content for parents and their kids that models classical virtues and actively encourages the audience to take actions so that they can live those virtues out and experience them for themselves. Their videos educate dads and all parents about the merits of self-directed education systems. Their content and future partnerships will put families in direct contact with private sector alternatives to public school. And through moving kids out of a broken system and driving demand for school choice, they hope to catalyze systemic change. In this way, their program both teaches freedom and empowers individuals. And its through that individual experience, inspired by storytelling, that they promote an overall culture of freedom.
Organization: Emergent Order Foundation
Country: United States
Funding Year: 2022
Project Duration: 2 years
Systems Change
Private Sector Solutions
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
Many senior positions in Ecuador require a graduate degree, but few indigenous and ethnic minorities have access. Students from low-income families who are not admitted to the limited slots in public university rarely access higher education at all, with only 2.7% of the indigenous population obtaining a graduate degree. Most Ecuadoran post-graduate programs are located in Quito and Guayaquil, while Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) programs from other countries are taught in English. This presents a barrier for low-income students or minorities who primarily live in more remote communities.
Liberal Arts for All will expand opportunities for indigenous and low-income youth to access high-quality, nonpoliticized education in liberal arts. The Center for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Universidad de las Amricas (UDLA) in Quito, Ecuador, with the support of Fundacin Ecuador Libre (FEL) and the PPE program at the University of Pennsylvania, launched the first PPE Diploma in Latin America. The diploma has developed into a one-year masters degree (M.A.) based on core ethical, economic, and political ideas in the classical liberal tradition combined with practical application through a component called Ignite in Action. A scholarship program gives low-income minority students access to a postgraduate program at UDLA, a top-rated private university in Ecuador. What's more, the program - taught primarily online with an intensive series of in-person seminars - will be subtitled into Spanish and Quechua to facilitate easier access for targeted populations.
The project will empower individuals by teaching them the core ethical, economic, and political ideas in the classical liberal tradition. It will also help them live meaningful lives as free and autonomous agents by providing them with the material opportunity, skills, social connections, and mindset to thrive. Earning this masters degree will increase their ability to achieve goals that are out of reach for many people in their communities
The content of the program teaches students the mindset to thrive in a free society. It covers the moral basis of a market society, the importance of the rule of law, and the ways in which private property and exchange promote social welfare. But it will also teach them how to interpret ideas they disagree with charitably, and how to debate and argue with people they disagree with in a civil manner. This project will help to form the next generation of indigenous and ethnic minority leaders, giving them a voice and platform to act as individuals with their own voice."
Organization: Fundacion Ecuador Libre
Country: Ecuador
Funding Year: 2022
Project Duration: 2 years
Private Sector Solutions
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
There is often a disconnect between classical liberal theory and its application in the real world. At the same time, there is a prevailing tendency for individuals to look towards government as the normative solution to complex social challenges. The Liberty in Action project from Universidad Francisco Marroquin (UFM) will provide a collaborative hands-on, multidisciplinary student experience that will develop bottom-up solutions to social challenges using classical liberal principles. Through the CoLab, students will drive innovative solutions to existing social problems in Guatemala that are private, voluntary, and free-market.
Each individual is unique, inherently social, and has the capacity for creative activity. The Liberty in Action project, through the CoLab, will place an emphasis on these defining aspects of the human person to develop bottom-up solutions to complex social challenges where top-down bureaucratic programs and schemes have typically served as the default.
The program will impact the landscape of freedom in two tangible ways: (1) students at UFM will increase their appreciation and understanding of market principles through active and experiential learning, and (2) projects developed through the CoLab will accelerate human progress through market-based solutions that reduce the scope and desire of government intervention.
In the long-term, UFM aims to cultivate a mindset shift by demonstrating the viability and practicality of market-based solutions to complex social problems. They aim to reach thousands through market-based interventions that materially improve human lives.
Organization: Universidad Francisco Marroquin
Country: Guatemala
Funding Year: 2020
Project Duration: 3 years
Private Sector Solutions
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
High-quality tertiary education provided by private institutions is nearly inaccessible to the vast majority of the population in Latin America. This erects a barrier to disadvantaged youth in Latin
America that proves hard to overcome. Fundacion Educacion, through providing scholarships to young and promising students from low-income families, seeks to unlock the potential of select disadvantaged Latin American youth, cultivating new perspectives that serve as a catalyst for job creation, increase in innovation, and greater economic growth. Students that receive support from Fundacion Educacion sign a so-called Compromiso de Honor through which they commit to voluntarily repay their bursary so that new students can be supported. Rising Tide will finance the tertiary education of 15-20 students over the next three years.
Access to quality education is foundational for advancing freedom and prosperity. Through this scholarship program, Fundacion Educacion is equipping high-capacity underprivileged youth with the resources they need to realize their potential in the marketplace. As they only partner with local universities and technical schools that are firmly steeped in principles of entrepreneurship, the free market economy, and democracy, scholarship recipients will be inculcated with classical liberal values throughout their tertiary education.
As students complete their education, Fundacion Educacion expects 95% of their scholarship recipients to find well-paid employment with a 98% graduation rate. These students will contribute to the prosperity of their own families as well as their countries' economic and social progress.
Organization: Fundacion Educacion
Country: Latin America
Funding Year: 2020
Project Duration: 4 years
Private Sector Solutions
Empowerment of Individuals
Despite recent progress, Africa remains the worlds poorest and most protectionist continent. Protectionism in Africa means more poverty, less choice, and lower quality of life for one billion people across the continent. However, there is now a real prospect for change if the right support is provided, in part thanks to the recent implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) implemented on January 1st, 2021.
This historic agreement aims to remove 90% of tariffs on goods traded between member-states within five to ten years. Within thirteen years, it aims to remove 97% of tariffs. The World Bank estimates that, if successful, this Free Trade Area can lift 30 million people out of extreme poverty, 68 million from moderate poverty, boost regional income upwards of USD 450 billion, and increase average wages for both skilled and unskilled workers by about 10% by 2035. But if more states do not ratify the AfCFTA, the trade agreement could be a failure.
This three-year project from Initiative for African Trade and Prosperity (IATP) will promote freedom and prosperity by uniting more than a dozen innovative African think tanks with three esteemed UK-based organizationsthe Vinson Centre for the Public Understanding of Economics at the University of Buckingham, the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA), and the Network for a Free Society (NFS)in the development of a program to promote policy change in the area of trade liberalization. The Vinson Centre will influence public and governmental opinion in favor of the AfCFTA through marketing campaigns, targeted projects, mini-grants to partners in their network, supporting publications in leading media, and distributing educational materials broadly.
This project has massive potential, as reducing 90+ percent of trade barriers across the continent would mean substantial gains for 1 billion people. Individuals will achieve greater economic freedom, empowerment, and prosperity when they are able to more easily access global networks and benefit from reduced barriers to global exchange. This project has the capacity to change protectionist perceptions so that borders can be opened, and the benefits of greater liberalization can be enjoyed by those living across the region.
In order to change policy, minds and outlooks must be changed first. Hence, the inclusion of a component of this project that teaches individuals the power of free trade and the principles and foundations of free societies. This teaching will be done by distributing mini-libraries of classical liberal texts on CDs, books related to free trade, events (some online with many in-person), and articles across national media outlets. These avenues will in total reach millions of people. The IATP itself will also produce six professionally made videos that can be shared online. Once these videos are shared by partners in their network, it is likely they will at least attract tens of thousands of views. These videos will be intended for both policy leaders and broader audiences across the content that arent necessarily located in target countries.
Read more on the Initiative for African Trade & Prosperity at https://theiatp.org/
Organization: Institute of Economic Affairs
Country: United Kingdom and the African continent
Funding Year: 2021
Project Duration: 2 years
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
Today, 48% of Cameroonians are living below the poverty line and 98% of Cameroons businesses are small and medium enterprises (SMEs), 90% of those SMEs are micro enterprises (<5 employees). At the same time, widespread disparities in freedom of economic access exist, especially for women, hindering the contribution of SMEs to contribute to GDP growth. This project addresses the root causes of SME underperformance and job access in Cameroon through programs in the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Center of the Denis and Lenora Foretia Foundation in Cameroon. They build individual capacity of future entrepreneurs while working for overall system change to improve the climate for SMEs and enhance opportunities for women and young people. Moreover, they focus at least 25% of opportunities, including business education, resources, productive employment, fair working conditions and financial services, in conflict zones with Internally Displaced People (IDPs).
The Denis and Lenora Foretia Foundation in Cameroon was founded to catalyze the economic transformation of the country by focusing on social entrepreneurship, science and technology, innovation, public health, and the implementation of progressive policies that together create economic opportunities for all. The Small Business and Entrepreneurship Center aims to create a more robust and diverse middle class in Cameroon through fostering free enterprise.
In order to accomplish this, the Foretia Foundation is creating an advocacy campaign with their coalition of stakeholders to promote economic freedom while deepening the roots of SBEC to receive recognition as a go-to resource for entrepreneurial training and development. Along with measurable policy improvement, training programs and SME support across four regions will result in $3 million in new economic generation, 600+ SMEs improved and 4,500+ workers with entrepreneurial soft skills.
This project aims at holistically changing the business environment for SMEs in Cameroon and hence making entrepreneurship a viable option of development for its citizens, removing regulatory barriers and empowering individuals to become active contributors to the prosperity of their communities and country. With a specific focus on conflict zones, enhancing economic freedom in these areas, it will help alleviate the tensions that are contributing to ongoing conflict and help establish a lasting and sustainable peace.
Read more on the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Center here
Organization: Denis & Lenora Foretia Foundatio
Country: Cameroon
Funding Year: 2021
Project Duration: 3 years
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
The primary means by which low-income populations get ahead economically, or even only survive, is through entrepreneurship and micro-business. This is especially apparent in developing countries: they sell soap, food, concrete blocks, gasoline by the jar, cut hair, and sell what they grow. History has proven that these entrepreneurs have the capacity to grow into more formal businesses in environments where people help one another, pool their funds, and grow their ideas.
This is where the Community Independence Initiative (CII) comes in to create a mutuality rich environment. Their approach is based on peer-driven change, acknowledging that those at the bottom of our economies are the only experts of their lives and are capable of agency. CII identifies local approaches and supports the most effective efforts by highlighting them or investing in them so that peers can follow those same paths. Low-income populations rely on families, not professional staff, to be the advisors, trainers, and role models for peers. They accomplish this work through partnerships with other organizations as well as the innovative, open source ImpactX Mutuality Platform that creates an eco-system with a core principle of working together and helping one another.
Ultimately the vision of CII is to fundamentally change current anti-poverty work of NGOs as well as UN organizations away from top-down, paternalistic approaches towards recognizing and supporting self-help efforts by low-income populations themselves. This model began in the United States under the Family Independence Initiative and is now being expanded internationally through CII by creating a naturally expanding eco-system that encourages and invests in entrepreneurial efforts that combine expectations of self-help and mutuality.
Local entrepreneurship is one of the few avenues those living in and around poverty have as a tool to get ahead or survive. Philanthropy and government cannot fill that role for the billions struggling directly, but by investing in these self-help efforts, can grow the pie for everyone. There is untapped latent potential that can be unleashed if we treat those struggling with poverty like we treat those in more privileged situations. Rather than being treated as drains on society we need to respect this population as the future builders and makers of their own economies. We are missing the talents, ideas, and energy of 75% of the worlds population.
This project aims at both creating the evidence, backed by data, that can then communicate to a global audience, the potential of entrepreneurship and of humanity when we encourage the poor to work together as peers. CII aims to see this bottom-up practice becoming the gold standard for dealing with poverty and economic mobility.
Organization: Root Change
Country: Global
Funding Year: 2021
Project Duration: 3 years
Private Sector Solutions
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
The Wildlife Tourism College (WTC) in Kenya's Greater Maasai Mara region, one of the last major wildlife refuges on earth, aims to develop an innovative, sustainable, long-term method of wildlife conservation which simultaneously maintains economic freedom and mobility for the Maasai people. The WTC is part of a broader initiative in the Mara region to preserve, sustain, and scale the triple-use Pardamat Conservation Area (PCA), where wildlife, livestock and people live together in harmony. The campus merges a teaching college - targeting the 80% of unemployed among Maasais from 18 to 35 years of age paired together with an educational tourism camp for international students and volunteers where profits realized go directly to supporting the college and the community. The hoped-for success of the triple-use conservation area counts on sustainable socio-economic growth through education, employment, and for-profit tourism, all of which the area lacks significantly.
This project is an example of a non-governmental/private sector solution to a tragedy of the commons situation that had resulted in a loss of biodiversity and wildlife in PCA, which is in turn linked to income loss and limited potential of economic development for the local Maasai community. Based on market mechanisms, a system is developed together with the local communities, that results in socio-economic development through participation in the tourism industry and conservation of the biodiversity and wildlife in PCA.
Organization: Basecamp Explorer Foundation
Country: Kenya
Funding Year: 2020
Project Duration: 3 years
Private Sector Solutions
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Unemployment in Kenya among youth aged 15-24 is over 60%, and the struggle to generate sufficient income is even harder for vulnerable youth such as teen moms, those struggling with alcohol and drugs, school dropouts, or those with criminal records. COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact on youth living in informal settlements, worsening their pre-existing vulnerable situation.
One of the key challenges for these forgotten youth is that, as they look around them, they see the same, hopeless story played out in almost every person around them. These youth chronically fail at benefitting from typical entrepreneurship and business-skills programs because they are either over-looked or dont believe they fit or are able to succeed. Instead, they wait for help from others like parents, government, or big business.
To break this cycle of inter-generational poverty, Emerging Leaders project in Kenya will work with vulnerable, unemployed youth in urban informal settlements of the Nairobi and Naivasha regions. The program focuses first on changing mindsets to unlock youths potential. Then the program builds on this with financial literacy and entrepreneurship skills, typically seeing upwards of 70-80% of participants start a small income-generating business - one they identify, plan, and deliver and which more than doubles their monthly income.
This four-year project will focus on scaling-up delivery of the Leadership for Life program to 18,000 poor urban youth through a train-the-trainer model. The program is delivered by youth themselves - who have been transformed through their own leadership and entrepreneurship journey.
Our goal is to see:
70% start income-generating projects
40% linked with other programs or companies that can help them to grow their businesses
5% to be employing at least one other person.
Every single day the story of our lives is being written; the question is who has the pen? Emerging Leaders approach to enhancing freedom is to help youth re-imagine and then re-write their story by empowering them with the mindsets, motivations, and skills to flourish. This
enables them to navigate the challenges of life and make choices that will enable them and those around them to thrive. The program helps create flourishing communities by unlocking human potential and unleashing entrepreneurial creativity. When youth realize they are free to lead themselves and have agency over their choices and future, their entrepreneurship, energy, and growth is unstoppable and a catalyst for transformative change.
True freedom means no one - not us, nor any other entity - can tell youth what they should want or should dream. So flourishing is not defined by us, instead youth define it for themselves. And then they are coached to lift up their heads to see the needs around them, and how their own actions can help solve those needs. And thus, the link from mindsets to entrepreneurship to flourishing is born
Grant Details
Organization: Emerging Leaders
Country: Kenya
Funding Year: 2021
Project Duration: 4 years
Funding Areas
Private Sector Solutions
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
Despite the success of low-cost private education in the developing world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, governments often attempt to hinder their growth and flourishing. One of the most frequent criticisms is that the teachers within these schools do not have the same level of training and certification as those in government schools. Critics also argue that even if most research shows that the pupils in these schools outperform those in public schools, the quality of education remains low across both sectors.
The University of Buckingham, in partnership with the Association for Formidable Educational Development (AFED) in Nigeria, and the Centre for Teacher Accreditation (CENTA) in India is seeking to address this significant challenge by bringing an internationally recognized, educationally effective, technologically innovative, and affordable training program for educators in the low-cost private sector. The program will empower teachers and school managers and increase the quality of teaching and learning in these schools.
The project will demonstrate to governments the commitment of the low-cost private sector to improving the quality of teaching and learning in their schools, and thus allow private school associations to argue the case for a more liberal regulatory framework. A leaner regulatory framework will empower educational entrepreneurs and school managers with the freedom to innovate and experiment.
These schools also operate under regimes where the Rule of Law is not necessarily observed, which increases the likelihood of bribery and corruption, as regulations tend to be arbitrarily applied. One way of reducing corruption is to reduce the purview of the state; this project will facilitate that process by showing that self-regulation within the private sector can lead to higher standards of education through international teacher accreditation.
The teacher training program will improve teachers potential for living independent and self-determined lives by increasing their sense of self-efficacy and self-confidence, as well as their teaching skills and marketability. Better teaching and learning outcomes in these schools will also increase the dignity and self-respect of the children involved, and better their opportunity for obtaining gainful employment, further education study or entrepreneurship. Each of these will impact on their families freedom too.
Organization: University of Buckingham
Country: Nigeria & India
Funding Year: 2019
Project Duration: 4 years
Private Sector Solutions
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
Low skilled, poorly-paid employment and significant underemployment are the reality for the majority of Ugandan youth who make up 78 percent of the countrys population. The main barriers for young people - including a lack of skills, progression pathways, networks, and access to capital - trap them in a futile cycle of poverty. The Teach A Man To Fish (TAMTF) project offers a path out of poverty for youth that choose to participate and are motivated to improve their own and their families economic situation.
This project is an expansion of the proven School Enterprise Challenge (SEC) program of TAMTF, in which trained teachers support students at local schools through a 14-step program to establish and run a business. The programs purpose is to unleash the creativity and power of young people to fulfill their potential in school, work, and life and contribute to their communities prosperity.
TAMTF is expecting to engage over the three years with 4,400 disadvantaged students (50% female) in 60 schools. With guidance from TAMTF, school business teams create a profit-share agreement in which 25 percent of profit is reinvested to keep the business operational for the following year and the remainder is allocated as students see fit, with some funds going towards the students and teachers that support the business. Currently existing businesses at schools in Uganda vary, with some of them engaging in vegetable farming, food processing, manufacturing (soap, charcoal), canteen and catering services, and livestock farming. One youth group started their own tent and chair rental business after recognizing the opportunity that daily village gatherings (meetings, funerals, etc.) posed. The school business provided a previously unavailable service in the community, meaning that event organizers were no longer required to travel the 82 km to the nearest town.
The SEC education model uses the challenge of launching and running a real business at school, offering the participating students the experience to discover their talents, earn money and foster competencies and character qualities such as entrepreneurial mindset, social conscience, and agency. An additional "high-flyer" component of the program is a new training to particularly committed and promising young entrepreneurs to set up their own businesses outside of school.
This project encourages graduates from an entrepreneurship program to create their own network of productivity and exchange rather than rely on government aid or NGO handouts. As part of the proposed project, participating students will also be trained to start self-managed Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs) to gain access to capital for their own individual businesses. The VSLAs provide a safe savings and loan facility to youth who lack easy access to formal financial services. This project aims to make schools an empowerment pathway for marginalized Ugandan youth, equipping youth with vital skills, agency, and confidence to fulfill their potential in life. The comprehensive program embeds skills and resources within the schools for the long-term: teachers learn to facilitate practical, student-centered entrepreneurship and skills-building education and are furnished with a wealth of resources; while school-businesses generate additional income with a profit-sharing agreement that secures the school-business in their schools as an educational tool. The project presents an exceptional opportunity for young women and men in Uganda to transform their lives, empowering participants with the skills and agency to succeed and become confident, active agents of change within their communities.
Organization: Teach A Man To Fish
Country: Uganda
Funding Year: 2022
Project Duration: 3 years
Private Sector Solutions
Systems Change
Empowerment of Individuals
The job-skills mismatch in Cambodia impedes youth from low-income backgrounds from entering formal jobs. Career Connect Cambodia will offer a solution to this challenge that will allow these youth, and their families, a path out of poverty. The Career Connect program is the continuation of a pilot which substantially scales the number of underserved youth placed in jobs in Cambodia through compact skills training and match-making with employers.
Digital Divide Data aims to recruit and train 600 youth from underserved Cambodian communities from 2022 to 2025 with at least 80% being placed in jobs by about 10 partner-employers. Through the program, these youth will learn new skills that make them competitive in the job market, empowering them to achieve personal and economic freedom.
Career Connect helps underserved youth who do not have connections succeed through their own abilities and merits. Youth get the opportunity to increase their earnings, which they can reinvest in themselves or their families to sustain their economic growth opportunities. DDD aims to sustain and expand their impact in Cambodia and help catalyze equitable economic growth to reduce global inequality. DDD sees a future where youth, with proper education and career guidance, enhance their capacity for self-determination, improving their and their communities quality of life. As they support themselves and their families to overcome poverty and assume control of their lives, these youth attain both economic and personal freedom.
Organization: Digital Divide Data
Country: Cambodia
Funding Year: 2022
Project Duration: 3 years
Private Sector Solutions
Empowerment of Individuals
West Bengal has digitized most land records and developed an on-line platform for citizens to access records and transfer rights from sale or inheritance. Unfortunately, many of the digitized records are inaccurate. Women are particularly affected, as their names are rarely listed as co-owners or heirs on older records, which means many are not able to legally claim land and leverage it to improve their economic and social conditions. Landesa is an international non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of the worlds poorest women and men by securing land and property rights and improving the institutional environment in countries around the world. They have identified an alternative path to securing property rights in West Bengal building the capacity of rural women who are members of self-help groups providing information and property records updating services, for which they will charge a small service fee. At the same time, community members will gain access to the information they need quickly and at a lower cost by working with a member of their community.
This project will help to secure the land and property rights of up to 300,000 men and women living in the Indian state of West Bengal by scaling a new, entrepreneurial approach to strengthening land records. A strong and secure system of private property rights is widely recognized as part of the essential foundation of a free and prosperous society. It enables autonomous decision making, allowing individuals and families the freedom to choose how to use the resources they control to improve their lives and, in the process, enabling more and different kinds of entrepreneurship. Importantly, providing more secure rights to property devolves power and enables women and men to have a room, a home, a field, a factory of their own; a place largely free from the interference of those in authority, as is essential to protecting and preserving privacy and freedom (as Hayek says in The Road to Serfdom).
Read more about this project and how it transforms lives of West Bengali communities here
Organization: Landesa
Country: India
Funding Year: 2020
Project Duration: 3 years
Private Sector Solutions
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
According to government reports, deep-rooted gender inequality is the most pervasive form of inequality that operates in India across all classes, castes, and communities, posing a big challenge to India's potential to translate economic growth into inclusive development. To diminish gender differences in households and society, policies need to address the combined influence of social norms and beliefs, womens access to economic opportunities, the legal framework, and womens education and skills. To limit the reproduction of gender inequality across generations, it is important to reach adolescents and young adults because this is the age when they make decisions that determine their acquisition of skills, future health, economic prospects, and aspirations.
The Leadership Foundation of India invests in and empowers the next generation of women leaders in India. It primarily carries out this mission through support of its partner institution, Avasara Academy, a first-of-itskind secondary school for exceptionally talented girls in Pune, India. With a mission to empower girls of promise to lead lives of distinction and impact, Avasara Academy was established in 2011. It welcomed its first cohort of 50 students in 2015. This grant will allow 214 girls to attend the Avasara girls school over a 3 year period.
When you give a girl, regardless of her economic status, the highest quality education possible, and equip her with skills to lead her community, she will not only change the minds of those around her, she will change the world.
Empowering young girls through scholarships to Avasara Academy will increase womens voices in society while fostering and training future women leaders. An education at Avasara Academy will facilitate the transition from school to work through job and life skills training programs and shift aspirations from exposure to role models who challenge prevailing social norms.
Organization: Leadership Foundation of India
Country: India
Funding Year: 2019
Project Duration: 4 years
Empowerment of Individuals
The ability to fluently read, write and speak English has emerged as a crucial determinant of opportunity, choice, employability, social inclusion and mobility in India. There are growing aspirations for English speaking even among Indias poorest - demonstrated by increasing parental preference for private schools perceived as sites for better learning and opportunity primarily because of English education. With the recent trends in the Indian economy towards service industries, there is also an increasing market demand for an English-speaking workforce. However, a large proportion of Indias people cannot read, write or speak the language - only 4 percent of the population speaks the language fluently. English language education continues be poor in low income schools with poorly trained teachers, misaligned assessments, and lack of investments. Education in India, along with the popular media and public discourse also continues to harbor a predominantly statist and socialist bias with the result that young students and teachers have had little exposure to libertarian ideas and values and an understanding of their potential to transform their lives and life chances.
The project aims to train 5,000 teachers to improve spoken English skills for students currently attending low-fee private schools in India incorporating classical liberal content into the curriculum. The project will create a mobile-based app called Bolo English with conversational English and libertarian content while also conducting in-person training for teachers and students.
Learn more about Bolo English here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZYxkCJ7A_U.
Through English proficiency, the project seeks to foster better opportunities for education and employment, as well as social inclusion and mobility amongst low-income communities. This project from the Centre for Civil Society addresses these two pervasive challenges in Indian society: (1) poor knowledge of English, particularly in disadvantaged communities, and (2) a prevalent bias towards Nehruvian socialism.
Organization: Center for Civil Society
Country: India
Funding Year: 2019
Project Duration: 3 years
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
It is often believed that those living in informal settlements or in households with low socio-economic status are reliant upon the state or charitable means for basic quality services. This representation of development typically hides the story of community solutions. This project focuses on three informal settlements in Delhi, India. It aims to show how communities overcome the absence of basic quality service provision by providing services themselves through community and private means as well as by developing approaches to enterprise and employment that circumvent the need for formal provision.
What is important for development is freedom of choice and freedom to control ones own life. This project will promote best practice from the communities that stimulate sustainable lives overcoming barriers to employment and entrepreneurial activity. Newcastle University in partnership with Kings College London, St. Marys University, the Centre for Urban and Regional Excellence (CURE), and Indus Information Initiatives will provide knowledge for change, knowledge to inform, and knowledge to empower individuals to control their own lives.
You can find more information about this project here.
This project will promote and enhance individual freedom in a number of ways, first it will discover how individuals, enterprises, and communities are able to provide basic services for themselves, promoting policy change that will put such private solutions at the heart of public policy. Second, by spreading best practice, it will ensure that communities can better adapt to the circumstances in which they find themselves and live lives that are characterized by gainful employment and enterprise, thus promoting empowerment, resilience, and reduced dependence. Third, by spreading best practice, it will promote approaches to providing essential basic services through the community and private enterprise. Ensuring accessibility, acceptability, and adaptability of these services for all community members including young people, women, and migrants.
Organization: University of Newcastle
Country: India
Funding Year: 2019
Project Duration: 3 years
Private Sector Solutions
System Change
Street vending is a low-cost enterprise and a primary source of livelihood for almost 2% of Indias urban population. Despite being ubiquitous, the economic and property rights of vendors are often at risk of abuse from government authorities. They live under the constant threat of eviction, seizure of their goods, and arbitrary fines. Approaching lawyers in every case of confiscation or eviction is costly. Harassment of vendors is rampant due to a lack of legal awareness, a systematic record of harassment data, and proper legal enforcement.
Vendors right to livelihood is at the forefront of governmental discourse, as acknowledged by Indias Prime Minister, and Centre for Civil Society (CCS) has managed to build its reputation as the go-to civil society organization for issues related to vendor livelihoods. CCS is currently developing a comprehensive mobile application (the Jeevika App) to ensure legal empowerment of vendors and to bridge information gaps through technology. The Jeevika App will become a one-stop access for vendors in Delhi by (a) creating a legal aid and SOS platform that will connect vendors to law students or lawyers in case of harassment; (b) enabling street vendors to geo-tag themselves for verifying their property rights claims; and (c) collating data on harassment and generating heat maps. This project aims to provide tools for street vendors to defend their rights and fight harassment. The empowerment of vendors will ultimately deter public officials from abusing their powers.
For over two decades now, CCS has championed the economic freedom and right to earn a dignified livelihood for the poorest of poor in the informal sector, such as the street vendors in India, a vulnerable group of nano-entrepreneurs. CCS has won the 2021 Asia Liberty Award and the 2021 Templeton Freedom Award for its work on street vendor livelihoods. The government of India, through its Parliamentary Standing Committee on Urban Development, acknowledged and accepted the recommendations proposed by CCS on protecting the rights of street vendors.
CCS has recorded instances of street vendors standing up to judicial officials, representing their cases in the court, and mitigating harassment while proactively working to make them legally aware of their rights and the law. Through a methodical identification of stakeholders and dissemination, the Jeevika App will positively impact the business landscape for street vendors in India. If the application is successful, then (a) the number and severity of harassment cases and extortion of street vendors will reduce; and (b) policymakers will speedily and comprehensively rectify legal barriers. As some vendors become empowered to fight against harassment, they will inspire others to do the same. The project will eventually help improve the prosperity, freedom, and dignity of street vendors in India. Once the issue of harassment is addressed, it will help the urban poor to work their way out of poverty.
Organization: Center for Civil Society
Country: India
Funding Year: 2021
Project Duration: 2 years
Private Sector Solutions
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) has a long latent period of years before its aggressive and deadly clinical presentation. This latent period is characterized by the clonal expansion of preleukemic hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (preL-HSPCs) carrying recurrent leukemia related somatic mutations. Spliceosome machinery mutations (SMMs) occur many years before AML, and accurately predict the progression to AML. As such, they are considered promising targets for preventive interventions.
Our aim was to reveal an Achilles heel of cells that harbor the SRSF2 mutation, as well as the mechanistic role of this weak point. For this, we established 5 cell lines (MARIMO, K562, OCI-AML2, OCI-AML3 and MOLM14) in which we inserted the SRSF2 mutation using CRISPR that have served as platform for our overarching research goal. Using these lines, we conducted a drug screen that resulted in the discovery of 39 potential molecules which demonstrated selectivity against the SRSF2 mutation. These hits included ROCK pathway inhibitors (ROCKi). The top performing ROCKi molecule was RKI-1447 with an IC50 value of roughly 100nM in the SRSF2 mut lines. Therefore, we chose RKI-1447 for the final validation step and screened its selectivity against five different biological replicates from each of the cell lines. We discovered that both OCI-AML2 and MOLM14 cell lines carrying SRSF2 mutations were significantly more sensitive to ROCKi compared to the WT isogenic line and specifically to RKI-1447. We then stained MOLM14 carrying SRSF2 mutation and WT for Actin and Tubulin. Results demonstrated a unique phenotype observed in the SRSF2 mutant cell lines, which was aggravated by the addition of ROCK inhibitors. Cells carrying the SRSF2 mutant had a significantly more indented and lobulated nuclei. While we have established that ROCKi are effective against SRSF2 mutant cells, it remains crucial to understand why they are active.
Grantee Name: Liran Shlush
Organization: Weizmann Institute of Science
Country: Israel
Focus Area: Early Detection
Funding Year: 2018
Funding Scheme: LLS
Project period: 5 years
Although extensive data on economic freedom is available, much of it lacks on-the-ground expertise and the moral commitment to reforming discriminatory and oppressive policies that disproportionately affect women. Atlas aspires to change that by providing real-world examples that document how economic liberty empowers and elevates women by creating opportunity, growth, and prosperity. Their vision is to break down the legal obstacles that prevent women from equal rights and opportunities. Using their successful grant program Liberating Enterprise to Achieve Prosperity (LEAP) as a model, they're challenging their partners to (1) identify projects that would improve their country's rank on the Gender Disparity Index and other indices, (2) create and implement reform strategies, and (3) publicize non-governmental solutions that help reduce poverty among women.
In too many countries, women find themselves enslaved by circumstance rather than free to make autonomous decisions. This project aims to reduce the opportunities and reasons for authorities to repress women as they try to better their lives. Solutions designed to improve the rights and living standards of women often focus on doling out more aid money, only to fail
because local policies and customs prevent women from taking advantage of their own talents. This project would illustrate the value of targeting specific repressive public policies that make it impossible for women to forge their own paths out of poverty.
Atlas Network believes that institutional change is unlikely to last if imposed by outsiders who are unfamiliar with local customs. Change must be developed from within, both to ensure buy-in and, more importantly, to discover the unique cultural mechanisms necessary for informal norms to transition smoothly to well-functioning formal systems. By working with local institutions to build support for change, the project is laying a lasting foundation for freedom to flourish.
Organization: Atlas Network
Country: United States of America
Funding Year: 2019
Project Duration: 3 years
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
The traditional approach to fighting poverty in the United States is through the alleviation of symptoms rather than employing strategies that seek to enhance human flourishing. This approach sees the poor as objectsobjects of pity, compassion, and charityinstead of seeing
the poor as subjects, the protagonists of their own lives. As Ismael Hernandez says, self-reliance is in eclipse todaythis directly affects outcomes in education, health, and security. The Freedom & Virtue Institute has created Self-Reliance Clubs (SRCs) with the goal to integrate efforts within existing school activities by adopting the initiatives and giving them new meaning, empowering students to meet their needs through work. This allows children to better understand work as a means of wealth creation and economic opportunity.
Many of todays social programs contribute to a prevailing mindset of victimhood and dependency. If this mindset is to be shifted in the future, it must start with childrenthey must be sent a contrary message. A message that tells them they have what it takes to meet their needs, that they are agents of choice.
Through SRCs, the Freedom and Virtue Institute will connect children to practical projects that connect reward to accomplishments. As the SRCs follow students year after year, they continue a journey of engagement and discover that they are engines of wealth creation.
The Freedom & Virtue Institute aims to launch over 200 SRCs and impact up to 5,000 students with their activities over the next three years. This will equip young individuals with character traits and virtues that facilitate enterprise and the love of freedom that motivates them to become free and productive citizens, entrepreneurs, and workers.
Organization: Freedom & Virtue Institute
Country: United States of America
Funding Year: 2020
Project Duration: 3 years
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
This project aims to increase personal freedom and activate personal action through an integration of two easily accessible technologies Myne and Poverty Stoplight. Myne is an agency-oriented software using proven gamification techniques to empower participation in personal transformation. Poverty Stoplight is a global movement with an effective bottom-up methodology and technology platform that activates the potential of families to identify and own their poverty-related challenges.
This project aims to address the lack of personal autonomy within the current systems targeted at poverty reduction by joining two technologies, whose values are deeply connected, to achieve individual and system level transformation. The Myne Community App will integrate with the Poverty Stoplight tool, showing the Client Life Map, priorities, and relevant resources. Our goal is to directly connect participants to their individualized resources and show the impact of daily decisions on large goals in a smaller feedback loop. It will include gamification features that are widely used across the for-profit sector but less well utilized in social services. Three pilot projects will focus on key stakeholders: funders, organizations and with a primary focus on participants use and outcomes. Pilots will be in the UK Poverty Stoplight hub, Signal and US, including Texas hub, Dallas Lights.
Myne has three principles that govern its development and are part of its measurement strategy:
The Myne Community App provides a means to record, track, and measure the smaller actions of our daily lives, the activities we undertake regularly, and the moments that we acknowledge for ourselves. This can then be visualized to show the tangible progress that is happening. While small and often unnoticed, these moments add up to significant change. Similar to a dieter's decision to stick to an eating plan, when the scale begins to show small increments of progress (a visual representation of the progress), these small moments encourage someone to continue on a new path that is right for them.
We believe Myne and Poverty Stoplight can, together, have a significant local and global impact on the everyday lives of individuals, creating personal freedom through increased agency and ultimately drive systems change at multiple levels.
Myne is a step towards the dignity, confidence, and empowerment that characterizes this enhanced freedom. It shows individuals how their work of showing up, persisting, progressing, and achieving goals within safe relationships can add up to healthier outcomes. For all stakeholders, it encourages participation in an ecosystem that helps families and communities to thrive. Myne shows how small-scale events and activities (that are often overlooked) are significant steps to an individuals achievement (research shows us these are the building blocks of building confidence). Combining this with Poverty Stoplights ability to visualize self-driven goals through its Stoplight Life Map will produce a powerful data-driven, relationship-based, and bottom-up approach to personal liberty and self-directed poverty alleviation.
Without personal autonomy, individuals will show some progress in traditional, particularly data-extractive only programs. However, they are more likely to revert to their previous circumstances as soon as the strict parameters of the program are removed. With personal autonomy, an individual is more likely to experience sustained progress and change as they typically choose goals that will fit within their current parameters.
Daron Babcock, CEO Bonton Farms, and member of Dallas Lights, connects Myne with that principle: We believe deeply in the idea that we should not do for others what they are capable of doing for themselves. However, [sometimes we can] rob them of the dignity, confidence and empowerment that comes with an honorable exchange. TheMyne app would allow us a way to quantify and track the work that is done by people, so we can empirically show them that they are responsible for their success; that it is earned and not gifted.
On a larger level, as more communities begin to use the tool, data points about community, country and regional needs will develop. As multiple nonprofits within a city begin to use the tool, data points will begin to show if self-identified needs have commonality by region. Example: The south side of the city self-reports the need for jobs, whereas the north side of the city reports the need for childcare. Utilizing these data points, funders may target their support to programs that provide assistance with these targeted needs, thereby creating systems level shifts in program implementation.
Organization: Behind Every Door
Country: United States
Funding Year: 2021
Project Duration: 2 years
Private Sector Solutions
System Change
Empowerment of Individuals
Emergent Order Foundation's newest channel "Dad Saves America" promotes the idea of educational freedom through its "reimagining education" content. The reimagining education pillar of the Dad Saves America brand will encourage millions of families to reimagine what education is and how best to provide it for their kids in a way that unlocks their unique genius. They are producing videos which critique the current dominant education system, shift perspectives on what it means to get an education, and offer real alternatives.
Emergent Order Foundation will produce 20+ videos based on interviews with world class educators with a goal of reaching 1.5 million viewers across all platforms. From these videos, they will drive visits to their webpage to learn more about alternative schooling options. To inspire practical action on the part of their viewers, they will collaborate with educational partners to co-create a website connecting partners with these alternative education models.
With Dad Saves America, Emergent Order Foundation produces content for parents and their kids that models classical virtues and actively encourages the audience to take actions so that they can live those virtues out and experience them for themselves. Their videos educate dads and all parents about the merits of self-directed education systems. Their content and future partnerships will put families in direct contact with private sector alternatives to public school. And through moving kids out of a broken system and driving demand for school choice, they hope to catalyze systemic change. In this way, their program both teaches freedom and empowers individuals. And its through that individual experience, inspired by storytelling, that they promote an overall culture of freedom.
Organization: Emergent Order Foundation
Country: United States
Funding Year: 2022
Project Duration: 2 years
Systems Change
Private Sector Solutions
Empowerment of Individuals
Teaching Freedom
In 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) called for action towards achieving the global elimination of cervical cancer. A strategy for achieving this goal was ratified by member states in August 2020. The WHO plan calls for an aggressive approach of vaccination against the human papillomavirus (HPV), the single cause of cervical cancer, and screening and treatment of precancerous lesions caused by HPV infections before they progress to invasive disease. In low- and middle-income countries (LMIC), which bear 90% of cervical cancer incidence globally, it is estimated that these goals will not be reached until 2120 a century from now. One way to markedly shorten this timeline is to provide widespread high-performance testing for cervical precancer followed by immediate treatment of any abnormalities.
Currently, the most commonly used method of treatment of pre-cancer is using gas-based cryotherapy. Although gas-based therapy is effective, it is difficult to have widespread scale-up because gas tanks are heavy and difficult to transport, tanks need to be refilled and equipment requires maintenance to function properly. The purpose of this study is to examine alternatives to gas-based cryotherapy including non-gas-based cryotherapy (funded by NIH) and thermal ablation (funded by rising tide). This is a randomized controlled trial which will compare cure rates of high-grade cervical precancer after treatment with cryotherapy and the 2 alternative approaches. Upon successful completion of this trial low-cost, portable, effective treatment for cervical pre-cancer will be clinically validated. Clinically validated tools for treatment of pre-cancer are crucial for worldwide elimination.
Grantee Name: Miriam Cremer
Organization: Cleveland Clinic Foundation
Country: United States
Focus Area: Early Intervention
Funding Year: 2017
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 4 years
Chondrosarcoma is a rare invasive cancer that affects bones and large joints. Extensive surgical resections with wide margins are necessary to cure this disease and surgeries can lead to significant morbidity. Radiation and chemotherapy have been largely ineffective for primary disease or for locally recurrent and metastatic disease. A pharmacologic agent that can potentially lead to function preserving surgical treatment, fewer local recurrences, and better control of systemic disease, would help improve the overall quality of life. Zoledronic acid is a widely used agent for treatment of metastatic cancer to the bone and to treat osteoporosis. Our pre-clinical studies have shown that zoledronic acid may help control the local destruction of bone by chondrosarcoma. Hence, we are conducting a clinical trial repurposing zoledronic acid by giving a dose prior to standard of care surgical resection and evaluating its impact on the resected tumor specimen. A second dose is given post operatively and time to local or metastatic recurrence as well as overall survival will be determined. The study is ongoing and 11 out of planned 15 patients have been enrolled. We hope to use this information to design a larger trial using zoledronic acid as an adjuvant therapy.
Grantee Name: Varun Monga
Organization: University of Iowa
Country: United States
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2016
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 3 years
Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) is often a side effect of cancer treatment and can diminish a patients quality of life (QOL) by affecting everyday activities such as driving a car, putting on clothing, using utensils, and walking. CIPN also leads to treatment delays, dose reductions, and chemotherapy discontinuations which negatively affect treatment outcomes. Only two therapies have been shown to be effective to treat CIPN, neurofeedback (NFB) and duloxetine. Neurofeedback is a treatment that is customized to the individual, relatively inexpensive, non-invasive, and provided alongside conventional medicine. It is a reward system comprised of a brain-computer interface where participants are taught to change activity in brain regions that contribute to symptom perception. In our prior studies of NFB to treat CIPN, we found that patients with CIPN can learn to control activity in brain areas that are associated with CIPN, leading to QOL improvements such as restoration of normal exercise and recreational activities. This project aims to address three major obstacles to clinical improvement in CIPN symptoms. First, this project will help us understand CIPN at the level of individual brain function and will explore neurofeedback training in conjunction with duloxetine to maximize benefit to patients. Second, we will also discover the optimal amount of neurofeedback sessions needed to result in long-term relief of CIPN in a large group of participants and across socioeconomic groups. Lastly, this project will provide valuable information on the interplay between pain perceptions, treatments, and brain function.
Grantee Name: Sarah Prinsloo
Organization: The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Country: United States
Focus Area: Disease and Treatment Burden
Funding Year: 2019
Funding Scheme: American Cancer Society
Project period: 4 years
Patients with advanced cancer frequently experience severe multiple physical, emotional symptoms. These are associated with major morbidity in cancer care, poor quality of life, and impact overall survival. Their family members also experience physical and emotional distress. At the same time, patients and their families need to discuss the goals of care and to participate in advance care planning. These issues are even more urgent in medically underserved regions of low middle-income countries. Provision of access to quality palliative care can address these needs effectively. One of the main reasons is the lack of health professional education, training and support to health care providers taking care of this vulnerable patients. There is a great need to train the physicians, nurses, volunteers helping the patients with life limiting illnesses (palliative care clinicians) with skills required to provision of quality palliative care. We are proposing a collaborative ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) telementoring project between the MD Anderson Cancer Center, Aga Khan University(Kenya), Korle-Bu Hospital (Ghana), University College Hospital(Nigeria), Tata Memorial Hospital (India), and The African Cancer Institute (South Africa). The Palliative ECHO will consist of one-hour, twice monthly teleECHO clinics with participants ECHO. We will also examine the effects of ECHO on patient quality of life symptoms and caregiver experience over a period of 1 year.
Grantee Name: Yennu Sriran
Organization: The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Country: United States
Focus Area: Disease and Treatment Burden
Funding Year: 2019
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 2 years
Clinical stage III melanoma patients have poor outcomes when treated with upfront surgery and adjuvant therapy. Neoadjuvant, or pre-operative therapy, can potentially improve outcomes for this high-risk patient population. Researchers at MD Anderson Cancer Center and the Melanoma Institute of Australia have recently reported that approximately 50% of clinical stage III melanoma patients with BRAF V600 mutated disease achieve a pathologic complete response (pCR) or complete melanoma death, after exposure to neoadjuvant dabrafenib and trametinib (DT) treatment. Patients who do have pCR have improved survival outcomes compared to those that do not have a pCR. We do not understand which features will predict development of pCR but have identified preliminary molecular, immunological and pathologic data in pre-treatment tumors we believe may be predictive of long-term outcomes. Additionally, while pCR patients are less likely to develop relapse than non-pCR patients, there are still some pCR patients who relapse, and we believe there are distinct features in these patients surgical samples that determine subsequent relapse risk. Finally, patients who do not achieve a pCR are at higher risk of developing CNS metastases at time of relapse. We believe there are features in their tumor specimens which evolve over the course of therapy and identification of these factors will predict the risk of CNS relapse. Together, these studies aim to inform mechanisms of treatment response and resistance to BRAF targeted therapy, will enhance the field of neoadjuvant therapy, identify risk of CNS metastasis formation and ultimately improve melanoma patient outcomes.
Grantee Name: Rodabe Amaria
Organization: University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Country: United States
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2020
Funding Scheme: MRA
Project period: 3 years
Women found to have breast cancer in their lymph nodes are often advised to receive radiation therapy to the lymph nodes to decrease the chance of cancer recurrence and improve survival. Because of the length of treatment (at least five weeks) and the side effects of treatment (tiredness, arm swelling, and skin and tissue changes), some women who may benefit from radiation therapy do not receive it.
An innovative shorter-duration radiation treatment regimen that delivers larger daily doses of radiation to the lymph nodes (called hypofractionation) may allow women to get the radiation they need while reducing the duration and toxicity of treatment. The SAPHIRe trial (Shortening Adjuvant PHoton IRradiation) is a randomized, clinical trial of shorter-duration (three-week) versus standard-duration (five-week) radiation therapy in 842 patents receiving radiation therapy to the lymph nodes for invasive breast cancer conducted at academic and community practices across the United States. The women who choose to take part in this trial will be assigned to one of these two treatments and will complete questionnaires about their side effects, physical function, quality of life, and financial well-being. They will also be evaluated for treatment complications, development of arm swelling (lymphedema), and cancer status. The trial is designed to demonstrate shorter-duration radiation to the lymph nodes provides similar cancer control while reducing the side effects and burden of treatment.
The development of a less toxic, less costly, more convenient, shorter-duration regimen is expected to reduce the burden of treatment and increase the utilization of curative radiation.
Grantee Name: Karen Hoffman
Organization: University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Country: United States
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2020
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 5 years
Patient outcomes in metastatic melanoma, the most deadly of common skin cancers, have improved dramatically with the approval of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI). Nonetheless, not all patients benefit from these therapies and actionable strategies to enhance the effectiveness of ICI are urgently needed. This study seeks to develop a deeper understanding of the role of a whole foods, plant-based, fiber-rich diet on the microbiome and anti-tumor immunity in patients receiving immunotherapyTo test the impact of a whole food, high-fiber diet on systemic and anti-tumor immunity in patients with metastatic melanoma on anti-PD1.
Grantee Name: Jennifer Leigh McQuade
Organization: University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Country: United States
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2019
Funding Scheme: Seerave Foundation
Project period: 3 years
WISDOM is the first prospective, randomized large-scale evaluation of an alternative approach to the one-size-fits-all mammographic screening introduced in the 1980s.
The present study compares annual screening with a risk-based approach that uses a comprehensive evaluation of each womans individual risk for breast cancer to develop a risk-based, personalized breast cancer screening recommendation. The goal of risk-based screening is to improve the chance of preventing breast cancer in those at risk and to reduce rates of false-positive recalls, over diagnosis and over treatment, which are significant causes of morbidity in the current annual screening approach.
The results of this study could transcend the current screening controversy and support a transition of personalized medicine screening and prevention approach. For patients, personalized care should lead to better health outcomes due to fewer indolent tumors being detected, fewer unnecessary biopsies, and less anxiety for women. We also believe this program will improve access to, and use of, preventive therapy for women at high risk, thereby modifying the incidence and progression of disease.
Grantee Name: Maria Bell
Organization: Sanford Research
Country: United States
Focus Area: Early Detection
Funding Year: 2021
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 3 years
Career Pathway Grants in Symptom Management
The goal of this program is to recruit and retain individuals committed to conducting symptom management research. This unique approach will support young physician-scientists at a critical time in their academic careers when they transition from training to principal investigators and begin to set up labs of their own.
The recipients of the 2020 Conquer Cancer Rising Tide Foundation for Clinical Cancer Research Career Pathway Grants in Symptom Management are:
Antonio Di Meglio, MD, Institut Gustave Roussy
A Comprehensive Bio-behavioral Approach to Tackle Cancer-related Fatigue in Breast Cancer Survivors
Mentor: Ines Vaz-Luis, MD, PhD
Nicole Grogan, MD, University of Michigan Cancer Center
A Single Center Phase 2 Trial to Evaluate Use of Cannabidiol (CBD) to Treat Aromatase Inhibitor-Associated Musculoskeletal Symptoms (AIMSS) in Early Stage Breast Cancer Patients
Mentor: Norah Lynn Henry, MD, PhD
Daniel Lage, MD, MSc, Massachusetts General Hospital
A Care Transition Intervention for Hospitalized Patients with Advanced Cancer
Mentor: Jennifer Temel, MD
Risa Wong, MD, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
SuPPORT: Screening for Psychosocial Distress in Prostate Cancer and Offering Referrals for Treatment
Mentor: John Gore, MD, MS
Grantee Name: Nancy Daly
Organization: Conquer Cancer Foundation
Country: United States
Focus Area: Disease and Treatment Burden
Funding Year: 2019
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 4 years
The team had found in an earlier study that epigenetic therapy appears to sensitize patients to subsequent treatments including chemotherapy, and very excitingly, to immunotherapy, targeting reversal of immune tolerance.
Two new clinical trials will investigate an approach to reverse gene silencing associated with increased tumor growth using DNA methyltransferase inhibitor (azacitidine) and histone deacetylase inhibitor (entinostat). The first clinical trial will investigate the proposed therapy to address chemoresistance and the second trial will sensitize patients for immunotherapies. If validated, the study could in a delimited time span, introduce new therapies to radically alter the management of cancers like NSCLC.
Grantee Name: Stephen Baylin and Julie Brahmer
Organization: John Hopkins University
Country: United States
Focus Area: Therapy Optimization
Funding Year: 2014
Funding Scheme: RTFCCR open call
Project period: 4 years
Brain tumors are the most common solid cancers affecting children and adolescents. Medulloblastoma and ependymoma are common brain tumors that require treatment with radiation following surgical resection. While radiation is an essential component of curative treatment, radiation to the developing brain contributes to adverse health effects that can impair quality of survivorship. There are two major types of external-beam radiation: photon-based and particle (proton) radiation. Both radiation modalities are alike in their cure rates and biological effectiveness.
However, compared with photons, proton radiation has better physical properties that localizes the radiation dose in the tumor target while sparing proximal normal tissues. We need to follow patients for a long time after treatment to determine if the dosimetric advantages of protons translate to an improvement in health outcomes. Supported by the Rising Tide Foundation, our study compares neurocognitive function and