Phase III randomized clinical trial for stage III epithelial ovarian cancer - OVHIPEC-2
This clinical trial is a multi-center phase III study including 8 countries and 538 patients. This study is led by the Netherlands Cancer Institute and the funding requested is to cover the cost of pharmacovigilance.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Berit Mosgaard Organization: Copenhagen University Hospital Country: Denmark
Project Name: Phase III randomized clinical trial for stage III epithelial ovarian cancer - OVHIPEC-2 Funding Year: 2020 Project period: 4 years
Targeting eIF4A in melanoma persistent cells to prevent resistance
By combining BRAF+MEK inhibitors with eIF4A inhibitors the team has managed to kill the persistent cells and prevent the emergence of mutant resistant clones in vitro. The objective of this grant is to translate this strategy to the clinic.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Caroline Robert Organization: Gustave Roussy Institute Country: France
Project Name: Targeting eIF4A in melanoma persistent cells to prevent resistance Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 3 years
Think Tanks for Labor Market Reforms in Central and Eastern Europe
As a response to over-regulation in labour markets, the Lithuanian Free Market Institute (LFMI), in cooperation with five prominent classical liberal think-tanks, is working on creating a unique cross-country research on labor market regulation and the repercussions of existing government interventions on individual liberty, labour markets and employment.
The Lithuanian Free Market Institute boasts an impressive record of implementing projects and programs within the Lithuanian context and beyond. They aim to achieve similar success with their new #FreedomTalks initiative. This initiative will engage vulnerable mid to late teenage populations from Lithuanias ethnic minority and disadvantaged communities in cutting-edge multimedia economic and civic learning as well as live youth debates designed to instill in the rising generation a belief in freedom and the creative human capacity necessary to develop into active moral agents. This program will build upon LFMIs international award-winning textbook Economics in 31 Hours and interdisciplinary course A Citizen in 31 Hours.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
The #FreedomTalks initiative recognizes that free moral agents, acting on behalf of themselves and their communities, are a necessary condition for prosperity and human flourishing. Through empowering local communities, amplifying voices of those who are often marginalized, #FreedomTalks inspires the rising generation to take responsibility for their own lives.
Over the course of the project, LFMI hopes to influence 1200+ mid to late teenagers from ethnic minority and disadvantaged communities and initiate 30+ #FreedomTalks chapters that run independently. As a part of the project, they will impact many more through live online quizzes, social media campaigns, and their online multimedia platform.
The #FreedomTalks initiative is exercising a promising approach to mindset change in disadvantaged communities that will help individuals move from seeing themselves as passive recipients to active participants.
Grant Details
Organization: Lithuanian Free Market Institute Country: Lithuania Project Name: #FreedomTalks
New approach to refining risk stratification for colorectal cancer patients
This study seeks to harness deep learning methods to identify unique patterns across colorectal cancer (CRC) tumor slides for improved disease classification using 300,000 images collected already from over 6,000 patients.
This will provide a novel addition to classic histopathology and molecular methods for improved treatment and management of CRC.
A combined budding / T-cell score in pT1 and stage II colorectal cancer(CRC)
Numerous immune cell types are found in CRC and have been linked to improved prognosis in CRC; especially T-cell infiltrates have been extensively examined as a protective biomarker. This proposal aims to build on existing know-how and utilize geometric deep learning methods to create a combined tumor budding/t-cell scoring system.
The results are expected to have a direct impact on patient management and contribute to more precise treatment strategies in patient subgroups.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr Heather Dawson Organization: Bern University Hospital Country: Switzerland
Project Name: A combined budding/T-cell score in pT1 and stage II colorectal cancer(CRC) Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 3 years
Voice quality after laser surgery versus single vocal cord irradiation
This proposal seeks to compare single vocal cord irradiation (SVCI) to transoral CO2-laser microsurgical cordectomy (TLM) on patient-reported voice quality in a prospective randomized multi-center open-label comparative phase III study. This approach is promising to spare voice quality and thus improve quality of life.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Elicin Olgun Organization: Bern University Hospital Country: Switzerland
Project Name: Voice quality after laser surgery versus single vocal cord irradiation Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 5 years
Central Pathology Review of FFPE tumor blocks within the POSITIVE study
The primary goal of the POSITIVE trial is to determine if a two-year interruption of endocrine therapy results in a significantly higher breast cancer event rate in comparison to a historically estimated control rate if no interruption occurred. Samples have been collected from 90 % of the patients enrolled in the POSITIVE clinical trial and funding is required for processing and analysis.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Giuseppe Viale Organization: International Breast Cancer Study Group Country: European (Located in Switzerland)
Project Name: Central Pathology Review of FFPE tumor blocks within the POSITIVE study Funding Year: 2020 Project period: 5 years
Improving the accessibility of clinical cancer trials results to patients
This project seeks to take the existing patient engagement program at SAKK to the next level, by including patients in the process from trial design through to dissemination of results upon completion of the trial. Indeed, within the framework of this project, with the support of the SAKK Patient Advisory Board, SAKK wants to make the results of the trials accessible to patients, their relatives, and the public. In this way, SAKK wants to make clinical cancer research transparent and accessible to everyone.
Targeted axillary dissection (TAD) is a new technique that has recently been developed for patients with initially positive nodes undergoing systemic treatment before surgery. It combines the selective removal of nodes that are localized under imaging guidance.
The main objective of this trial is to show that TAD is non-inferior to conventional axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) in terms of disease-free survival of breast cancer patients
This phase III multicenter trial will be performed in Germany, Hungary, Italy, and Lithuania and is being led by the SAKK. This grant complements the awards for Prof. Weber in Switzerland and Prof. Fitzal in Austria. In total, RTFCCCR is providing funding for the enrollment of 1118 patients, 345 in Switzerland, 250 in Austria, 200 in Germany, 183 in Hungary, 100 in Lithuania, and 40 in Italy.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Prof. Walter Weber Organization: Swiss Group For Clinical Cancer Research (SAKK) Country: Switzerland
Project Name: TAXI Funding Year: 2020 Project period: 5 years
Extended pelvic lymph node dissection vs. no pelvic lymph node dissection for intermediate- and high-risk prostate cancer
This phase III randomized trial proposes to study the benefits of performing extended pelvic lymph node dissection in a group of intermediate- and high-risk prostate cancer patients.
Grantee Name: Prof. Cyrill Rentsch Organization: University Hospital Basel Country: Switzerland
Project Name: Extended pelvic lymph node dissection vs. no pelvic lymph node dissection for intermediate- and high-risk prostate cancer Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 4 years
SAKK 01/18: Reduced-intensity radio-chemotherapy for stage IIA/B seminoma
The main objective of this trial is to conduct a single-arm, multicenter, prospective phase II trial testing different combinations of radiotherapy and chemotherapy based on the results of the current RTFCCR grant to reduce long-term toxicity.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Alexandros Papachristofilou Organization: University Hospital Basel Country: Switzerland
Project Name: SAKK 01/18: Reduced intensity radio-chemotherapy for stage IIA/B seminoma Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 4 years
WISE STUDY: Walking Intervention for Symptom Elimination under aromatase inhibitor therapy
This multicenter, randomized, intervention is composed of a 24-week home-based walking program starting at the onset of AI treatment. This involves continuous moderate intensive walking outdoors for 30 mins, 5 days a week.
350 breast cancer survivors at the onset of adjuvant AI therapy will be randomized to the intervention or control group.
Correlative studies of an open label Phase 1 study
Correlative studies of an open-label Phase 1 study in diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG)
Based on previous studies and preliminary data, a phase 1 clinical trial of ONC206 is scheduled to start at the University Childrens Hospital Zurich. This trial is designed as a multi-arm trial based on different disease stages to enable the largest possible population to access ONC206. The proposal seeks funding for the correlative study of this clinical trial.
Verein "Respektierung & Wahrung Natürlicher Lernprozesse"
Time 4
Time4 is an educational program for young people after their obligatory school years that commences between the ages of 15 and 25 years old. It offers an alternative path to the occupational training offered by the Swiss government and provides young people with a framework in which they can discover, refine and deepen their interests and hence supports them in their intrinsically motivated development and learning processes.
Young Swiss professionals have increasingly the wish to be independent by starting an entrepreneurial venture and at the same time to have a positive impact in society through their professional work. The Swiss education landscape, however, offers only very limited opportunities for young professionals to gain first-hand experience in entrepreneurship and hence experience what it entails to be an entrepreneur. Most youths end up accepting employment with large corporations instead.
At the same time, there is a broad range of young and innovative companies in Switzerland with a business model targeting a positive impact in society, but lacking access to talented and skilled Millenials, due mainly to lack of time and experience in the hiring process.
Futurepreneurship supports young career starters (especially young women) through a training and internship program in their entrepreneurial career paths. Talented students experience the innovation sector through an internship of several months. An academy guides them through their work experience and enables them to acquire the necessary skill set for this work environment. The overall goal of Futurepreneurship is to transmit an innovative, entrepreneurial, and agile way of thinking to the participating students. To date, over 150 startups have participated and more than 200 jobs have been created. 85% of the interns stay either employed in the startup they worked for, in one of the participating organizations, or elsewhere in the innovation scene.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Annina Menzi Organization: Verein Futurepreneurship Country: Switzerland
Project Name: Futurepreneurship Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 2 years
A randomized, open-label trial of a Multimodal Intervention versus standard care in cancer patients with Cachexia
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.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Prof. Marie Fallon Organization: University of Edinburgh Country: UK
Project Name: A randomized, open-label trial of a Multimodal Intervention versus standard care in cancer patients with Cachexia Funding Year: 2016 Project period: 5 years
Prevention of myeloid cancers by understanding their pre-clinical evolution
This study will assess the genetic sequencing of stored blood samples from two patient groups to increase the knowledge about the pathway and changes cells suffer from pre-leukemia to leukemia, supporting the development of novel clinical concepts. Based on preliminary data, the investigators propose to identify and treat high-risk individuals with ARCH, before they have developed the disease.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Prof. George Vassiliou Organization: Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute Country: UK
Project Name: Prevention of myeloid cancers by understanding their pre-clinical evolution Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 2 years
Creative Capactiy Building with Mining Communities in Colombia
To promote safer, healthier, and more equitable participation in regional mining economies in Antioquia, Colombia, MIT D-Lab, with support from the Rising Tide Foundation, has launched a 2-year program that trains Colombian artisanal and small-scale gold miners (ASGM) to develop sustainable solutions to ASGM-related health and environmental challenges. In addition, to promote economic diversification, the program enhanced the capacity for self-determination by sparking entrepreneurial efforts and yielding networks of businesses outside of the mining sector.
With over 15 years of inclusive innovation experience, MIT D-Lab has leveraged its in-house expertise and Colombian partnerships to implement a comprehensive program that generates opportunities for co-creating technology and business solutions with multiple stakeholders, including miners themselves.
The initiative utilizes a unique D-Lab methodology called Creative Capacity Building (CCB). Creative Capacity Building is an inclusive approach to human development that teaches a flexible method for problem-solving, exposing individuals to a framework that can be used to solve everyday challenges as well as provide concrete, hands-on skills to build and iterate technological and business solutions to those challenges.
Throughout the two-year program, miners will take part in a series of CCB trainings, both on technology and business design, and will have access to tailored coaching through local innovation spaces. This approach allows participants to become active solution-finders rather than passive recipients. The expected results include, but are not limited to, the creation of technologies and businesses that produce economic and health benefits for artisanal and small-scale miner participants. At the close of the project, MIT D-Lab and its local partners Universidad Nacional, Uniminuto, and C-Innova will have trained 250 small-scale gold miners in CCB for designing technology and businesses. These participants are drawn from two mining regions in Antioquia Colombia: Andes and Bajo Cauca (locations with very different approaches to mercury use in mining). Ultimately, MIT D-Lab anticipates that 10-20 new ventures will emerge from these trainings, developing and offering new technologies and approaches that improve the safety, health, and livelihoods of people living in these communities.
Grant Details
Organization: MIT D-Lab Country: Colombia Project Name: Creative Capactiy Building with Mining Communities in Colombia Grantee Name: Libby McDonald
Funding Areas Private Sector Solutions Empowerment of Individuals
Although extensive data on economic freedom are 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 (i) identify projects that would improve their country's rank on the Gender Disparity Index and other indices, (ii) create and implement reform strategies, and (iii) publicize non-governmental solutions that help reduce poverty among women.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
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, as a means 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.
Grant Details
Organization: Atlas Network Country: United States of America Project Name: Eradicate Barriers to Economic Freedom for Women
The Poverty Stoplight is a tool integrated in a technology platform that seeks to activate the potential of families and communities to lift themselves out of poverty. Poverty Stoplight is different from other anti-poverty programs in that: (i) the evaluations indicators are self-assessed by the individuals and families who participate, (ii) it includes measures of agency and organization, and (iii) it is designed to cover only those indicators that are actionable by the family members themselves. The goal of this two-year project is to establish Poverty Stoplight in the United States by recruiting, training, and supporting organizations that serve the poor and are ready to invest in an approach to poverty eradication based on self-sufficiency.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
Poverty is difficult to escape in part because welfare systems inadvertently serve to keep individuals dependent. Poverty Stoplight aims to help people participate in the market economy, rather than becoming trapped by programs that are overly bureaucratic and inefficient. The key of the approach is to trust families, respect low-income people, and know that they will make the decisions that will work best for them. Poverty Stoplight enhances the freedom of the individual to take advantage of opportunities to lift themselves out of poverty by enhancing their critical agency. To alleviate poverty in the US and beyond, it is essential that the discussion around poverty shift to the capabilities of the poor rather than their weaknesses.
Grant Details
Organization: Poverty Stoplight USA Country: United States of America Project Name: Poverty Stoplight USA
Funding Areas
Private Sector Solutions System Change Empowerment of Individuals Teaching Freedom
Currently, clinical studies within the symptom management focus area are faced with two challenges: a lack of young researchers and not enough high-quality clinical trials that address disease and treatment burden. Conquer Cancer, the ASCO Foundation, and Rising Tide Foundation for Clinical Cancer Research (RTFCCR) have partnered to establish the Conquer Cancer Rising Tide Foundation for Clinical Cancer Research 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 grant program supports young physician-scientists at a critical time in their academic careers during their transition from training to principal investigators, and as they begin setting up labs of their own. Using a two-pronged approach, researchers will receive funding to conduct high-quality research in line with career progression requirements to keep them in the field, and also to a mentor to ensure that rigorous and compelling data is generated in line with requirements for clinical trials.
The support of preliminary data collection will enable the investigators to apply for future funding in topics with significant patient benefit. Through this grant program, these individuals will become leaders in academic research and inspire future generations of physician-scientists.
Grant Details
Applicant Name: Nancy Daly Organization: Conquer Cancer Country: US/Europe
Project Name: Career Pathway Grant in Symptom Management
Freedom in practice
First Step Staffing
Employment for Men and Women Experiencing Homelessness
Employment for Men and Women Experiencing Homelessness
Only 5% of all dollars allocated to fight homelessness are directed to jobs programs. Of the dollars that are allocated to jobs programs, the majority of assistance is not employer-driven. As the number of those experiencing homelessness has ballooned over the past 3 years, First Step Staffing has stepped in to bridge the gap between homelessness services focused on housing and more traditional workforce development programs that often leave the hardest to serve behind. They execute on this mission using an alternative staffing model that meets the hiring needs of local businesses while prioritizing staffing resources to those who have been most excluded from the workforce. They also provide supportive services, like transportation to and from work, that help people with obstacles to employment and advancement once in the workforce.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
As the majority of programs focus on providing the basic material needs of those currently experiencing homelessness, First Step Staffing takes a more foundational approach. Through equipping individuals with skills, resources, transportation services, and connections to potential employers, FSS is reducing the barriers that those experiencing homelessness must overcome in order to become the active protagonists in their own livesrather than the passive recipients of welfare.
When individuals are empowered to achieve greater personal prosperity through meaningful work, they are able to change both themselves and their communities through increased savings. The FSS approach achieves a multiplier-effect as individuals move from welfare recipients to working taxpayers in their own communities.
FSS aims to employ a minimum of 5,000 men and women annually paying more than $60 million in earned wages.
Grant Details
Organization: First Step Staffing Country: United States of America Project Name: Employment for Men and Women Experiencing Homelessness Grantee Name: Amelia Nickerson
Funding Areas
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.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
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 Self-Reliance Clubs, the Freedom and Virtue Institute will connect children to practical projects that connect reward to accomplishments. As the SRC follows 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.
Grant Details
Organization: Freedom & Virtue Institute Country: United States of America Project Name: Proposal for Franchising of Self-Reliance Clubs
A Phase I/II Trial of 8-Chloro-adenosine in Relapsed or Refractory Acute Myeloid Leukemia
This phase I/II trial will assess the safety and efficacy of 8-Chloro-Adenosine (8-Cl-Ado), a new therapeutic small molecule that is preferentially toxic to cancer as opposed to normal cells. It has shown potent anticancer activity against leukemia cells and has been very well tolerated in an earlier human clinical trial evaluating safety for different blood cancer.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Steven Rosen Organization: City of Hope Country: USA
Project Name: A Phase I/II Trial of 8-Chloro-adenosine in Relapsed or Refractory Acute Myeloid Leukemia Funding Year: 2015 Project period: 6 years
A Phase I/II Trial of 8-Chloro-adenosine in Relapsed or Refractory Acute Myeloid Leukemia
The central hypothesis is that CAR T cells targeting cell surface antigens will eradicate diffuse tumor cell populations. This hypothesis will be tested in phase I clinical trial in 11 patients over a duration of four years. The study will assess the safety and determine the recommended phase II dosing plan for loco-regional administration in 3 routes.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Christine Brown Organization: City of Hope Country: USA
Project Name: A Phase I/II Trial of 8-Chloro-adenosine in Relapsed or Refractory Acute Myeloid Leukemia Funding Year: 2017 Project period: 4 years
Development of Alternative Ablation Device for Cervical Pre-Cancer Treatment
The trial aims to demonstrate that the cure rates of the CryoPen and the thermoablator are non-inferior to the cure rate of CO2-based cryotherapy; determine patient acceptability of each therapy type by actively assessing side effects and monitoring pain levels related to treatment; evaluate screening methods one-year post-ablation by comparing the sensitivity of low-cost HPV screening tests, HPV DNA genotyping tests, cytology, and biopsies.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Miriam Cremer Organization: Cleveland Clinic Foundation Country: USA
Project Name: Development of Alternative Ablation Device for Cervical Pre-Cancer Treatment Funding Year: 2017 Project period: 4 years
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
Epigenetic therapy to sensitize patients with advanced NSCLC to chemotherapy and immunotherapy targeting reversal of immune tolerance
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.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Stephen Baylin and Dr. Julie Brahmer Organization: John Hopkins University Country: USA
Project Name: Epigenetic therapy to sensitize patients with advanced NSCLC to chemotherapy and immunotherapy targeting reversal of immune tolerance Funding Year: 2015 Project period: 6 years
Neurocognitive & Quality of Life (QOL) in proton/photon pediatric brain tumor survivors
This retrospective study seeks to directly compare the long-term health outcomes between two pediatric brain tumor survivor cohorts treated with proton and photon radiotherapy. This study involves a direct comparison of neurocognitive and health-related quality of life outcomes among brain tumor survivors treated with proton radiation at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH, Boston, MA, USA) and survivors treated with photon radiation at Emory University/Childrens Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA, Atlanta, GA, USA). While radiation is an essential component of curative treatment, it can also contribute to a variety of late adverse health effects. This research will guide future radiation treatment decisions and advocate for access to the radiation technology that maximizes the quality of survivorship in childhood brain tumor patients.
CD38-targeted immuno-PET imaging to prevent myeloma relapse
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.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Ola Landgren Organization: University of Miami Country: USA
Project Name: CD38-targeted immuno-PET imaging to prevent myeloma relapse Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 4 years
Clinical Cancer Research
The Board of Trustees of The University of Illinois
Bedside diagnosis of bloodstream infections (BSI) in leukemia
A novel diagnostic method, activated filter paper, uses cellulose as a cheap and abundant resource to immobilize DNA probes. Combined with iron-oxide bead detection, the natural brown color of the beads allows detection by the naked eye.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Prof. Peter Gyarmati Organization: The Board of Trustees of The University of Illinois Country: USA
Project Name: Bedside diagnosis of bloodstream infections (BSI) in leukemia Funding Year: 2017 Project period: 3 years
Anti-Osteoclast Therapy as an Adjuvant in Treatment of Chondrosarcoma
This is a single-arm, open-label phase Ib clinical trial. 15 patients will receive 1 dose of zoledronic acid, followed by surgery 21 days after this dose. A second dose will be given 3 weeks after the surgery and patients will be monitored thereafter for 5 years.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Varun Monga Organization: University of Iowa Country: USA
Project Name: Anti-Osteoclast Therapy as an Adjuvant in Treatment of Chondrosarcoma Funding Year: 2017 Project period: 3 years
Thiamine for Delirium Prevention in Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation
Examine the effects of high dose IV thiamine as prophylaxis for delirium. Evaluate its effects on quality of life and neuropsychiatric sequelae of delirium.
High doses of IV thiamine have been studied in oncologic populations with promising results when used as a treatment strategy for delirium, but it is generally employed late in the course of delirium and it remains unknown if it can mitigate the long-term impact of delirium on cancer patients.
The project proposes a double-blind randomized controlled trial (RCT) with a total of 60 patients.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Zev Nakamura Organization: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Country: USA
Project Name: Thiamine for Delirium Prevention in Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Funding Year: 2017 Project period: 3 years
Clinical Cancer Research
The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Liquid biopsies in early diagnosis of colorectal cancer
Based on recent developments by the team, this study aims to investigate the potential of using liquid biopsies for the early detection of colorectal cancer.
Albeit liquid biopsies have been studied for some time, the novelty in the proposed approach lies in the ability to examine DNA methylation changes in addition to mutations in cancer genes. This combined method has the potential to advance plasma cfDNA (circulating free DNA) testing.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Filip Janku Organization: The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Country: USA
Project Name: Liquid biopsies in early diagnosis of colorectal cancer Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 2 years
Clinical Cancer Research
The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
This project proposes to determine the optimal dose for the number of neurofeedback sessions to alleviate Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) and examine predictors to determine who will best respond to neurofeedback using EEG brain signatures.
ECHO Telementoring to Improve Quality Palliative Care in Underserved Areas
Based upon preliminary data, this study aims to transform palliative care in the low-middle countries of India, Kenya, Ghana, and South Africa and elevate the standard of care in these regions.
Phase 2 Study of PARP inhibition and Anti-PD-L1 Therapy in BRCAmt TNBC
The clinical trial to which this proposal is attached is a randomized, open-label phase II trial exploring the effects of the anti-PD-L1 human monoclonal antibody atezolizumab with the PARP inhibitor Veliparib either alone or in combination in 100 patients with BRCA1/2 TNBC.
This grant will evaluate the mutational load, neoantigens, and anti-tumor immune effects of PARP inhibition and immune-stimulation and determine the possible connection between the biomarkers and patient performance after treatment.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Prof. Patricia LoRusso Organization: Yale University Country: USA
Project Name: Phase 2 Study of PARP inhibition and Anti-PD-L1 Therapy in BRCAmt TNBC Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 2 years
Phase 2 Study of the PARP Inhibitor Olaparib in IDH1/2-mutant solid tumors
To conduct a comprehensive series of correlative studies in tumor biopsies to identify which patients with IDH1/2 tumor mutations respond best to the DNA repair inhibitor, Olaparib.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Prof. Bindra Ranjit Organization: Yale University Country: USA
Project Name: Phase 2 Study of the PARP Inhibitor Olaparib in IDH1/2-mutant solid tumors Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 3 years
In 2014, Americas Future Foundation (AFF) launched a program to train, mentor, and assist emerging writers in becoming lifelong advocates for classical liberal ideas in the media. The project aims to have reached 360 young writers over the project period, who are expected to publish approx. 1,500 pieces per year.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Cindy Cerquitella Organization: America's Future Foundation Country: USA
Project Name: AFF Writing Fellows Program Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 3 years
In authoritarian regimes, legal proceedings are a mere formality and courts are enforcers of discretionary rules used to harass, jail, convict, and impose arbitrary sanctions against critics of the regime. Those imprisoned for criticizing the regime have little recourse, as any judicial remedies involve appealing to the government-controlled courts that imprisoned them, to begin with. Dissidents, journalists, and public intellectuals operating in authoritarian regimes face this reality daily and find themselves targeted by governments and public officials who use criminal charges that bear heavy fines or prison sentences as a penalty for exercising basic freedoms. HRF is fighting the practices of these regimes by exposing their human rights abuses and submitting emblematic cases of arbitrarily imprisoned dissidents and pro-democracy activists to the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD), the most prestigious semi-judicial body of the United Nations system. Over the course of this three-year project, HRF is planning to file 30 cases with UNWGAD.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Human Rights Foundation - Impact Litigation Organization: Human Rights Foundation Country: USA (Global)
Project Name: Human Rights Foundation - Impact Litigation Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 3 years
Unleashing Prosperity by Cutting State Regulations
US states have dozens of bureaucratic agencies generating new regulations, but few review the thousands of regulations that are already in place. Over time, these regulations have accumulated into vast codes too complex for people to navigate. Rules that are costly, complicated, ineffective, or outdated remain in force, stifling economic growth. Unlike the federal government, state agencies are not typically required to conduct benefit-cost analysis prior to rule-making, and they internalize few costs from creating increasingly more complex and onerous requirements. Over the last few years, scholars from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University have researched successful efforts to repeal regulations to limit the compliance burden on citizens and businesses, and have assisted policymakers in seven US states in starting red tape reduction initiatives. These efforts are assisted by RegData, a Mercatus-developed software program that rapidly analyzes immense regulatory codes in ways not previously possible. Mercatus is using RegData to produce academic studies that give a snapshot of a states regulatory burden. The vision for this project is that armed with Mercatus groundbreaking research, states will reduce the burden of their regulatory requirements and create improved environments for economic growth, income mobility, and individual freedom.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: James Broughel Organization: Mercatus Center Country: United States
Project Name: Unleashing Prosperity by Cutting State Regulations Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 2 years
Entreprneurship development and 21st century skills
Memphis, Tennessee has a storied history of segregation, institutional racism, and policies that have disenfranchised people of color for centuries.
At one time, Memphis, Tennessee was the lifeblood of the slave trade that dominated the economy of the South. Economic growth for people of color in the city is largely limited. Less than 1% of all business revenue in the city of Memphis comes from businesses owned by African Americans and Latinx individuals, yet 70% of the population belongs to these demographics. The poverty rate for African American children within the city is a staggering 52.2%. The 25 largest African-American owned businesses in Memphis collectively employ 1,200 people in a city with a labor force of over 400,000. The wealth gap between white families and black families decreases from a factor of 13 to a factor of 3 when a black family has a business owner. Furthermore, black business owners net worth is on average 12 times higher than black non-business owners.
LITE has produced a model that effectively develops key 21st-century skills in minority youth, giving them the skills to lift themselves out of poverty and stimulate their local economy through business solutions. We differ from other self-empowerment entrepreneurship programs in two key ways: First, we teach practical application, not abstract concepts. Many programs teach students theoretical solutions to problems and miss the key experiential learning, and self-empowerment that comes with creation and execution. Through LITE, students launch a business that can generate revenue and demonstrate an ROI. 17% of our Innovation Fellows from our first cohort (2013) are still generating revenue from businesses they launched through our High School Finalist program six years ago. Secondly, we provide long-term support that maximizes the potential for success. Most youth programs offer interventions up until the age of 18 or through interventions lasting less than six months. According to a study by Richard Fairlie with the GATES experiment, entrepreneurial education programs have no long-term effect on business success when those interventions are less than six months. Our pipeline provides eight years of support for each student with targeted programming aimed at building the next generation of self-empowered workers, entrepreneurs, and leaders.
Grant Details
Organization: Let's Innovate through Education Country: USA Project Name: Entreprneurship development and 21st century skills Grantee Name: Pamela Urquieta
Markets and Government Services: Disadvantaged Students Transportation
The project goal is to implement markets and demonstrate the benefits where markets are seldom employed. The initial focus has been the procurement of government services, one of the fastest-growing areas of government. Heavily bureaucratic, administrative allocation processes are universally regarded as the only option.
Markets are not used because no one knows how to organize them to solve the underlying social problems. The research strategy is to choose a simple, special case to serve as an exemplar of many cases, and to craft and implement market modifications of the administrative processes used. The strategy addresses why markets have not automatically emerged and what dimensions of the regulations might be replaced by special forms of markets and new technologies.
The initial effort is focused on administrative procedures used for procuring school transportation for disadvantaged children. The allocation issues involve economic environments theoretically identified as common causes of poor (or impossible) market performance: public goods, service quality issues, coordination complexity, non-convexities, the nonexistence of equilibrium, poor information, and thin markets. The laboratory experimental and theory-guided design involves user preference integration, route designs that clearly define services to be procured, auction design that supports competition for coordinated service provisions, experimental testing, and implementation.
The research demonstrates that markets can be used. A new market-based process produced improved transportation services for the children (e.g, 53% travel time reduction) for the same cost, support from teachers and families as well as upper levels of administration and government. Robustness analysis (a form of external and internal validity test) demonstrates close relationships among theory, experiments, and actual field performance.
This program is ideal for economists with an interest in harnessing the energy and motivation of private enterprises to solve social problems. By nature, social problems emerge in areas where social, political, and legal arrangements have not evolved as support for private enterprise. Solutions can involve conflicts among deeply held scientific beliefs and philosophies. Resolutions can require new technologies, new forms of markets, demonstrations that can require basic science, technical advances, and political skills. The Rising Tide Foundation program is designed to support such work.
Through this project, Archbridge Institute has commissioned a study to introduce classical liberal thinking into the academic debate around social mobility, which currently focuses strongly on equality and not opportunity. The study will be composed of 10 research pieces from Latin America and Europe. The publication will be distributed in print as well as through events with relevant institutions in the US, Latin America, Europe.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Gonzalo Schwarz Organization: Archbridge Institute Country: USA
Project Name: Libertarian Principles in Social Mobility Policy Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 2 years
Today there are over 50 million youth aged 14 to 26 in Americaover 16 million are African American or Hispanicand there are tens of millions more youth in Latin America and Spain. Traditionally, this audiencenearly one-third in the U.S.--has been under-engaged by free-market-oriented organizations. FEE plans to employ a multifaceted outreach strategy through their new Revolution of One and FEE en Espanol programs that engages these audiences through media, in-person workshops, online learning, accessible resources, and community partnerships to educate and inspire young African Americans, and Hispanics to prefer freedom over coercion as their chosen method for social change and economic progress. Through this FEE is working to drive a generational shift away from faith in politicians toward a freer, more prosperous, and more peaceful society achieved through the adoption of and a life-long belief in the freedom philosophy."
Contribution to enhancing freedom
Traditionally, African American and Hispanic audiences have not been widely reached by free-market think tanks. Through various educational avenues employed by FEE, new audiences will be introduced to the principles of freedom in new, creative ways. FEE aims to engage 10% of the African American and Hispanic youth population in the United States which they expect to create a widespread shift in the way young people view freedomrendering large government programs, in the long-term, unattractive.
Over the course of the two-year project, FEE hopes to engage more than 39 million young people through their Revolution of One and FEE en Espanol programs. This will inspire a new generation of youth as they are empowered to see themselves as the active protagonists of their own lives.
Grant Details
Organization: Lithuanian Free Market Institute Country: Lithuania Project Name: #FreedomTalks
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 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.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
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 in order 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.
Grant Details
Organization: Universidad Francisco Marroquin Country: Guatemala Project Name: Liberty in Action
Funding Areas
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. Fundacin Educacin, 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 Fundacin Educacin 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.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
Access to quality education is foundational for advancing freedom and prosperity. Through this scholarship program, Fundacin Educacin 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, Fundacin Educacin 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.
Grant Details
Organization: Fundacion Educacion Country: Latin America Project Name: Scholarship Program Grantee Name: Isabel Stirnimann
Funding Areas
Private Sector Solutions Empowerment of Individuals
The Wildlife Tourism College (WTC) in Kenyas 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.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
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. results in socio-economic development through participation in the tourism industry and conservation of the biodiversity and wildlife in PCA.
Grant Details
Organization: Basecamp Explorer Foundation Country: Kenya Project Name: The Wildlife Tourism College of Maasai Mara
Funding Areas
Private Sector Solutions System Change Empowerment of Individuals
Teach a Child - Africa, Education for Life. Scholarships for AIDS orphans
Teach a Child Africa (TaC) was founded in 2007 by two Kenyan women, Pamela Steele and Margaret Oriaro, both of whom lost many relatives to the AIDS pandemic. Its mission is to provide access to good quality secondary education to the most talented orphans from AIDS-stricken Western Kenya, particularly from the province of Nyanza, where HIV/AIDS has left close to 500,000 children fully orphaned. Rising Tide is financing 20 4-year scholarships for high-school education.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Simone Haeberli Organization: Verein Teach a Child - Africa Country: Kenya
Project Name: Teach a Child - Africa, Education for Life. Scholarships for AIDS orphans Funding Year: 2017 Project period: 5 years
Accelerating DDDs Cloud Computing Training and Employment
Digital Divide Data (DDD) is a non-profit, social enterprise committed to building long-term and scalable solutions to youth unemployment.
In Cambodia, Laos, and Kenyacountries where DDD operates the biggest challenge is the lack of access to quality jobs in the formal sector. Because of low educational attainment and inadequate professional skills, the underserved youth in these countries often find themselves unemployed or employed in the informal sector. Moreover, they remain in the intergenerational poverty that keeps them from escaping subsistence living. In response, DDD pioneered the Impact Sourcing model as a means to provide youth with access to higher education, professional skills development, and formal employment in the IT sector.
In 2017, DDD launched an ambitious initiative in Kenya to harness the potential of emerging technologies to upgrade its associates IT skills and thus boost their employability. DDD founded the Kenya Cloud Center of Excellence to train, employ, and certify youth in cloud computing services. After 6 months of intensive cloud training, associates become certified Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud engineers. An AWS Certification opens a whole new area of opportunity for DDD associates and is a credential they can continue to leverage throughout their careers.
With support from the Rising Tide Foundation, DDD is training 240 young Kenyans in cloud computing administration skills, who would otherwise not have access to specialized IT training and subsequent job opportunities. With their AWS training and certification, these youth are in-demand applicants in the job market due to the limited qualified labor pool in Kenya and worldwide for this particular technical skill. Upon their completion of the course, these youth are supported to secure jobs in the local IT industry and at DDD. Through DDDs Cloud Center of Excellence, youth in Kenya will enhance their employability in the tech sector and their ability to command a salary that can better help them support themselves and their families.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Jeremy Hockenstein Organization: Digital Data Divide Country: Kenya
Project Name: Accelerating DDDs Cloud Computing Training and Employment Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 2 years
Nigeria
Freedom in practice
University of Buckingham
Enhancing Freedom Through Quality Improvements in Low-cost Private Schools
Enhancing Freedom Through Quality Improvements in Low-cost Private Schools
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 recognised, educationally effective, technologically innovative, and affordable training programme for educators in the low-cost private sector. The programme will empower teachers and school managers and increase the quality of teaching and learning in these schools.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
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 programme 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.
Grant Details
Organization: University of Buckingham Country: Nigeria & India Project Name: Enhancing Freedom Through Quality Improvements in Low-cost Private Schools
Funding Areas
Private Sector Solutions System Change Empowerment of Individuals Teaching Freedom
As a result of one of South Africas most notorious pieces of legislation, the 1913 Natives Land Act that was adopted more than a century ago, most black South Africans still do not have titles to property inland. To rectify the situation, the Free Market Foundation (FMF) launched the Khaya Lam project in 2013, which aims to bring about the titling of all the apartheid-era properties in which black families had and still have occupation rights, but not title deeds.
Khaya Lam believes that homeownership is an important key to wealth creation and economic empowerment; it is only through tradable title deeds that homeowners can reap the benefits of legally owning and occupying their homes. The Khaya Lam project is a significant step towards unleashing the dead capital accumulated under apartheid. Most importantly, it is a completely liberating action that will sweep away one of the last major vestiges of the iniquitous apartheid system the prohibition upon the ownership of land by black South Africans.
The primary purpose of the project is thus to redress the past injustices and restore dignity to families who were previously denied the fundamental right to own their own properties. The project continues the FMFs defense and promotion of property rights, especially for black South Africans. More specifically, this project puts into practice what the FMF has long espoused: property rights are a fundamental component of a free and prosperous society.
The total number of RTF transfers to date is 600 (100 in 2016 + 250 in 2018 + 250 in 1H2019). An additional 250 are in the process of being registered with the Deeds Registry and will be ready by December. Since the RTF sponsorship of 100 in 2016 and excluding the 1,500 RTF subsequently sponsored the project has raised approximately R5.2 million (approximately USD340,818).
Grant Details
Organization: Free Market Foundation Country: South Africa Project Name: Khaya Lam Land Reform Project (2018-2021) Grantee Name: Jasson Urbach
The SAILI Scholarship Programme routes talented students through functional parts of the Western Cape public high school system. The programme is optimized to support as many students as possible, without compromising on exceptional student performance. The emphasis is on the identification of talent, system analysis to determine high-value schools for placements, student monitoring, and ongoing support of scholarship holders. Besides paying for school fees, uniforms, and school supplies, SAILI also provides workshops and mentoring for subject selection, career selection, and transition to tertiary. Rising Tide is supporting 25 students throughout their high-school education.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Kathrine Morse Organization: SAILI Country: South Africa
Cambodia remains one of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia. The roots of the challenges Cambodia is facing today are based on its history. An estimated 1.7 million people, or nearly 20% of the countrys population, perished during the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975-79. The effects of the genocide are still apparent in modern times as Cambodia continues to rebuild its economy, education system, and social institutions.
EGBOK is offering vocational training and employment opportunities for the countrys underprivileged youths utilizing the economic driver of tourism to build a qualified local workforce for the thriving industry. EGBOK helps them to become self-supporting thereby breaking the cycle of poverty that exists throughout the country today.
Empowering Women and Communities through Property Rights
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.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
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).
Grant Details
Organization: Landesa Country: India Project Name: Empowering Women and Communities through Property Rights
Funding Areas
Private Sector Solutions System Change Empowerment of Individuals
Enhancing Freedom Through Quality Improvements in Low-cost Private Schools
Through this project, James Tooley aims to establish a financially sustainable model for international teacher certification in the low-cost private school sector in India and Nigeria, with the potential to scale to more countries in Southern Africa and South Asia. The project builds on years of research and addresses one of the key challenges that low-cost private schools face--teacher certification and quality of teaching. The project will also add a module on economic freedom to the curriculum which will help to spread classical liberal ideas to untapped, new audiences, in Nigeria, India, and other areas as the project expands.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: James Tooley Organization: University of Buckingham Country: India & Nigeria
Project Name: Enhancing Freedom Through Quality Improvements in Low-cost Private Schools Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 4 years
Identifying Best Practice for Empowerment Through Entrepreneurial Freedom
The team at the University of Newcastle will employ original research to identify private, bottom-up, collective action solutions for the provision of basic services in slums around the world that are widely ignored by governments and large aid agencies. In particular, the team will research the service provision activities of Delhi slum inhabitants related to health, education, water, waste management, and transportation. They will use innovative methods to disseminate results to the community, national and international audiences to influence policies and provide those delivering services with examples of best practices for community development.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Pauline Dixon Organization: University of Newcastle Country: India
Project Name: Identifying Best Practice for Empowerment Through Entrepreneurial Freedom Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 4 years
Scholarships for Low-Income, High Potential Indian Girls
This grant will allow 214 girls over 3 years to attend the Avasara girls school which was founded in 2015 with the aim of developing the leadership potential of India's brightest young women, proving the simple theory: "When you give a girl, regardless of her economic status, the highest 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."
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Roopa Purushotaman Organization: Leadership Foundation for India Country: India
Project Name: Scholarships for Low-Income, High Potential Indian Girls Funding Year: 2020 Project period: 3 years
Empowering 1 Million with Spoken English and Libertarian Values
This project from the Centre for Civil Society addresses two pervasive challenges in Indian society: (1) Poor knowledge of English, particularly in disadvantaged communities. (2) A prevalent bias towards Nehruvian socialism. The project aims to train 5,000 teachers over the three-year project period to improve spoken English skills for 1 million students currently attending low-fee private schools in India--incorporating classical liberal content in the curriculum.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Bhakti Patil Organization: Center for Civil Society Country: India
Project Name: Empowering 1 Million with Spoken English and Libertarian Values Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 3 years
Freedom in practice
University of Newcastle
Identifying Best Practice for Empowerment Through Entrepreneurial Freedom
Identifying Best Practice for Empowerment Through Entrepreneurial Freedom
It is often believed that those living in informal settlements, 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 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 that engenders well-being. 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.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
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 reducing dependence. Third, by spreading best practice, it will promote amongst communities, 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.
Grant Details
Organization: University of Newcastle Country: India Project Name: Identifying Best Practice for Empowerment Through Entrepreneurial Freedom
Currently, there is no reliable method to identify which patients with age-related clonal hematopoiesis (ARCH) will develop acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). Based on preliminary data, the investigators propose to identify and treat high-risk individuals with ARCH, before they have developed the disease.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Prof. Liran Shlush Organization: Weizmann Institute of Science Country: Israel
Project Name: Early diagnosis and treatment of pre-leukemia Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 5 years
Expansion of a proven model of skills training for employment
Jobs are being disrupted by technology at an unprecedented pace. While routine and structured work decline (such as administrative or manufacturing jobs), complex jobs that require social and complex problem-solving skills increase. Traditional education is no longer keeping up with the pace of change in the workplace. Bagosphere is a provider of short-term, career-focused educational programs for disadvantaged youth to go from poverty to transformational careers. By deconstructing what employers need, Bagosphere runs immersive, experiential training programs and connects students directly with employers. The unique teaching method combines communication, mindsets & socio-emotional skills, preparing them for employment in the thriving Business Process Outsourcing Industry (e.g. Call Centers) in the Philippines. With the training model, they have achieved a 95% employment rate in 2017 and their students were able to increase their income by 200300% if previously not formally employed and by 20-50% if previously employed. RTF is supporting the replication of the model in two new geographical locations in the Philippines aiming to reach 1000 students over the three years of project duration.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Zhihan Lee Organization: BagoSphere Impact Limited Country: Philippines
Project Name: Expansion of a proven model of skills training for employment Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 3 years
ASCOLT STUDY (phase III): Aspirin as an Adjuvant Therapy for Colorectal Cancer
This phase III trial will assess the effectiveness of daily aspirin against placebo control in stage 2 and 3 patients. This is an international collaboration led by researchers in Singapore, UK, and Australia, and involves 50 sites in 11 countries across Asia.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Prof. Toh Han Chong Organization: National Cancer Centre Singapore Country: Singapore
Project Name: ASCOLT STUDY (phase III): Aspirin as an Adjuvant Therapy for Colorectal Cancer Funding Year: 2016 Project period: 5 years
First-ever classical liberal economics textbook for Singaporean students
The Adam Smith Center, in order to provide educational opportunities to local pre-university students in Singapore, is publishing a new Economics textbook that will marry economics concepts to local Singapore economic trends. They will differentiate themselves by developing a textbook that is written from a market-oriented perspective with a high degree of visual design.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Bryan Chaeng Organization: Adam Smith Institute LLP Country: Singapore
Project Name: First ever classical liberal economics textbook for Singaporean students Funding Year: 2020 Project period: 9 month
Room to Read believes world change starts with educated children and education contributes to solving the worlds biggest problems poverty, conflict, disease, intolerance, inequality, and exploitation. However, quality education remains out of reach for millions of children around the world. Girls in particular are often disadvantaged when it comes to education.
With its long term holistic approach that goes beyond academics, Room to Reads Girls Education Program ensures that girls complete secondary school and develop the skills to negotiate key life decisions. It offers girls life skills training, female mentoring, and needs-based material support, while also increasing advocacy for girls' education among their parents, school staff, and communities. Essential to the program are social mobilizers (local women who are hired as mentors) who work with girls and their families to ensure that girls stay in school, participate in life skills activities, and navigate the challenges of adolescence with the ability to make their own life choices, both personally and professionally.
Rising Tide is supporting Room to Read's Girls Education Program in Vietnam and Laos and has supported 535 girls to participate in the program.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Catharina Baltus Organization: Verein Room to Read Country: South East Asia
Through this initiative, Bookbridge is fostering entrepreneurship in disadvantaged communities in Cambodia, Mongolia, and Sri Lanka through Start-up Camps. The camps are 4-month part-time experiential learning programs. Over three years they expect that those who go through the program will create a total of 1,200 jobs in their communities through new start-ups launched out of the Camps.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Carsten Rbsaamen Organization: Bookbridge Country: South East Asia
Project Name: South East Asia Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 3 years
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Eradicate Barriers to Economic…
Freedom in practice
Eradicate Barriers to Economic Freedom for Women
Although extensive data on economic freedom are 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 (i) identify projects that would improve their country's rank on the Gender Disparity Index and other indices, (ii) create and implement reform strategies, and (iii) publicize non-governmental solutions that help reduce poverty among women.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
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, as a means 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.
Grant Details
Organization: Atlas Network Country: United States of America Project Name: Eradicate Barriers to Economic Freedom for Women
Funding Areas
System Change Empowerment of Individuals
Poverty Stoplight USA Launch
Freedom in practice
Poverty Stoplight USA Launch
The Poverty Stoplight is a tool integrated in a technology platform that seeks to activate the potential of families and communities to lift themselves out of poverty. Poverty Stoplight is different from other anti-poverty programs in that: (i) the evaluations indicators are self-assessed by the individuals and families who participate, (ii) it includes measures of agency and organization, and (iii) it is designed to cover only those indicators that are actionable by the family members themselves. The goal of this two-year project is to establish Poverty Stoplight in the United States by recruiting, training, and supporting organizations that serve the poor and are ready to invest in an approach to poverty eradication based on self-sufficiency.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
Poverty is difficult to escape in part because welfare systems inadvertently serve to keep individuals dependent. Poverty Stoplight aims to help people participate in the market economy, rather than becoming trapped by programs that are overly bureaucratic and inefficient. The key of the approach is to trust families, respect low-income people, and know that they will make the decisions that will work best for them. Poverty Stoplight enhances the freedom of the individual to take advantage of opportunities to lift themselves out of poverty by enhancing their critical agency. To alleviate poverty in the US and beyond, it is essential that the discussion around poverty shift to the capabilities of the poor rather than their weaknesses.
Grant Details
Organization: Poverty Stoplight USA Country: United States of America Project Name: Poverty Stoplight USA
Funding Areas
Private Sector Solutions System Change Empowerment of Individuals Teaching Freedom
Employment for Men and Women…
Freedom in practice
Employment for Men and Women Experiencing Homelessness
Only 5% of all dollars allocated to fight homelessness are directed to jobs programs. Of the dollars that are allocated to jobs programs, the majority of assistance is not employer-driven. As the number of those experiencing homelessness has ballooned over the past 3 years, First Step Staffing has stepped in to bridge the gap between homelessness services focused on housing and more traditional workforce development programs that often leave the hardest to serve behind. They execute on this mission using an alternative staffing model that meets the hiring needs of local businesses while prioritizing staffing resources to those who have been most excluded from the workforce. They also provide supportive services, like transportation to and from work, that help people with obstacles to employment and advancement once in the workforce.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
As the majority of programs focus on providing the basic material needs of those currently experiencing homelessness, First Step Staffing takes a more foundational approach. Through equipping individuals with skills, resources, transportation services, and connections to potential employers, FSS is reducing the barriers that those experiencing homelessness must overcome in order to become the active protagonists in their own livesrather than the passive recipients of welfare.
When individuals are empowered to achieve greater personal prosperity through meaningful work, they are able to change both themselves and their communities through increased savings. The FSS approach achieves a multiplier-effect as individuals move from welfare recipients to working taxpayers in their own communities.
FSS aims to employ a minimum of 5,000 men and women annually paying more than $60 million in earned wages.
Grant Details
Organization: First Step Staffing Country: United States of America Project Name: Employment for Men and Women Experiencing Homelessness Grantee Name: Amelia Nickerson
Funding Areas
Private Sector Solutions System Change Empowerment of Individuals
Proposal for Franchising of…
Freedom in practice
Proposal for Franchising of Self-Reliance Clubs
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.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
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 Self-Reliance Clubs, the Freedom and Virtue Institute will connect children to practical projects that connect reward to accomplishments. As the SRC follows 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.
Grant Details
Organization: Freedom & Virtue Institute Country: United States of America Project Name: Proposal for Franchising of Self-Reliance Clubs
Funding Areas
Empowerment of Individuals Teaching Freedom
Communicating Liberty
Freedom in practice
Communicating Liberty
Communicating Liberty to Under-Serviced Audiences
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Richard Lorenc Organization: Foundation for Economic Education Country: USA
Project Name: Communicating Liberty to Under-Serviced Audiences Funding Year: Project period: 2 years
Empower Americans
Freedom in practice
Empower Americans
Urgent Policy Solutions to Empower Americans
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Kristiana Bolzmann Organization: State Policy Network Country: USA
Project Name: Urgent Policy Solutions to Empower Americans Funding Year: Project period: 1 year
Entrepreneurship Mini Quest…
Freedom in practice
Entrepreneurship Mini Quest Curriculum
Acton Children's Business Fair: Entrepreneurship Mini Quest Curriculum
Grant Details
Grantee Name: David Kirby Organization: Acton Academy Foundation Country: USA
Project Name: Acton Children's Business Fair: Entrepreneurship Mini Quest Curriculum Funding Year: Project period: 3 years
AFF Writing Fellows Program
Freedom in practice
AFF Writing Fellows Program
AFF Writing Fellows Program
In 2014, Americas Future Foundation (AFF) launched a program to train, mentor, and assist emerging writers in becoming lifelong advocates for classical liberal ideas in the media. The project aims to have reached 360 young writers over the project period, who are expected to publish approx. 1,500 pieces per year.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Cindy Cerquitella Organization: America's Future Foundation Country: USA
Project Name: AFF Writing Fellows Program Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 3 years
Unleashing Prosperity
Freedom in practice
Unleashing Prosperity
Unleashing Prosperity by Cutting State Regulations
US states have dozens of bureaucratic agencies generating new regulations, but few review the thousands of regulations that are already in place. Over time, these regulations have accumulated into vast codes too complex for people to navigate. Rules that are costly, complicated, ineffective, or outdated remain in force, stifling economic growth. Unlike the federal government, state agencies are not typically required to conduct benefit-cost analysis prior to rule-making, and they internalize few costs from creating increasingly more complex and onerous requirements. Over the last few years, scholars from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University have researched successful efforts to repeal regulations to limit the compliance burden on citizens and businesses, and have assisted policymakers in seven US states in starting red tape reduction initiatives. These efforts are assisted by RegData, a Mercatus-developed software program that rapidly analyzes immense regulatory codes in ways not previously possible. Mercatus is using RegData to produce academic studies that give a snapshot of a states regulatory burden. The vision for this project is that armed with Mercatus groundbreaking research, states will reduce the burden of their regulatory requirements and create improved environments for economic growth, income mobility, and individual freedom.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: James Broughel Organization: Mercatus Center Country: United States
Project Name: Unleashing Prosperity by Cutting State Regulations Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 2 years
Entreprneurship development
Freedom in practice
Entreprneurship development
Entreprneurship development and 21st century skills
Memphis, Tennessee has a storied history of segregation, institutional racism, and policies that have disenfranchised people of color for centuries.
At one time, Memphis, Tennessee was the lifeblood of the slave trade that dominated the economy of the South. Economic growth for people of color in the city is largely limited. Less than 1% of all business revenue in the city of Memphis comes from businesses owned by African Americans and Latinx individuals, yet 70% of the population belongs to these demographics. The poverty rate for African American children within the city is a staggering 52.2%. The 25 largest African-American owned businesses in Memphis collectively employ 1,200 people in a city with a labor force of over 400,000. The wealth gap between white families and black families decreases from a factor of 13 to a factor of 3 when a black family has a business owner. Furthermore, black business owners net worth is on average 12 times higher than black non-business owners.
LITE has produced a model that effectively develops key 21st-century skills in minority youth, giving them the skills to lift themselves out of poverty and stimulate their local economy through business solutions. We differ from other self-empowerment entrepreneurship programs in two key ways: First, we teach practical application, not abstract concepts. Many programs teach students theoretical solutions to problems and miss the key experiential learning, and self-empowerment that comes with creation and execution. Through LITE, students launch a business that can generate revenue and demonstrate an ROI. 17% of our Innovation Fellows from our first cohort (2013) are still generating revenue from businesses they launched through our High School Finalist program six years ago. Secondly, we provide long-term support that maximizes the potential for success. Most youth programs offer interventions up until the age of 18 or through interventions lasting less than six months. According to a study by Richard Fairlie with the GATES experiment, entrepreneurial education programs have no long-term effect on business success when those interventions are less than six months. Our pipeline provides eight years of support for each student with targeted programming aimed at building the next generation of self-empowered workers, entrepreneurs, and leaders.
Grant Details
Organization: Let's Innovate through Education Country: USA Project Name: Entreprneurship development and 21st century skills Grantee Name: Pamela Urquieta
Funding Areas Empowerment of Individuals
Communicating Liberty to…
Freedom in practice
Communicating Liberty to Under-Serviced Audiences
Today there are over 50 million youth aged 14 to 26 in Americaover 16 million are African American or Hispanicand there are tens of millions more youth in Latin America and Spain. Traditionally, this audiencenearly one-third in the U.S.--has been under-engaged by free-market-oriented organizations. FEE plans to employ a multifaceted outreach strategy through their new Revolution of One and FEE en Espanol programs that engages these audiences through media, in-person workshops, online learning, accessible resources, and community partnerships to educate and inspire young African Americans, and Hispanics to prefer freedom over coercion as their chosen method for social change and economic progress. Through this FEE is working to drive a generational shift away from faith in politicians toward a freer, more prosperous, and more peaceful society achieved through the adoption of and a life-long belief in the freedom philosophy."
Contribution to enhancing freedom
Traditionally, African American and Hispanic audiences have not been widely reached by free-market think tanks. Through various educational avenues employed by FEE, new audiences will be introduced to the principles of freedom in new, creative ways. FEE aims to engage 10% of the African American and Hispanic youth population in the United States which they expect to create a widespread shift in the way young people view freedomrendering large government programs, in the long-term, unattractive.
Over the course of the two-year project, FEE hopes to engage more than 39 million young people through their Revolution of One and FEE en Espanol programs. This will inspire a new generation of youth as they are empowered to see themselves as the active protagonists of their own lives.
Grant Details
Organization: Lithuanian Free Market Institute Country: Lithuania Project Name: #FreedomTalks
Funding Areas
Empowerment of Individuals Teaching Freedom
+8
Relapsed or Refractory Acute…
Clinical Cancer Research
Relapsed or Refractory Acute Myeloid Leukemia
A Phase I/II Trial of 8-Chloro-adenosine in Relapsed or Refractory Acute Myeloid Leukemia
This phase I/II trial will assess the safety and efficacy of 8-Chloro-Adenosine (8-Cl-Ado), a new therapeutic small molecule that is preferentially toxic to cancer as opposed to normal cells. It has shown potent anticancer activity against leukemia cells and has been very well tolerated in an earlier human clinical trial evaluating safety for different blood cancer.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Steven Rosen Organization: City of Hope Country: USA
Project Name: A Phase I/II Trial of 8-Chloro-adenosine in Relapsed or Refractory Acute Myeloid Leukemia Funding Year: 2015 Project period: 6 years
A Phase I/II Trial of…
Clinical Cancer Research
A Phase I/II Trial of 8-Chloro-adenosine
A Phase I/II Trial of 8-Chloro-adenosine in Relapsed or Refractory Acute Myeloid Leukemia
The central hypothesis is that CAR T cells targeting cell surface antigens will eradicate diffuse tumor cell populations. This hypothesis will be tested in phase I clinical trial in 11 patients over a duration of four years. The study will assess the safety and determine the recommended phase II dosing plan for loco-regional administration in 3 routes.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Christine Brown Organization: City of Hope Country: USA
Project Name: A Phase I/II Trial of 8-Chloro-adenosine in Relapsed or Refractory Acute Myeloid Leukemia Funding Year: 2017 Project period: 4 years
Development of Alternative…
Clinical Cancer Research
Development of Alternative Ablation Device
Development of Alternative Ablation Device for Cervical Pre-Cancer Treatment
The trial aims to demonstrate that the cure rates of the CryoPen and the thermoablator are non-inferior to the cure rate of CO2-based cryotherapy; determine patient acceptability of each therapy type by actively assessing side effects and monitoring pain levels related to treatment; evaluate screening methods one-year post-ablation by comparing the sensitivity of low-cost HPV screening tests, HPV DNA genotyping tests, cytology, and biopsies.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Miriam Cremer Organization: Cleveland Clinic Foundation Country: USA
Project Name: Development of Alternative Ablation Device for Cervical Pre-Cancer Treatment Funding Year: 2017 Project period: 4 years
Bedside diagnosis of bloodstream…
Clinical Cancer Research
Bedside diagnosis of bloodstream infections
Bedside diagnosis of bloodstream infections (BSI) in leukemia
A novel diagnostic method, activated filter paper, uses cellulose as a cheap and abundant resource to immobilize DNA probes. Combined with iron-oxide bead detection, the natural brown color of the beads allows detection by the naked eye.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Prof. Peter Gyarmati Organization: The Board of Trustees of The University of Illinois Country: USA
Project Name: Bedside diagnosis of bloodstream infections (BSI) in leukemia Funding Year: 2017 Project period: 3 years
Anti-Osteoclast Therapy
Clinical Cancer Research
Anti-Osteoclast Therapy
Anti-Osteoclast Therapy as an Adjuvant in Treatment of Chondrosarcoma
This is a single-arm, open-label phase Ib clinical trial. 15 patients will receive 1 dose of zoledronic acid, followed by surgery 21 days after this dose. A second dose will be given 3 weeks after the surgery and patients will be monitored thereafter for 5 years.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Varun Monga Organization: University of Iowa Country: USA
Project Name: Anti-Osteoclast Therapy as an Adjuvant in Treatment of Chondrosarcoma Funding Year: 2017 Project period: 3 years
Liquid biopsies in early…
Clinical Cancer Research
Liquid biopsies in early diagnosis
Liquid biopsies in early diagnosis of colorectal cancer
Based on recent developments by the team, this study aims to investigate the potential of using liquid biopsies for the early detection of colorectal cancer.
Albeit liquid biopsies have been studied for some time, the novelty in the proposed approach lies in the ability to examine DNA methylation changes in addition to mutations in cancer genes. This combined method has the potential to advance plasma cfDNA (circulating free DNA) testing.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Filip Janku Organization: The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Country: USA
Project Name: Liquid biopsies in early diagnosis of colorectal cancer Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 2 years
Optimizing Neurofeedback
Clinical Cancer Research
Optimizing Neurofeedback
Optimizing Neurofeedback to Treat CIPN
This project proposes to determine the optimal dose for the number of neurofeedback sessions to alleviate Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) and examine predictors to determine who will best respond to neurofeedback using EEG brain signatures.
Grantee Name: Dr. Sarah Prinsloo Organization: The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Country: USA
Project Name: Optimizing Neurofeedback to Treat CIPN Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 4 years
ECHO Telementoring
Clinical Cancer Research
ECHO Telementoring
ECHO Telementoring to Improve Quality Palliative Care in Underserved Areas
Based upon preliminary data, this study aims to transform palliative care in the low-middle countries of India, Kenya, Ghana, and South Africa and elevate the standard of care in these regions.
Grantee Name: Dr. Yennu Sriran Organization: The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Country: USA
Project Name: ECHO Telementoring to Improve Quality Palliative Care in Underserved Areas Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 2 years
+8
Career Pathway Grant in Symptom…
Clinical Cancer Research
Career Pathway Grant in Symptom Management
Currently, clinical studies within the symptom management focus area are faced with two challenges: a lack of young researchers and not enough high-quality clinical trials that address disease and treatment burden. Conquer Cancer, the ASCO Foundation, and Rising Tide Foundation for Clinical Cancer Research (RTFCCR) have partnered to establish the Conquer Cancer Rising Tide Foundation for Clinical Cancer Research 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 grant program supports young physician-scientists at a critical time in their academic careers during their transition from training to principal investigators, and as they begin setting up labs of their own. Using a two-pronged approach, researchers will receive funding to conduct high-quality research in line with career progression requirements to keep them in the field, and also to a mentor to ensure that rigorous and compelling data is generated in line with requirements for clinical trials.
The support of preliminary data collection will enable the investigators to apply for future funding in topics with significant patient benefit. Through this grant program, these individuals will become leaders in academic research and inspire future generations of physician-scientists.
Grant Details
Applicant Name: Nancy Daly Organization: Conquer Cancer Country: US/Europe
Project Name: Career Pathway Grant in Symptom Management
Career Pathway
Clinical Cancer Research
Career Pathway
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: USA
Project Name: Career Pathway Grants in Symptom Management Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 4 years
Epigenetic therapy to sensitize…
Clinical Cancer Research
Epigenetic therapy to sensitize patients
Epigenetic therapy to sensitize patients with advanced NSCLC to chemotherapy and immunotherapy targeting reversal of immune tolerance
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.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Stephen Baylin and Dr. Julie Brahmer Organization: John Hopkins University Country: USA
Project Name: Epigenetic therapy to sensitize patients with advanced NSCLC to chemotherapy and immunotherapy targeting reversal of immune tolerance Funding Year: 2015 Project period: 6 years
Neurocognitive & Quality of Life…
Clinical Cancer Research
Neurocognitive & Quality of Life (QOL)
Neurocognitive & Quality of Life (QOL) in proton/photon pediatric brain tumor survivors
This retrospective study seeks to directly compare the long-term health outcomes between two pediatric brain tumor survivor cohorts treated with proton and photon radiotherapy. This study involves a direct comparison of neurocognitive and health-related quality of life outcomes among brain tumor survivors treated with proton radiation at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH, Boston, MA, USA) and survivors treated with photon radiation at Emory University/Childrens Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA, Atlanta, GA, USA). While radiation is an essential component of curative treatment, it can also contribute to a variety of late adverse health effects. This research will guide future radiation treatment decisions and advocate for access to the radiation technology that maximizes the quality of survivorship in childhood brain tumor patients.
Grantee Name: Dr. Torunn Yock Organization: Massachusetts General Hospital Country: USA
Project Name: Neurocognitive & Quality of Life (QOL) in proton/photon pediatric brain tumor survivors Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 5 years
CD38-targeted immuno-PET
Clinical Cancer Research
CD38-targeted immuno-PET
CD38-targeted immuno-PET imaging to prevent myeloma relapse
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.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Ola Landgren Organization: University of Miami Country: USA
Project Name: CD38-targeted immuno-PET imaging to prevent myeloma relapse Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 4 years
Thiamine for Delirium Prevention
Clinical Cancer Research
Thiamine for Delirium Prevention
Thiamine for Delirium Prevention in Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation
Examine the effects of high dose IV thiamine as prophylaxis for delirium. Evaluate its effects on quality of life and neuropsychiatric sequelae of delirium.
High doses of IV thiamine have been studied in oncologic populations with promising results when used as a treatment strategy for delirium, but it is generally employed late in the course of delirium and it remains unknown if it can mitigate the long-term impact of delirium on cancer patients.
The project proposes a double-blind randomized controlled trial (RCT) with a total of 60 patients.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Zev Nakamura Organization: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Country: USA
Project Name: Thiamine for Delirium Prevention in Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Funding Year: 2017 Project period: 3 years
Phase 2 Study of PARP inhibition
Clinical Cancer Research
Phase 2 Study of PARP inhibition
Phase 2 Study of PARP inhibition and Anti-PD-L1 Therapy in BRCAmt TNBC
The clinical trial to which this proposal is attached is a randomized, open-label phase II trial exploring the effects of the anti-PD-L1 human monoclonal antibody atezolizumab with the PARP inhibitor Veliparib either alone or in combination in 100 patients with BRCA1/2 TNBC.
This grant will evaluate the mutational load, neoantigens, and anti-tumor immune effects of PARP inhibition and immune-stimulation and determine the possible connection between the biomarkers and patient performance after treatment.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Prof. Patricia LoRusso Organization: Yale University Country: USA
Project Name: Phase 2 Study of PARP inhibition and Anti-PD-L1 Therapy in BRCAmt TNBC Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 2 years
Phase 2 Study of the PARP…
Clinical Cancer Research
Phase 2 Study of the PARP Inhibitor Olaparib
Phase 2 Study of the PARP Inhibitor Olaparib in IDH1/2-mutant solid tumors
To conduct a comprehensive series of correlative studies in tumor biopsies to identify which patients with IDH1/2 tumor mutations respond best to the DNA repair inhibitor, Olaparib.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Prof. Bindra Ranjit Organization: Yale University Country: USA
Project Name: Phase 2 Study of the PARP Inhibitor Olaparib in IDH1/2-mutant solid tumors Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 3 years
+2
Impact Litigation Project
Freedom in practice
Impact Litigation Project
Human Rights Foundation - Impact Litigation
In authoritarian regimes, legal proceedings are a mere formality and courts are enforcers of discretionary rules used to harass, jail, convict, and impose arbitrary sanctions against critics of the regime. Those imprisoned for criticizing the regime have little recourse, as any judicial remedies involve appealing to the government-controlled courts that imprisoned them, to begin with. Dissidents, journalists, and public intellectuals operating in authoritarian regimes face this reality daily and find themselves targeted by governments and public officials who use criminal charges that bear heavy fines or prison sentences as a penalty for exercising basic freedoms. HRF is fighting the practices of these regimes by exposing their human rights abuses and submitting emblematic cases of arbitrarily imprisoned dissidents and pro-democracy activists to the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD), the most prestigious semi-judicial body of the United Nations system. Over the course of this three-year project, HRF is planning to file 30 cases with UNWGAD.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Human Rights Foundation - Impact Litigation Organization: Human Rights Foundation Country: USA (Global)
Project Name: Human Rights Foundation - Impact Litigation Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 3 years
Libertarian Principles
Freedom in practice
Libertarian Principles
Libertarian Principles in Social Mobility Policy
Through this project, Archbridge Institute has commissioned a study to introduce classical liberal thinking into the academic debate around social mobility, which currently focuses strongly on equality and not opportunity. The study will be composed of 10 research pieces from Latin America and Europe. The publication will be distributed in print as well as through events with relevant institutions in the US, Latin America, Europe.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Gonzalo Schwarz Organization: Archbridge Institute Country: USA
Project Name: Libertarian Principles in Social Mobility Policy Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 2 years
Disadvantaged Students…
Freedom in practice
Disadvantaged Students Transportation
Markets and Government Services: Disadvantaged Students Transportation
The project goal is to implement markets and demonstrate the benefits where markets are seldom employed. The initial focus has been the procurement of government services, one of the fastest-growing areas of government. Heavily bureaucratic, administrative allocation processes are universally regarded as the only option.
Markets are not used because no one knows how to organize them to solve the underlying social problems. The research strategy is to choose a simple, special case to serve as an exemplar of many cases, and to craft and implement market modifications of the administrative processes used. The strategy addresses why markets have not automatically emerged and what dimensions of the regulations might be replaced by special forms of markets and new technologies.
The initial effort is focused on administrative procedures used for procuring school transportation for disadvantaged children. The allocation issues involve economic environments theoretically identified as common causes of poor (or impossible) market performance: public goods, service quality issues, coordination complexity, non-convexities, the nonexistence of equilibrium, poor information, and thin markets. The laboratory experimental and theory-guided design involves user preference integration, route designs that clearly define services to be procured, auction design that supports competition for coordinated service provisions, experimental testing, and implementation.
The research demonstrates that markets can be used. A new market-based process produced improved transportation services for the children (e.g, 53% travel time reduction) for the same cost, support from teachers and families as well as upper levels of administration and government. Robustness analysis (a form of external and internal validity test) demonstrates close relationships among theory, experiments, and actual field performance.
This program is ideal for economists with an interest in harnessing the energy and motivation of private enterprises to solve social problems. By nature, social problems emerge in areas where social, political, and legal arrangements have not evolved as support for private enterprise. Solutions can involve conflicts among deeply held scientific beliefs and philosophies. Resolutions can require new technologies, new forms of markets, demonstrations that can require basic science, technical advances, and political skills. The Rising Tide Foundation program is designed to support such work.
Organization: Caltech Country: USA Project Name: Markets and Government Services: Disadvantaged Students Transportation Grantee Name: Charles Plott
Funding Areas Private Sector Solutions
+6
Empowering Women and Communities…
Freedom in practice
Empowering Women and Communities through Property Rights
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.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
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).
Grant Details
Organization: Landesa Country: India Project Name: Empowering Women and Communities through Property Rights
Funding Areas
Private Sector Solutions System Change Empowerment of Individuals
Enhancing Freedom Through…
Freedom in practice
Enhancing Freedom Through Quality
Enhancing Freedom Through Quality Improvements in Low-cost Private Schools
Through this project, James Tooley aims to establish a financially sustainable model for international teacher certification in the low-cost private school sector in India and Nigeria, with the potential to scale to more countries in Southern Africa and South Asia. The project builds on years of research and addresses one of the key challenges that low-cost private schools face--teacher certification and quality of teaching. The project will also add a module on economic freedom to the curriculum which will help to spread classical liberal ideas to untapped, new audiences, in Nigeria, India, and other areas as the project expands.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: James Tooley Organization: University of Buckingham Country: India & Nigeria
Project Name: Enhancing Freedom Through Quality Improvements in Low-cost Private Schools Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 4 years
Identifying Best Practice for…
Freedom in practice
Identifying Best Practice for Empowerment
Identifying Best Practice for Empowerment Through Entrepreneurial Freedom
The team at the University of Newcastle will employ original research to identify private, bottom-up, collective action solutions for the provision of basic services in slums around the world that are widely ignored by governments and large aid agencies. In particular, the team will research the service provision activities of Delhi slum inhabitants related to health, education, water, waste management, and transportation. They will use innovative methods to disseminate results to the community, national and international audiences to influence policies and provide those delivering services with examples of best practices for community development.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Pauline Dixon Organization: University of Newcastle Country: India
Project Name: Identifying Best Practice for Empowerment Through Entrepreneurial Freedom Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 4 years
Scholarships for Low-Income
Freedom in practice
Scholarships for Low-Income
Scholarships for Low-Income, High Potential Indian Girls
This grant will allow 214 girls over 3 years to attend the Avasara girls school which was founded in 2015 with the aim of developing the leadership potential of India's brightest young women, proving the simple theory: "When you give a girl, regardless of her economic status, the highest 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."
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Roopa Purushotaman Organization: Leadership Foundation for India Country: India
Project Name: Scholarships for Low-Income, High Potential Indian Girls Funding Year: 2020 Project period: 3 years
Spoken English and Libertarian…
Freedom in practice
Spoken English and Libertarian Values
Empowering 1 Million with Spoken English and Libertarian Values
This project from the Centre for Civil Society addresses two pervasive challenges in Indian society: (1) Poor knowledge of English, particularly in disadvantaged communities. (2) A prevalent bias towards Nehruvian socialism. The project aims to train 5,000 teachers over the three-year project period to improve spoken English skills for 1 million students currently attending low-fee private schools in India--incorporating classical liberal content in the curriculum.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Bhakti Patil Organization: Center for Civil Society Country: India
Project Name: Empowering 1 Million with Spoken English and Libertarian Values Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 3 years
Identifying Best Practice for…
Freedom in practice
Photo: University of Newcastle
Identifying Best Practice for Empowerment Through Entrepreneurial Freedom
It is often believed that those living in informal settlements, 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 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 that engenders well-being. 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.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
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 reducing dependence. Third, by spreading best practice, it will promote amongst communities, 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.
Grant Details
Organization: University of Newcastle Country: India Project Name: Identifying Best Practice for Empowerment Through Entrepreneurial Freedom
Funding Areas
Private Sector Solutions System Change
Liberty in Action
Freedom in practice
Liberty in Action
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 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.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
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 in order 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.
Grant Details
Organization: Universidad Francisco Marroquin Country: Guatemala Project Name: Liberty in Action
Funding Areas
Private Sector Solutions System Change Empowerment of Individuals Teaching Freedom
Scholarship Program
Freedom in practice
Scholarship Program
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. Fundacin Educacin, 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 Fundacin Educacin 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.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
Access to quality education is foundational for advancing freedom and prosperity. Through this scholarship program, Fundacin Educacin 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, Fundacin Educacin 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.
Grant Details
Organization: Fundacion Educacion Country: Latin America Project Name: Scholarship Program Grantee Name: Isabel Stirnimann
Funding Areas
Private Sector Solutions Empowerment of Individuals
+3
The Wildlife Tourism College of…
Freedom in practice
Photo: Mara Predator Conservation Programme
The Wildlife Tourism College of Maasai Mara
The Wildlife Tourism College (WTC) in Kenyas 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.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
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. results in socio-economic development through participation in the tourism industry and conservation of the biodiversity and wildlife in PCA.
Grant Details
Organization: Basecamp Explorer Foundation Country: Kenya Project Name: The Wildlife Tourism College of Maasai Mara
Funding Areas
Private Sector Solutions System Change Empowerment of Individuals
Teach a Child
Freedom in practice
Teach a Child
Teach a Child - Africa, Education for Life. Scholarships for AIDS orphans
Teach a Child Africa (TaC) was founded in 2007 by two Kenyan women, Pamela Steele and Margaret Oriaro, both of whom lost many relatives to the AIDS pandemic. Its mission is to provide access to good quality secondary education to the most talented orphans from AIDS-stricken Western Kenya, particularly from the province of Nyanza, where HIV/AIDS has left close to 500,000 children fully orphaned. Rising Tide is financing 20 4-year scholarships for high-school education.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Simone Haeberli Organization: Verein Teach a Child - Africa Country: Kenya
Project Name: Teach a Child - Africa, Education for Life. Scholarships for AIDS orphans Funding Year: 2017 Project period: 5 years
Accelerating DDD’s Cloud…
Freedom in practice
Accelerating DDD’s Cloud Computing
Accelerating DDDs Cloud Computing Training and Employment
Digital Divide Data (DDD) is a non-profit, social enterprise committed to building long-term and scalable solutions to youth unemployment.
In Cambodia, Laos, and Kenyacountries where DDD operates the biggest challenge is the lack of access to quality jobs in the formal sector. Because of low educational attainment and inadequate professional skills, the underserved youth in these countries often find themselves unemployed or employed in the informal sector. Moreover, they remain in the intergenerational poverty that keeps them from escaping subsistence living. In response, DDD pioneered the Impact Sourcing model as a means to provide youth with access to higher education, professional skills development, and formal employment in the IT sector.
In 2017, DDD launched an ambitious initiative in Kenya to harness the potential of emerging technologies to upgrade its associates IT skills and thus boost their employability. DDD founded the Kenya Cloud Center of Excellence to train, employ, and certify youth in cloud computing services. After 6 months of intensive cloud training, associates become certified Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud engineers. An AWS Certification opens a whole new area of opportunity for DDD associates and is a credential they can continue to leverage throughout their careers.
With support from the Rising Tide Foundation, DDD is training 240 young Kenyans in cloud computing administration skills, who would otherwise not have access to specialized IT training and subsequent job opportunities. With their AWS training and certification, these youth are in-demand applicants in the job market due to the limited qualified labor pool in Kenya and worldwide for this particular technical skill. Upon their completion of the course, these youth are supported to secure jobs in the local IT industry and at DDD. Through DDDs Cloud Center of Excellence, youth in Kenya will enhance their employability in the tech sector and their ability to command a salary that can better help them support themselves and their families.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Jeremy Hockenstein Organization: Digital Data Divide Country: Kenya
Project Name: Accelerating DDDs Cloud Computing Training and Employment Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 2 years
+10
Refining risk stratification
Clinical Cancer Research
Refining risk stratification
New approach to refining risk stratification for colorectal cancer patients
This study seeks to harness deep learning methods to identify unique patterns across colorectal cancer (CRC) tumor slides for improved disease classification using 300,000 images collected already from over 6,000 patients.
This will provide a novel addition to classic histopathology and molecular methods for improved treatment and management of CRC.
Organization: Bern University Hospital Country: Switzerland
Project Name: New approach to refining risk stratification for colorectal cancer patients Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 3 years
A combined budding
Clinical Cancer Research
A combined budding
A combined budding / T-cell score in pT1 and stage II colorectal cancer(CRC)
Numerous immune cell types are found in CRC and have been linked to improved prognosis in CRC; especially T-cell infiltrates have been extensively examined as a protective biomarker. This proposal aims to build on existing know-how and utilize geometric deep learning methods to create a combined tumor budding/t-cell scoring system.
The results are expected to have a direct impact on patient management and contribute to more precise treatment strategies in patient subgroups.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr Heather Dawson Organization: Bern University Hospital Country: Switzerland
Project Name: A combined budding/T-cell score in pT1 and stage II colorectal cancer(CRC) Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 3 years
Voice quality after laser…
Clinical Cancer Research
Voice quality after laser surgery
Voice quality after laser surgery versus single vocal cord irradiation
This proposal seeks to compare single vocal cord irradiation (SVCI) to transoral CO2-laser microsurgical cordectomy (TLM) on patient-reported voice quality in a prospective randomized multi-center open-label comparative phase III study. This approach is promising to spare voice quality and thus improve quality of life.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Elicin Olgun Organization: Bern University Hospital Country: Switzerland
Project Name: Voice quality after laser surgery versus single vocal cord irradiation Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 5 years
Central Pathology Review
Clinical Cancer Research
Central Pathology Review
Central Pathology Review of FFPE tumor blocks within the POSITIVE study
The primary goal of the POSITIVE trial is to determine if a two-year interruption of endocrine therapy results in a significantly higher breast cancer event rate in comparison to a historically estimated control rate if no interruption occurred. Samples have been collected from 90 % of the patients enrolled in the POSITIVE clinical trial and funding is required for processing and analysis.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Giuseppe Viale Organization: International Breast Cancer Study Group Country: European (Located in Switzerland)
Project Name: Central Pathology Review of FFPE tumor blocks within the POSITIVE study Funding Year: 2020 Project period: 5 years
Improving accessibility of…
Clinical Cancer Research
Improving accessibility of clinical cancer trials
Improving the accessibility of clinical cancer trials results to patients
This project seeks to take the existing patient engagement program at SAKK to the next level, by including patients in the process from trial design through to dissemination of results upon completion of the trial. Indeed, within the framework of this project, with the support of the SAKK Patient Advisory Board, SAKK wants to make the results of the trials accessible to patients, their relatives, and the public. In this way, SAKK wants to make clinical cancer research transparent and accessible to everyone.
Grantee Name: Peter Durrer Organization: Swiss Group For Clinical Cancer Research (SAKK) Country: Switzerland
Project Name: Improving accessibility of clinical cancer trials result to patients Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 3 years
TAXIS
Clinical Cancer Research
TAXIS
TAXIS
Targeted axillary dissection (TAD) is a new technique that has recently been developed for patients with initially positive nodes undergoing systemic treatment before surgery. It combines the selective removal of nodes that are localized under imaging guidance.
The main objective of this trial is to show that TAD is non-inferior to conventional axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) in terms of disease-free survival of breast cancer patients
This phase III multicenter trial will be performed in Germany, Hungary, Italy, and Lithuania and is being led by the SAKK. This grant complements the awards for Prof. Weber in Switzerland and Prof. Fitzal in Austria. In total, RTFCCCR is providing funding for the enrollment of 1118 patients, 345 in Switzerland, 250 in Austria, 200 in Germany, 183 in Hungary, 100 in Lithuania, and 40 in Italy.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Prof. Walter Weber Organization: Swiss Group For Clinical Cancer Research (SAKK) Country: Switzerland
Project Name: TAXI Funding Year: 2020 Project period: 5 years
Extended pelvic lymph node…
Clinical Cancer Research
Extended pelvic lymph node dissection
Extended pelvic lymph node dissection vs. no pelvic lymph node dissection for intermediate- and high-risk prostate cancer
This phase III randomized trial proposes to study the benefits of performing extended pelvic lymph node dissection in a group of intermediate- and high-risk prostate cancer patients.
Grantee Name: Prof. Cyrill Rentsch Organization: University Hospital Basel Country: Switzerland
Project Name: Extended pelvic lymph node dissection vs. no pelvic lymph node dissection for intermediate- and high-risk prostate cancer Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 4 years
Reduced-intensity…
Clinical Cancer Research
Reduced-intensity radio-chemotherapy
SAKK 01/18: Reduced-intensity radio-chemotherapy for stage IIA/B seminoma
The main objective of this trial is to conduct a single-arm, multicenter, prospective phase II trial testing different combinations of radiotherapy and chemotherapy based on the results of the current RTFCCR grant to reduce long-term toxicity.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Alexandros Papachristofilou Organization: University Hospital Basel Country: Switzerland
Project Name: SAKK 01/18: Reduced intensity radio-chemotherapy for stage IIA/B seminoma Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 4 years
Walking Intervention for Symptom…
Clinical Cancer Research
Walking Intervention for Symptom Elimination
WISE STUDY: Walking Intervention for Symptom Elimination under aromatase inhibitor therapy
This multicenter, randomized, intervention is composed of a 24-week home-based walking program starting at the onset of AI treatment. This involves continuous moderate intensive walking outdoors for 30 mins, 5 days a week.
350 breast cancer survivors at the onset of adjuvant AI therapy will be randomized to the intervention or control group.
Grantee Name: Dr. Friedemann Honecker / N. Hoefnagels, MSc Organization: Tumor- und Brustzentrum, ZeTuP St. Gallen Country: Switzerland
Project Name: WISE STUDY: Walking Intervention for Symptom Elimination under aromatase inhibitor therapy Funding Year: 2017 Project period: 5 years
Correlative studies of an open…
Clinical Cancer Research
Correlative studies of an open label Phase 1 study
Correlative studies of an open-label Phase 1 study in diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG)
Based on previous studies and preliminary data, a phase 1 clinical trial of ONC206 is scheduled to start at the University Childrens Hospital Zurich. This trial is designed as a multi-arm trial based on different disease stages to enable the largest possible population to access ONC206. The proposal seeks funding for the correlative study of this clinical trial.
Verein "Respektierung & Wahrung Natürlicher Lernprozesse"
Time 4
Time4 is an educational program for young people after their obligatory school years that commences between the ages of 15 and 25 years old. It offers an alternative path to the occupational training offered by the Swiss government and provides young people with a framework in which they can discover, refine and deepen their interests and hence supports them in their intrinsically motivated development and learning processes.
Project Name: Time 4 Funding Year: Project period: 1 year
Futurepreneurship
Freedom in practice
Futurepreneurship
Futurepreneurship
Young Swiss professionals have increasingly the wish to be independent by starting an entrepreneurial venture and at the same time to have a positive impact in society through their professional work. The Swiss education landscape, however, offers only very limited opportunities for young professionals to gain first-hand experience in entrepreneurship and hence experience what it entails to be an entrepreneur. Most youths end up accepting employment with large corporations instead.
At the same time, there is a broad range of young and innovative companies in Switzerland with a business model targeting a positive impact in society, but lacking access to talented and skilled Millenials, due mainly to lack of time and experience in the hiring process.
Futurepreneurship supports young career starters (especially young women) through a training and internship program in their entrepreneurial career paths. Talented students experience the innovation sector through an internship of several months. An academy guides them through their work experience and enables them to acquire the necessary skill set for this work environment. The overall goal of Futurepreneurship is to transmit an innovative, entrepreneurial, and agile way of thinking to the participating students. To date, over 150 startups have participated and more than 200 jobs have been created. 85% of the interns stay either employed in the startup they worked for, in one of the participating organizations, or elsewhere in the innovation scene.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Annina Menzi Organization: Verein Futurepreneurship Country: Switzerland
Project Name: Futurepreneurship Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 2 years
Phase III randomized clinical…
Clinical Cancer Research
Phase III randomized clinical trial
Phase III randomized clinical trial for stage III epithelial ovarian cancer - OVHIPEC-2
This clinical trial is a multi-center phase III study including 8 countries and 538 patients. This study is led by the Netherlands Cancer Institute and the funding requested is to cover the cost of pharmacovigilance.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Berit Mosgaard Organization: Copenhagen University Hospital Country: Denmark
Project Name: Phase III randomized clinical trial for stage III epithelial ovarian cancer - OVHIPEC-2 Funding Year: 2020 Project period: 4 years
Targeting eIF4A in melanoma…
Clinical Cancer Research
Targeting eIF4A in melanoma persistent cells
Targeting eIF4A in melanoma persistent cells to prevent resistance
By combining BRAF+MEK inhibitors with eIF4A inhibitors the team has managed to kill the persistent cells and prevent the emergence of mutant resistant clones in vitro. The objective of this grant is to translate this strategy to the clinic.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Caroline Robert Organization: Gustave Roussy Institute Country: France
Project Name: Targeting eIF4A in melanoma persistent cells to prevent resistance Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 3 years
Aspirin as an Adjuvant Therapy
Clinical Cancer Research
Aspirin as an Adjuvant Therapy
ASCOLT STUDY (phase III): Aspirin as an Adjuvant Therapy for Colorectal Cancer
This phase III trial will assess the effectiveness of daily aspirin against placebo control in stage 2 and 3 patients. This is an international collaboration led by researchers in Singapore, UK, and Australia, and involves 50 sites in 11 countries across Asia.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Prof. Toh Han Chong Organization: National Cancer Centre Singapore Country: Singapore
Project Name: ASCOLT STUDY (phase III): Aspirin as an Adjuvant Therapy for Colorectal Cancer Funding Year: 2016 Project period: 5 years
First-ever classical liberal…
Freedom in practice
First-ever classical liberal economics textbook
First-ever classical liberal economics textbook for Singaporean students
The Adam Smith Center, in order to provide educational opportunities to local pre-university students in Singapore, is publishing a new Economics textbook that will marry economics concepts to local Singapore economic trends. They will differentiate themselves by developing a textbook that is written from a market-oriented perspective with a high degree of visual design.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Bryan Chaeng Organization: Adam Smith Institute LLP Country: Singapore
Project Name: First ever classical liberal economics textbook for Singaporean students Funding Year: 2020 Project period: 9 month
+3
Multimodal Intervention
Clinical Cancer Research
Multimodal Intervention
A randomized, open-label trial of a Multimodal Intervention versus standard care in cancer patients with Cachexia
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.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Prof. Marie Fallon Organization: University of Edinburgh Country: UK
Project Name: A randomized, open-label trial of a Multimodal Intervention versus standard care in cancer patients with Cachexia Funding Year: 2016 Project period: 5 years
Prevention of myeloid cancers
Clinical Cancer Research
Prevention of myeloid cancers
Prevention of myeloid cancers by understanding their pre-clinical evolution
This study will assess the genetic sequencing of stored blood samples from two patient groups to increase the knowledge about the pathway and changes cells suffer from pre-leukemia to leukemia, supporting the development of novel clinical concepts. Based on preliminary data, the investigators propose to identify and treat high-risk individuals with ARCH, before they have developed the disease.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Prof. George Vassiliou Organization: Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute Country: UK
Project Name: Prevention of myeloid cancers by understanding their pre-clinical evolution Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 2 years
Project Name: Treatment of pediatric neuroblastoma Funding Year: 2014 Project period: 5 years
Early diagnosis
Clinical Cancer Research
Early diagnosis
Early diagnosis and treatment of pre-leukemia
Currently, there is no reliable method to identify which patients with age-related clonal hematopoiesis (ARCH) will develop acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). Based on preliminary data, the investigators propose to identify and treat high-risk individuals with ARCH, before they have developed the disease.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Prof. Liran Shlush Organization: Weizmann Institute of Science Country: Israel
Project Name: Early diagnosis and treatment of pre-leukemia Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 5 years
Project Name: Freedom Talks Funding Year: Project period: 2 years
Think Tanks for Labor Market…
Freedom in practice
Think Tanks for Labor Market Reforms
Think Tanks for Labor Market Reforms in Central and Eastern Europe
As a response to over-regulation in labour markets, the Lithuanian Free Market Institute (LFMI), in cooperation with five prominent classical liberal think-tanks, is working on creating a unique cross-country research on labor market regulation and the repercussions of existing government interventions on individual liberty, labour markets and employment.
Project Name: Think Tanks for Labor Market Reforms in Central and Eastern Europe Funding Year: 2017 Project period: 3 years
#FreedomTalks
Freedom in practice
#FreedomTalks
The Lithuanian Free Market Institute boasts an impressive record of implementing projects and programs within the Lithuanian context and beyond. They aim to achieve similar success with their new #FreedomTalks initiative. This initiative will engage vulnerable mid to late teenage populations from Lithuanias ethnic minority and disadvantaged communities in cutting-edge multimedia economic and civic learning as well as live youth debates designed to instill in the rising generation a belief in freedom and the creative human capacity necessary to develop into active moral agents. This program will build upon LFMIs international award-winning textbook Economics in 31 Hours and interdisciplinary course A Citizen in 31 Hours.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
The #FreedomTalks initiative recognizes that free moral agents, acting on behalf of themselves and their communities, are a necessary condition for prosperity and human flourishing. Through empowering local communities, amplifying voices of those who are often marginalized, #FreedomTalks inspires the rising generation to take responsibility for their own lives.
Over the course of the project, LFMI hopes to influence 1200+ mid to late teenagers from ethnic minority and disadvantaged communities and initiate 30+ #FreedomTalks chapters that run independently. As a part of the project, they will impact many more through live online quizzes, social media campaigns, and their online multimedia platform.
The #FreedomTalks initiative is exercising a promising approach to mindset change in disadvantaged communities that will help individuals move from seeing themselves as passive recipients to active participants.
Grant Details
Organization: Lithuanian Free Market Institute Country: Lithuania Project Name: #FreedomTalks
Funding Areas
Empowerment of Individuals Teaching Freedom
+2
Investing in Agricultural…
Freedom in practice
Investing in Agricultural Enterprises
Investing in Agricultural Enterprises to Build Rural Prosperity in Colombia
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Jessica Lee Organization: Root Capital Country: Colombia
Project Name: Investing in Agricultural Enterprises to Build Rural Prosperity in Colombia Funding Year: Project period: 3 years
Creative Capactiy Building
Freedom in practice
Creative Capactiy Building
Creative Capactiy Building with Mining Communities in Colombia
To promote safer, healthier, and more equitable participation in regional mining economies in Antioquia, Colombia, MIT D-Lab, with support from the Rising Tide Foundation, has launched a 2-year program that trains Colombian artisanal and small-scale gold miners (ASGM) to develop sustainable solutions to ASGM-related health and environmental challenges. In addition, to promote economic diversification, the program enhanced the capacity for self-determination by sparking entrepreneurial efforts and yielding networks of businesses outside of the mining sector.
With over 15 years of inclusive innovation experience, MIT D-Lab has leveraged its in-house expertise and Colombian partnerships to implement a comprehensive program that generates opportunities for co-creating technology and business solutions with multiple stakeholders, including miners themselves.
The initiative utilizes a unique D-Lab methodology called Creative Capacity Building (CCB). Creative Capacity Building is an inclusive approach to human development that teaches a flexible method for problem-solving, exposing individuals to a framework that can be used to solve everyday challenges as well as provide concrete, hands-on skills to build and iterate technological and business solutions to those challenges.
Throughout the two-year program, miners will take part in a series of CCB trainings, both on technology and business design, and will have access to tailored coaching through local innovation spaces. This approach allows participants to become active solution-finders rather than passive recipients. The expected results include, but are not limited to, the creation of technologies and businesses that produce economic and health benefits for artisanal and small-scale miner participants. At the close of the project, MIT D-Lab and its local partners Universidad Nacional, Uniminuto, and C-Innova will have trained 250 small-scale gold miners in CCB for designing technology and businesses. These participants are drawn from two mining regions in Antioquia Colombia: Andes and Bajo Cauca (locations with very different approaches to mercury use in mining). Ultimately, MIT D-Lab anticipates that 10-20 new ventures will emerge from these trainings, developing and offering new technologies and approaches that improve the safety, health, and livelihoods of people living in these communities.
Grant Details
Organization: MIT D-Lab Country: Colombia Project Name: Creative Capactiy Building with Mining Communities in Colombia Grantee Name: Libby McDonald
Funding Areas Private Sector Solutions Empowerment of Individuals
+2
Khaya Lam Land Reform Project
Freedom in practice
Khaya Lam Land Reform Project
Khaya Lam Land Reform Project (2018-2021)
As a result of one of South Africas most notorious pieces of legislation, the 1913 Natives Land Act that was adopted more than a century ago, most black South Africans still do not have titles to property inland. To rectify the situation, the Free Market Foundation (FMF) launched the Khaya Lam project in 2013, which aims to bring about the titling of all the apartheid-era properties in which black families had and still have occupation rights, but not title deeds.
Khaya Lam believes that homeownership is an important key to wealth creation and economic empowerment; it is only through tradable title deeds that homeowners can reap the benefits of legally owning and occupying their homes. The Khaya Lam project is a significant step towards unleashing the dead capital accumulated under apartheid. Most importantly, it is a completely liberating action that will sweep away one of the last major vestiges of the iniquitous apartheid system the prohibition upon the ownership of land by black South Africans.
The primary purpose of the project is thus to redress the past injustices and restore dignity to families who were previously denied the fundamental right to own their own properties. The project continues the FMFs defense and promotion of property rights, especially for black South Africans. More specifically, this project puts into practice what the FMF has long espoused: property rights are a fundamental component of a free and prosperous society.
The total number of RTF transfers to date is 600 (100 in 2016 + 250 in 2018 + 250 in 1H2019). An additional 250 are in the process of being registered with the Deeds Registry and will be ready by December. Since the RTF sponsorship of 100 in 2016 and excluding the 1,500 RTF subsequently sponsored the project has raised approximately R5.2 million (approximately USD340,818).
Grant Details
Organization: Free Market Foundation Country: South Africa Project Name: Khaya Lam Land Reform Project (2018-2021) Grantee Name: Jasson Urbach
Funding Areas System Change
SAILI Scholarships
Freedom in practice
SAILI Scholarships
SAILI Scholarships
The SAILI Scholarship Programme routes talented students through functional parts of the Western Cape public high school system. The programme is optimized to support as many students as possible, without compromising on exceptional student performance. The emphasis is on the identification of talent, system analysis to determine high-value schools for placements, student monitoring, and ongoing support of scholarship holders. Besides paying for school fees, uniforms, and school supplies, SAILI also provides workshops and mentoring for subject selection, career selection, and transition to tertiary. Rising Tide is supporting 25 students throughout their high-school education.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Kathrine Morse Organization: SAILI Country: South Africa
Expansion of a proven model of skills training for employment
Jobs are being disrupted by technology at an unprecedented pace. While routine and structured work decline (such as administrative or manufacturing jobs), complex jobs that require social and complex problem-solving skills increase. Traditional education is no longer keeping up with the pace of change in the workplace. Bagosphere is a provider of short-term, career-focused educational programs for disadvantaged youth to go from poverty to transformational careers. By deconstructing what employers need, Bagosphere runs immersive, experiential training programs and connects students directly with employers. The unique teaching method combines communication, mindsets & socio-emotional skills, preparing them for employment in the thriving Business Process Outsourcing Industry (e.g. Call Centers) in the Philippines. With the training model, they have achieved a 95% employment rate in 2017 and their students were able to increase their income by 200300% if previously not formally employed and by 20-50% if previously employed. RTF is supporting the replication of the model in two new geographical locations in the Philippines aiming to reach 1000 students over the three years of project duration.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Zhihan Lee Organization: BagoSphere Impact Limited Country: Philippines
Project Name: Expansion of a proven model of skills training for employment Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 3 years
+2
Girls Education Project
Freedom in practice
Photo: Room to Read
Girls Education Project
Girls Education Project Laos & Vietnam
Room to Read believes world change starts with educated children and education contributes to solving the worlds biggest problems poverty, conflict, disease, intolerance, inequality, and exploitation. However, quality education remains out of reach for millions of children around the world. Girls in particular are often disadvantaged when it comes to education.
With its long term holistic approach that goes beyond academics, Room to Reads Girls Education Program ensures that girls complete secondary school and develop the skills to negotiate key life decisions. It offers girls life skills training, female mentoring, and needs-based material support, while also increasing advocacy for girls' education among their parents, school staff, and communities. Essential to the program are social mobilizers (local women who are hired as mentors) who work with girls and their families to ensure that girls stay in school, participate in life skills activities, and navigate the challenges of adolescence with the ability to make their own life choices, both personally and professionally.
Rising Tide is supporting Room to Read's Girls Education Program in Vietnam and Laos and has supported 535 girls to participate in the program.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Catharina Baltus Organization: Verein Room to Read Country: South East Asia
Through this initiative, Bookbridge is fostering entrepreneurship in disadvantaged communities in Cambodia, Mongolia, and Sri Lanka through Start-up Camps. The camps are 4-month part-time experiential learning programs. Over three years they expect that those who go through the program will create a total of 1,200 jobs in their communities through new start-ups launched out of the Camps.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Carsten Rbsaamen Organization: Bookbridge Country: South East Asia
Project Name: South East Asia Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 3 years
EGBOK Mission Training
Freedom in practice
EGBOK Mission Training
EGBOK Mission Training and Internship Training
Cambodia remains one of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia. The roots of the challenges Cambodia is facing today are based on its history. An estimated 1.7 million people, or nearly 20% of the countrys population, perished during the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975-79. The effects of the genocide are still apparent in modern times as Cambodia continues to rebuild its economy, education system, and social institutions.
EGBOK is offering vocational training and employment opportunities for the countrys underprivileged youths utilizing the economic driver of tourism to build a qualified local workforce for the thriving industry. EGBOK helps them to become self-supporting thereby breaking the cycle of poverty that exists throughout the country today.
Project Name: EGBOK Missin Training and Internship Training Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 2 years
Enhancing Freedom Through…
Freedom in practice
Photo: University of Buckingham
Enhancing Freedom Through Quality Improvements in Low-cost Private Schools
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 recognised, educationally effective, technologically innovative, and affordable training programme for educators in the low-cost private sector. The programme will empower teachers and school managers and increase the quality of teaching and learning in these schools.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
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 programme 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.
Grant Details
Organization: University of Buckingham Country: Nigeria & India Project Name: Enhancing Freedom Through Quality Improvements in Low-cost Private Schools
Funding Areas
Private Sector Solutions System Change Empowerment of Individuals Teaching Freedom
Although extensive data on economic freedom are 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 (i) identify projects that would improve their country's rank on the Gender Disparity Index and other indices, (ii) create and implement reform strategies, and (iii) publicize non-governmental solutions that help reduce poverty among women.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
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, as a means 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.
Grant Details
Organization: Atlas Network Country: United States of America Project Name: Eradicate Barriers to Economic Freedom for Women
Funding Areas
System Change Empowerment of Individuals
Freedom in practice
Landesa
Empowering Women and Communities through Property Rights
Empowering Women and Communities through Property Rights
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.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
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).
Grant Details
Organization: Landesa Country: India Project Name: Empowering Women and Communities through Property Rights
Funding Areas
Private Sector Solutions System Change Empowerment of Individuals
The Poverty Stoplight is a tool integrated in a technology platform that seeks to activate the potential of families and communities to lift themselves out of poverty. Poverty Stoplight is different from other anti-poverty programs in that: (i) the evaluations indicators are self-assessed by the individuals and families who participate, (ii) it includes measures of agency and organization, and (iii) it is designed to cover only those indicators that are actionable by the family members themselves. The goal of this two-year project is to establish Poverty Stoplight in the United States by recruiting, training, and supporting organizations that serve the poor and are ready to invest in an approach to poverty eradication based on self-sufficiency.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
Poverty is difficult to escape in part because welfare systems inadvertently serve to keep individuals dependent. Poverty Stoplight aims to help people participate in the market economy, rather than becoming trapped by programs that are overly bureaucratic and inefficient. The key of the approach is to trust families, respect low-income people, and know that they will make the decisions that will work best for them. Poverty Stoplight enhances the freedom of the individual to take advantage of opportunities to lift themselves out of poverty by enhancing their critical agency. To alleviate poverty in the US and beyond, it is essential that the discussion around poverty shift to the capabilities of the poor rather than their weaknesses.
Grant Details
Organization: Poverty Stoplight USA Country: United States of America Project Name: Poverty Stoplight USA
Funding Areas
Private Sector Solutions System Change Empowerment of Individuals Teaching Freedom
Currently, clinical studies within the symptom management focus area are faced with two challenges: a lack of young researchers and not enough high-quality clinical trials that address disease and treatment burden. Conquer Cancer, the ASCO Foundation, and Rising Tide Foundation for Clinical Cancer Research (RTFCCR) have partnered to establish the Conquer Cancer Rising Tide Foundation for Clinical Cancer Research 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 grant program supports young physician-scientists at a critical time in their academic careers during their transition from training to principal investigators, and as they begin setting up labs of their own. Using a two-pronged approach, researchers will receive funding to conduct high-quality research in line with career progression requirements to keep them in the field, and also to a mentor to ensure that rigorous and compelling data is generated in line with requirements for clinical trials.
The support of preliminary data collection will enable the investigators to apply for future funding in topics with significant patient benefit. Through this grant program, these individuals will become leaders in academic research and inspire future generations of physician-scientists.
Grant Details
Applicant Name: Nancy Daly Organization: Conquer Cancer Country: US/Europe
Project Name: Career Pathway Grant in Symptom Management
Freedom in practice
First Step Staffing
Employment for Men and Women Experiencing Homelessness
Employment for Men and Women Experiencing Homelessness
Only 5% of all dollars allocated to fight homelessness are directed to jobs programs. Of the dollars that are allocated to jobs programs, the majority of assistance is not employer-driven. As the number of those experiencing homelessness has ballooned over the past 3 years, First Step Staffing has stepped in to bridge the gap between homelessness services focused on housing and more traditional workforce development programs that often leave the hardest to serve behind. They execute on this mission using an alternative staffing model that meets the hiring needs of local businesses while prioritizing staffing resources to those who have been most excluded from the workforce. They also provide supportive services, like transportation to and from work, that help people with obstacles to employment and advancement once in the workforce.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
As the majority of programs focus on providing the basic material needs of those currently experiencing homelessness, First Step Staffing takes a more foundational approach. Through equipping individuals with skills, resources, transportation services, and connections to potential employers, FSS is reducing the barriers that those experiencing homelessness must overcome in order to become the active protagonists in their own livesrather than the passive recipients of welfare.
When individuals are empowered to achieve greater personal prosperity through meaningful work, they are able to change both themselves and their communities through increased savings. The FSS approach achieves a multiplier-effect as individuals move from welfare recipients to working taxpayers in their own communities.
FSS aims to employ a minimum of 5,000 men and women annually paying more than $60 million in earned wages.
Grant Details
Organization: First Step Staffing Country: United States of America Project Name: Employment for Men and Women Experiencing Homelessness Grantee Name: Amelia Nickerson
Funding Areas
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 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.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
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 in order 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.
Grant Details
Organization: Universidad Francisco Marroquin Country: Guatemala Project Name: Liberty in Action
Funding Areas
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. Fundacin Educacin, 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 Fundacin Educacin 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.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
Access to quality education is foundational for advancing freedom and prosperity. Through this scholarship program, Fundacin Educacin 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, Fundacin Educacin 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.
Grant Details
Organization: Fundacion Educacion Country: Latin America Project Name: Scholarship Program Grantee Name: Isabel Stirnimann
Funding Areas
Private Sector Solutions Empowerment of Individuals
The Wildlife Tourism College (WTC) in Kenyas 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.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
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. results in socio-economic development through participation in the tourism industry and conservation of the biodiversity and wildlife in PCA.
Grant Details
Organization: Basecamp Explorer Foundation Country: Kenya Project Name: The Wildlife Tourism College of Maasai Mara
Funding Areas
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.
Contribution to enhancing freedom
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 Self-Reliance Clubs, the Freedom and Virtue Institute will connect children to practical projects that connect reward to accomplishments. As the SRC follows 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.
Grant Details
Organization: Freedom & Virtue Institute Country: United States of America Project Name: Proposal for Franchising of Self-Reliance Clubs
New approach to refining risk stratification for colorectal cancer patients
This study seeks to harness deep learning methods to identify unique patterns across colorectal cancer (CRC) tumor slides for improved disease classification using 300,000 images collected already from over 6,000 patients.
This will provide a novel addition to classic histopathology and molecular methods for improved treatment and management of CRC.
A combined budding / T-cell score in pT1 and stage II colorectal cancer(CRC)
Numerous immune cell types are found in CRC and have been linked to improved prognosis in CRC; especially T-cell infiltrates have been extensively examined as a protective biomarker. This proposal aims to build on existing know-how and utilize geometric deep learning methods to create a combined tumor budding/t-cell scoring system.
The results are expected to have a direct impact on patient management and contribute to more precise treatment strategies in patient subgroups.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr Heather Dawson Organization: Bern University Hospital Country: Switzerland
Project Name: A combined budding/T-cell score in pT1 and stage II colorectal cancer(CRC) Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 3 years
Voice quality after laser surgery versus single vocal cord irradiation
This proposal seeks to compare single vocal cord irradiation (SVCI) to transoral CO2-laser microsurgical cordectomy (TLM) on patient-reported voice quality in a prospective randomized multi-center open-label comparative phase III study. This approach is promising to spare voice quality and thus improve quality of life.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Elicin Olgun Organization: Bern University Hospital Country: Switzerland
Project Name: Voice quality after laser surgery versus single vocal cord irradiation Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 5 years
A Phase I/II Trial of 8-Chloro-adenosine in Relapsed or Refractory Acute Myeloid Leukemia
This phase I/II trial will assess the safety and efficacy of 8-Chloro-Adenosine (8-Cl-Ado), a new therapeutic small molecule that is preferentially toxic to cancer as opposed to normal cells. It has shown potent anticancer activity against leukemia cells and has been very well tolerated in an earlier human clinical trial evaluating safety for different blood cancer.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Steven Rosen Organization: City of Hope Country: USA
Project Name: A Phase I/II Trial of 8-Chloro-adenosine in Relapsed or Refractory Acute Myeloid Leukemia Funding Year: 2015 Project period: 6 years
A Phase I/II Trial of 8-Chloro-adenosine in Relapsed or Refractory Acute Myeloid Leukemia
The central hypothesis is that CAR T cells targeting cell surface antigens will eradicate diffuse tumor cell populations. This hypothesis will be tested in phase I clinical trial in 11 patients over a duration of four years. The study will assess the safety and determine the recommended phase II dosing plan for loco-regional administration in 3 routes.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Christine Brown Organization: City of Hope Country: USA
Project Name: A Phase I/II Trial of 8-Chloro-adenosine in Relapsed or Refractory Acute Myeloid Leukemia Funding Year: 2017 Project period: 4 years
Development of Alternative Ablation Device for Cervical Pre-Cancer Treatment
The trial aims to demonstrate that the cure rates of the CryoPen and the thermoablator are non-inferior to the cure rate of CO2-based cryotherapy; determine patient acceptability of each therapy type by actively assessing side effects and monitoring pain levels related to treatment; evaluate screening methods one-year post-ablation by comparing the sensitivity of low-cost HPV screening tests, HPV DNA genotyping tests, cytology, and biopsies.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Miriam Cremer Organization: Cleveland Clinic Foundation Country: USA
Project Name: Development of Alternative Ablation Device for Cervical Pre-Cancer Treatment Funding Year: 2017 Project period: 4 years
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
Phase III randomized clinical trial for stage III epithelial ovarian cancer - OVHIPEC-2
This clinical trial is a multi-center phase III study including 8 countries and 538 patients. This study is led by the Netherlands Cancer Institute and the funding requested is to cover the cost of pharmacovigilance.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Berit Mosgaard Organization: Copenhagen University Hospital Country: Denmark
Project Name: Phase III randomized clinical trial for stage III epithelial ovarian cancer - OVHIPEC-2 Funding Year: 2020 Project period: 4 years
Central Pathology Review of FFPE tumor blocks within the POSITIVE study
The primary goal of the POSITIVE trial is to determine if a two-year interruption of endocrine therapy results in a significantly higher breast cancer event rate in comparison to a historically estimated control rate if no interruption occurred. Samples have been collected from 90 % of the patients enrolled in the POSITIVE clinical trial and funding is required for processing and analysis.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Giuseppe Viale Organization: International Breast Cancer Study Group Country: European (Located in Switzerland)
Project Name: Central Pathology Review of FFPE tumor blocks within the POSITIVE study Funding Year: 2020 Project period: 5 years
Targeting eIF4A in melanoma persistent cells to prevent resistance
By combining BRAF+MEK inhibitors with eIF4A inhibitors the team has managed to kill the persistent cells and prevent the emergence of mutant resistant clones in vitro. The objective of this grant is to translate this strategy to the clinic.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Caroline Robert Organization: Gustave Roussy Institute Country: France
Project Name: Targeting eIF4A in melanoma persistent cells to prevent resistance Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 3 years
Epigenetic therapy to sensitize patients with advanced NSCLC to chemotherapy and immunotherapy targeting reversal of immune tolerance
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.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Stephen Baylin and Dr. Julie Brahmer Organization: John Hopkins University Country: USA
Project Name: Epigenetic therapy to sensitize patients with advanced NSCLC to chemotherapy and immunotherapy targeting reversal of immune tolerance Funding Year: 2015 Project period: 6 years
Neurocognitive & Quality of Life (QOL) in proton/photon pediatric brain tumor survivors
This retrospective study seeks to directly compare the long-term health outcomes between two pediatric brain tumor survivor cohorts treated with proton and photon radiotherapy. This study involves a direct comparison of neurocognitive and health-related quality of life outcomes among brain tumor survivors treated with proton radiation at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH, Boston, MA, USA) and survivors treated with photon radiation at Emory University/Childrens Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA, Atlanta, GA, USA). While radiation is an essential component of curative treatment, it can also contribute to a variety of late adverse health effects. This research will guide future radiation treatment decisions and advocate for access to the radiation technology that maximizes the quality of survivorship in childhood brain tumor patients.
CD38-targeted immuno-PET imaging to prevent myeloma relapse
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.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Ola Landgren Organization: University of Miami Country: USA
Project Name: CD38-targeted immuno-PET imaging to prevent myeloma relapse Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 4 years
ASCOLT STUDY (phase III): Aspirin as an Adjuvant Therapy for Colorectal Cancer
This phase III trial will assess the effectiveness of daily aspirin against placebo control in stage 2 and 3 patients. This is an international collaboration led by researchers in Singapore, UK, and Australia, and involves 50 sites in 11 countries across Asia.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Prof. Toh Han Chong Organization: National Cancer Centre Singapore Country: Singapore
Project Name: ASCOLT STUDY (phase III): Aspirin as an Adjuvant Therapy for Colorectal Cancer Funding Year: 2016 Project period: 5 years
Improving the accessibility of clinical cancer trials results to patients
This project seeks to take the existing patient engagement program at SAKK to the next level, by including patients in the process from trial design through to dissemination of results upon completion of the trial. Indeed, within the framework of this project, with the support of the SAKK Patient Advisory Board, SAKK wants to make the results of the trials accessible to patients, their relatives, and the public. In this way, SAKK wants to make clinical cancer research transparent and accessible to everyone.
Targeted axillary dissection (TAD) is a new technique that has recently been developed for patients with initially positive nodes undergoing systemic treatment before surgery. It combines the selective removal of nodes that are localized under imaging guidance.
The main objective of this trial is to show that TAD is non-inferior to conventional axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) in terms of disease-free survival of breast cancer patients
This phase III multicenter trial will be performed in Germany, Hungary, Italy, and Lithuania and is being led by the SAKK. This grant complements the awards for Prof. Weber in Switzerland and Prof. Fitzal in Austria. In total, RTFCCCR is providing funding for the enrollment of 1118 patients, 345 in Switzerland, 250 in Austria, 200 in Germany, 183 in Hungary, 100 in Lithuania, and 40 in Italy.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Prof. Walter Weber Organization: Swiss Group For Clinical Cancer Research (SAKK) Country: Switzerland
Project Name: TAXI Funding Year: 2020 Project period: 5 years
Clinical Cancer Research
The Board of Trustees of The University of Illinois
Bedside diagnosis of bloodstream infections (BSI) in leukemia
A novel diagnostic method, activated filter paper, uses cellulose as a cheap and abundant resource to immobilize DNA probes. Combined with iron-oxide bead detection, the natural brown color of the beads allows detection by the naked eye.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Prof. Peter Gyarmati Organization: The Board of Trustees of The University of Illinois Country: USA
Project Name: Bedside diagnosis of bloodstream infections (BSI) in leukemia Funding Year: 2017 Project period: 3 years
Extended pelvic lymph node dissection vs. no pelvic lymph node dissection for intermediate- and high-risk prostate cancer
This phase III randomized trial proposes to study the benefits of performing extended pelvic lymph node dissection in a group of intermediate- and high-risk prostate cancer patients.
Grantee Name: Prof. Cyrill Rentsch Organization: University Hospital Basel Country: Switzerland
Project Name: Extended pelvic lymph node dissection vs. no pelvic lymph node dissection for intermediate- and high-risk prostate cancer Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 4 years
SAKK 01/18: Reduced-intensity radio-chemotherapy for stage IIA/B seminoma
The main objective of this trial is to conduct a single-arm, multicenter, prospective phase II trial testing different combinations of radiotherapy and chemotherapy based on the results of the current RTFCCR grant to reduce long-term toxicity.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Alexandros Papachristofilou Organization: University Hospital Basel Country: Switzerland
Project Name: SAKK 01/18: Reduced intensity radio-chemotherapy for stage IIA/B seminoma Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 4 years
A randomized, open-label trial of a Multimodal Intervention versus standard care in cancer patients with Cachexia
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.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Prof. Marie Fallon Organization: University of Edinburgh Country: UK
Project Name: A randomized, open-label trial of a Multimodal Intervention versus standard care in cancer patients with Cachexia Funding Year: 2016 Project period: 5 years
Anti-Osteoclast Therapy as an Adjuvant in Treatment of Chondrosarcoma
This is a single-arm, open-label phase Ib clinical trial. 15 patients will receive 1 dose of zoledronic acid, followed by surgery 21 days after this dose. A second dose will be given 3 weeks after the surgery and patients will be monitored thereafter for 5 years.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Varun Monga Organization: University of Iowa Country: USA
Project Name: Anti-Osteoclast Therapy as an Adjuvant in Treatment of Chondrosarcoma Funding Year: 2017 Project period: 3 years
Thiamine for Delirium Prevention in Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation
Examine the effects of high dose IV thiamine as prophylaxis for delirium. Evaluate its effects on quality of life and neuropsychiatric sequelae of delirium.
High doses of IV thiamine have been studied in oncologic populations with promising results when used as a treatment strategy for delirium, but it is generally employed late in the course of delirium and it remains unknown if it can mitigate the long-term impact of delirium on cancer patients.
The project proposes a double-blind randomized controlled trial (RCT) with a total of 60 patients.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Zev Nakamura Organization: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Country: USA
Project Name: Thiamine for Delirium Prevention in Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Funding Year: 2017 Project period: 3 years
WISE STUDY: Walking Intervention for Symptom Elimination under aromatase inhibitor therapy
This multicenter, randomized, intervention is composed of a 24-week home-based walking program starting at the onset of AI treatment. This involves continuous moderate intensive walking outdoors for 30 mins, 5 days a week.
350 breast cancer survivors at the onset of adjuvant AI therapy will be randomized to the intervention or control group.
Liquid biopsies in early diagnosis of colorectal cancer
Based on recent developments by the team, this study aims to investigate the potential of using liquid biopsies for the early detection of colorectal cancer.
Albeit liquid biopsies have been studied for some time, the novelty in the proposed approach lies in the ability to examine DNA methylation changes in addition to mutations in cancer genes. This combined method has the potential to advance plasma cfDNA (circulating free DNA) testing.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Dr. Filip Janku Organization: The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Country: USA
Project Name: Liquid biopsies in early diagnosis of colorectal cancer Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 2 years
Clinical Cancer Research
The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
This project proposes to determine the optimal dose for the number of neurofeedback sessions to alleviate Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) and examine predictors to determine who will best respond to neurofeedback using EEG brain signatures.
ECHO Telementoring to Improve Quality Palliative Care in Underserved Areas
Based upon preliminary data, this study aims to transform palliative care in the low-middle countries of India, Kenya, Ghana, and South Africa and elevate the standard of care in these regions.
Correlative studies of an open label Phase 1 study
Correlative studies of an open-label Phase 1 study in diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG)
Based on previous studies and preliminary data, a phase 1 clinical trial of ONC206 is scheduled to start at the University Childrens Hospital Zurich. This trial is designed as a multi-arm trial based on different disease stages to enable the largest possible population to access ONC206. The proposal seeks funding for the correlative study of this clinical trial.
Currently, there is no reliable method to identify which patients with age-related clonal hematopoiesis (ARCH) will develop acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). Based on preliminary data, the investigators propose to identify and treat high-risk individuals with ARCH, before they have developed the disease.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Prof. Liran Shlush Organization: Weizmann Institute of Science Country: Israel
Project Name: Early diagnosis and treatment of pre-leukemia Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 5 years
Prevention of myeloid cancers by understanding their pre-clinical evolution
This study will assess the genetic sequencing of stored blood samples from two patient groups to increase the knowledge about the pathway and changes cells suffer from pre-leukemia to leukemia, supporting the development of novel clinical concepts. Based on preliminary data, the investigators propose to identify and treat high-risk individuals with ARCH, before they have developed the disease.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Prof. George Vassiliou Organization: Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute Country: UK
Project Name: Prevention of myeloid cancers by understanding their pre-clinical evolution Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 2 years
Phase 2 Study of PARP inhibition and Anti-PD-L1 Therapy in BRCAmt TNBC
The clinical trial to which this proposal is attached is a randomized, open-label phase II trial exploring the effects of the anti-PD-L1 human monoclonal antibody atezolizumab with the PARP inhibitor Veliparib either alone or in combination in 100 patients with BRCA1/2 TNBC.
This grant will evaluate the mutational load, neoantigens, and anti-tumor immune effects of PARP inhibition and immune-stimulation and determine the possible connection between the biomarkers and patient performance after treatment.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Prof. Patricia LoRusso Organization: Yale University Country: USA
Project Name: Phase 2 Study of PARP inhibition and Anti-PD-L1 Therapy in BRCAmt TNBC Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 2 years
Phase 2 Study of the PARP Inhibitor Olaparib in IDH1/2-mutant solid tumors
To conduct a comprehensive series of correlative studies in tumor biopsies to identify which patients with IDH1/2 tumor mutations respond best to the DNA repair inhibitor, Olaparib.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Prof. Bindra Ranjit Organization: Yale University Country: USA
Project Name: Phase 2 Study of the PARP Inhibitor Olaparib in IDH1/2-mutant solid tumors Funding Year: 2018 Project period: 3 years
Enhancing Freedom Through Quality Improvements in Low-cost Private Schools
Through this project, James Tooley aims to establish a financially sustainable model for international teacher certification in the low-cost private school sector in India and Nigeria, with the potential to scale to more countries in Southern Africa and South Asia. The project builds on years of research and addresses one of the key challenges that low-cost private schools face--teacher certification and quality of teaching. The project will also add a module on economic freedom to the curriculum which will help to spread classical liberal ideas to untapped, new audiences, in Nigeria, India, and other areas as the project expands.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: James Tooley Organization: University of Buckingham Country: India & Nigeria
Project Name: Enhancing Freedom Through Quality Improvements in Low-cost Private Schools Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 4 years
Identifying Best Practice for Empowerment Through Entrepreneurial Freedom
The team at the University of Newcastle will employ original research to identify private, bottom-up, collective action solutions for the provision of basic services in slums around the world that are widely ignored by governments and large aid agencies. In particular, the team will research the service provision activities of Delhi slum inhabitants related to health, education, water, waste management, and transportation. They will use innovative methods to disseminate results to the community, national and international audiences to influence policies and provide those delivering services with examples of best practices for community development.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Pauline Dixon Organization: University of Newcastle Country: India
Project Name: Identifying Best Practice for Empowerment Through Entrepreneurial Freedom Funding Year: 2019 Project period: 4 years
First-ever classical liberal economics textbook for Singaporean students
The Adam Smith Center, in order to provide educational opportunities to local pre-university students in Singapore, is publishing a new Economics textbook that will marry economics concepts to local Singapore economic trends. They will differentiate themselves by developing a textbook that is written from a market-oriented perspective with a high degree of visual design.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Bryan Chaeng Organization: Adam Smith Institute LLP Country: Singapore
Project Name: First ever classical liberal economics textbook for Singaporean students Funding Year: 2020 Project period: 9 month
Verein "Respektierung & Wahrung Natürlicher Lernprozesse"
Time 4
Time4 is an educational program for young people after their obligatory school years that commences between the ages of 15 and 25 years old. It offers an alternative path to the occupational training offered by the Swiss government and provides young people with a framework in which they can discover, refine and deepen their interests and hence supports them in their intrinsically motivated development and learning processes.
As a result of one of South Africas most notorious pieces of legislation, the 1913 Natives Land Act that was adopted more than a century ago, most black South Africans still do not have titles to property inland. To rectify the situation, the Free Market Foundation (FMF) launched the Khaya Lam project in 2013, which aims to bring about the titling of all the apartheid-era properties in which black families had and still have occupation rights, but not title deeds.
Khaya Lam believes that homeownership is an important key to wealth creation and economic empowerment; it is only through tradable title deeds that homeowners can reap the benefits of legally owning and occupying their homes. The Khaya Lam project is a significant step towards unleashing the dead capital accumulated under apartheid. Most importantly, it is a completely liberating action that will sweep away one of the last major vestiges of the iniquitous apartheid system the prohibition upon the ownership of land by black South Africans.
The primary purpose of the project is thus to redress the past injustices and restore dignity to families who were previously denied the fundamental right to own their own properties. The project continues the FMFs defense and promotion of property rights, especially for black South Africans. More specifically, this project puts into practice what the FMF has long espoused: property rights are a fundamental component of a free and prosperous society.
The total number of RTF transfers to date is 600 (100 in 2016 + 250 in 2018 + 250 in 1H2019). An additional 250 are in the process of being registered with the Deeds Registry and will be ready by December. Since the RTF sponsorship of 100 in 2016 and excluding the 1,500 RTF subsequently sponsored the project has raised approximately R5.2 million (approximately USD340,818).
Grant Details
Organization: Free Market Foundation Country: South Africa Project Name: Khaya Lam Land Reform Project (2018-2021) Grantee Name: Jasson Urbach
Teach a Child - Africa, Education for Life. Scholarships for AIDS orphans
Teach a Child Africa (TaC) was founded in 2007 by two Kenyan women, Pamela Steele and Margaret Oriaro, both of whom lost many relatives to the AIDS pandemic. Its mission is to provide access to good quality secondary education to the most talented orphans from AIDS-stricken Western Kenya, particularly from the province of Nyanza, where HIV/AIDS has left close to 500,000 children fully orphaned. Rising Tide is financing 20 4-year scholarships for high-school education.
Grant Details
Grantee Name: Simone Haeberli Organization: Verein Teach a Child - Africa Country: Kenya
Project Name: Teach a Child - Africa, Education for Life. Scholarships for AIDS orphans Funding Year: 2017 Project period: 5 years
Think Tanks for Labor Market Reforms in Central and Eastern Europe
As a response to over-regulation in labour markets, the Lithuanian Free Market Institute (LFMI), in cooperation with five prominent classical liberal think-tanks, is working on creating a unique cross-country research on labor market regulation and the repercussions of existing government interventions on individual liberty, labour markets and employment.