Research and analysis

Insights from 9 years of the GCRF

Published 15 September 2025

Accelerating impact

The Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) was a £1.5 billion initiative that addressed social, political, economic and environmental challenges faced in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). Running from 2016-2025, GCRF mobilised international partnerships, interdisciplinary research and innovation, cross-sectoral networks, and made lasting investments in skills, systems, and infrastructure.

Through impact-oriented research and innovation, the Fund aimed to improve lives and opportunities worldwide, contributing to the success of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Taking a broad approach to commissioning research and innovation across diverse countries, regions and themes, GCRF supported partnered projects between UK and institutions over 40 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The Fund closed in 2025 after 9 years. 

This brief explores the Fund’s achievements, especially in 4 areas where longer-term outcomes are already emerging: policies, practices, research and innovation capabilities and market development, and provides insights into the contribution GCRF-funded awards have made to complex global challenges. It also features case studies, identifies missed opportunities and highlights lessons for future programmes.   

Key achievements

GCRF achieved faster progress towards real-world impact than was anticipated: 

• In both the UK and LMICs, GCRF awards achieved meaningful progress in addressing systemic challenges through interdisciplinary research and innovation that tackled interconnected issues. For instance, in Kenya, one project supported agribusiness to develop community solar technology to address energy gaps, while allowing land to be used for agriculture, and enhancing water conservation. The technology was designed, tested and refined closely with communities to ensure it worked for them.  

• Because of their interdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder approach, GCRF awards led to innovative approaches and outcomes that are less frequently observed in more traditional research initiatives. In Lebanon, for example, grants established networks that brought together education specialists and conflict researchers – areas that tend to operate separately, with stakeholders who do not usually collaborate. GCRF’s support led to the development of guidelines for providing disability-inclusive education for displaced young people affected by conflict, informed by dialogue with the Lebanese government and service providers. 

• GCRF’s emphasis on capacity strengthening supported the development of a range of skills to conduct problem-solving research and collaborate with different stakeholders to position it for use. Early career researchers benefitted from learning how to implement novel methodologies and stakeholder engagement, while non-academic partners were strengthened in research skills. Key potential users of research and innovation were supported to apply evidence – an approach which, as award holders noted, was uncommon for research funding. In the Indian Ocean, for example, communities’ evidence-informed legal knowledge and skills were developed, enabling them to advocate effectively for their land claims and succeed in legal challenges.  

• Funding research and innovation through equitable partnerships between UK and LMIC institutions was foundational to GCRF. Despite structural inequities in financial regulations that designated UK institutions as budget holders, the awards still invested in partnerships and networks that created novel linkages between academic and non-academic stakeholders, fostered resource exchange and established new connections with research users. For example, in India, a collaboration between private sector entities and a student startup developed a locally relevant solution to an invasive weed by exploring ways to use it to improve livelihoods.  

• The flexibility offered by GCRF funding greatly enhanced the potential for development impact. Longer time frames and a responsive approach to changes supported award holders to achieve outcomes relevant to their context and setting. This was seen at play in Vietnam, where multi-level governance systems means that policy processes take place at both provincial and national level, characterised by disconnects and overlapping processes. Funding flexibility allowed GCRF researchers to engage over time in policy processes on disaster risk management, scaling efforts up or down to respond to windows of opportunity to enhance the use of evidence on disaster risks in policy development and implementation and promote the benefits for livelihoods.

GCRF at a glance  

GCRF’s scope was uniquely complex in the research and innovation funding landscape. It spanned numerous policy areas, sectors, stakeholders and institutions worldwide and worked across fields such as health, education, environment, enterprise, trade, humanitarian assistance, and civil society.  

140+ programmes 3000+ grants 40+ countries 12,000+ researchers 

A global reach

1,842 awards had an SDG associated to it.

Table 10: Distribution of Publications in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

UN SDG	Number of Grants	Percentage of Awards with an SDG
3 Good Health and Well Being	967	52.5%
11 Sustainable Cities and Communities	840	45.6%
16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions	840	45.6%
13 Climate Action	780	42.3%
2 Zero Hunger	778	42.2%
10 Reduced Inequalities	762	41.4%
4 Quality Education	723	39.3%
7 Affordable and Clean Energy	711	38.6%
6 Clean Water and Sanitation	695	37.7%
1 No Poverty	689	37.4%
8 Decent Work and Economic Growth	688	37.4%
12 Responsible Consumption and Production	664	36.0%
17 Partnerships for the Goals	659	35.8%
15 Life on Land	657	35.7%
14 Life Below Water	649	35.2%
5 Gender Equality	648	35.2%
9 Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure	635	34.5%

Excellent research with development impact

GCRF aimed to facilitate collaborative, practical research to create new ways to tackle development problems, harnessing the expertise of researchers in the UK and in countries around the world. Broadly, the Fund focused on:

• funding challenge-led disciplinary and interdisciplinary research
• strengthening capability for research, innovation and knowledge exchange in the UK and developing countries
• providing an agile response to emergencies with an urgent research or on-the-ground need

Policy achievements: translating research into action 

GCRF aimed to bridge the gap between research and policy. The Fund championed stakeholder and policymaker engagement throughout the research cycle to effectively translate insights into policy design, practice, and implementation.  

GCRF awards  produced research that shaped national policy design and implementation in LMICs – a key step in moving the Fund towards real-world impact at scale and addressing complex development challenges.  

• In India, GCRF-funded activities and evidence on a range of policy innovations, such as regulations to improve the management of post-harvest losses, and digital early-warning tools to manage invasive weed infestations, influenced state governments to invest and adopt these to support sustainable agriculture and improved livelihoods.  

• In Kenya, GCRF research influenced policy and regulatory change, including enhanced economic development policies, risk assessment procedures and regulations for the development of fisheries on Lake Victoria.  

• In the Southern India Ocean (South Africa), decision makers used GCRF-related evidence to develop marine economy management plans and incorporated evidence into international ocean governance processes.  

• In Vietnam, evidence use increased within policy processes on disaster risk management and impacts on rural livelihoods. 

• In Kenya and the Southern Indian Ocean respectively, GCRF projects enhanced the inclusion of poor and marginalised communities in decision-making processes, including the legal recognition of customary rights and their increased participation in policy processes.

Spotlight 1: Timing climate tipping points: predicting biodiversity at risk for policymaking 

Africa is particularly vulnerable to the effects of the climate crisis, facing increasingly extreme weather that threatens ecosystems, biodiversity, and the people whose livelihoods depend on them. A GCRF-funded project explored the relationship between climate risks, biodiversity and ecosystem services (such as food security and water resources) in large, typically hard-to-study areas to inform climate change adaptation policies and strategies in Sub-Saharan Africa. 

The project was designed to meet policymakers’ needs. Using a highly innovative approach to combine scientific data on African biodiversity from multiple sources with a timeframe analysis, the project was able to forecast combined climate impacts for over 30,000 species globally. This analysis highlights that risks of future ecological disruption from climate change will start much more abruptly - before 2030 in tropical areas on the Africa continent – than previous models had identified.  

Research supported by this award has contributed to policy processes at national, continental Africa and global scales, including:   

• contributed to the evidence base that was used extensively by the Africa chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group II Report. The report had the most comprehensive and

• policy-relevant Africa assessment ever done by the IPCC for climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability for countries in continental Africa.   

• used in global environmental assessments (e.g. IPCC AR6 report) to suggest levels of dangerous climate change for biodiversity and provide information to policymakers on the importance of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C.  

• informed applied research to develop tools to guide conservation managers in South Africa for prioritising areas for conservation under future climate change.  

• informed the climate change strategy of the African Union and has been presented in briefings to climate change negotiators from multiple African countries.   

• prompted new thinking about climate change risk at the research-to-practice interface, such as in conservation biology, where there are now proposals to use related methods to better incorporate climate change risks into the IUCN Red List process.  

Reference: Forecasting climate risks to biodiversity and ecosystem services to strengthen climate change adaptation in Africa, Royal Society, Future Leaders Africa Independent Research Programme.

Practice achievements: Supporting innovation and application 

Applying research and innovation in technologies, practices, and services is key to ensuring that it leads to tangible, real-world outcomes, not just academic knowledge. GCRF-funded research developed context-specific solutions to global challenges – supporting the co-creation, testing and adoption of new tools, methods and technologies.  

Evidence from case studies in India, Vietnam, Kenya and Lebanon indicates that GCRF awards supported the adoption of technological innovations and influenced improvements in practices and implementation approaches, at both small and wider scales. Achievements in this area show promise for lasting impact through extending their reach and demonstrating international replicability, for example: 

• The methodology behind a flood forecasting tool developed by a GCRF team in Vietnam to improve understanding of communities’ sensitivity to climate change and floods was subsequently applied to tropical cyclone impact forecasting in Southern Africa. Humanitarian organisations such as the Red Cross have since used this data to produce emergency reports.  

• Strong demand for technology was found in an Indian Ocean case of new tracking devices for small boats, where several sub-Saharan African nations expressed an interest in trialling the innovation for themselves.  

• The methodology for water hyacinth detection, developed under an award in India, was applied in Lake Victoria in Kenya because of the involvement of a Kenyan PhD student in the award. This, in turn, stimulated interest from the Kenyan government and spurred additional funding and efforts focused on composting and recycling water hyacinth. 

• In Lebanon, journalists underwent training to enhance their use of inclusive language when reporting on disability. Designed through a GCRF partnership between researchers and Lebanese civil society media organisations, this led to improvements in the inclusive language used in local media.

Spotlight 2: Sustainability on stage: Community theatre and palliative care in Bangladesh 

Palliative care is a human right, but its provision is a global health challenge. Bangladesh struggles with isolated palliative care services and sparse training opportunities, all of which are limited to the capital, Dhaka. Involving community members in the provision of local palliative care services is a key practice approach that helps to solve this challenge.  GCRF funded a partnership to boost community involvement in a public health palliative care project in Bangladesh through a culturally appropriate and evidence-based strategy, using community theatre as a key tool. The aim was to provide local benefits to palliative care practice, while generating national and global learning through a UK-Bangladesh interdisciplinary approach that combined experts in performing arts, anthropology, palliative medicine and community development. 

• The team created new research and methods to increase community participation in providing palliative care services that can be applied in other settings.  The project adapted to contextual challenges, e.g. adapting the theatre performance to a short, street theatre version, which was performed in public spaces several times a day, given the long working day of many community members. 

• Local benefits were created through increasing community participation in providing end-of-life care in the pilot communities, while findings have reached wider palliative health-care decision makers across Dhaka.  

• National and international future practitioners have been reached through the arts-based community approach being incorporated into the curriculum offered by the medical university partners in the UK and Bangladesh.  

• The community engagement approach was integrated into the programme offering of the NGO partner, which offers a pathway for the novel practice around palliative care to scale to other settings in Bangladesh. 

• Evidence was presented in accessible, actionable formats for intended users, ranging from academic journal articles to videos, the central theatre piece and a strategic road map for enhancing community engagement in other public health initiatives.  

• The project laid the foundations of a new international academic network to continue to research the challenge of palliative care in resource-poor settings and further grants were obtained for follow-on projects in rural area Bangladesh and Dhaka. 

Reference: Partnership to ensure the sustainability of a public health palliative care project in Bangladesh through community theatre, Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Strengthening capacities for research and innovation achievements: Skills, systems and partnerships 

Strengthened skills, infrastructure, and equitable partnerships are essential foundations for high-quality, locally relevant research and innovation (R&I) in both the UK and LMICs. Trusted cross-sector collaborations help to expand individual and organisational capacities across local, regional, and continental systems, as shown in the Spotlight 3 below. 

GCRF awards demonstrated how capacity strengthening benefitted project teams, research collaborators, non-academic partners, institutions, and rippled out to other groups. 

• Opportunities for knowledge exchange among researchers were offered through an Indian Ocean award by establishing a training centre to enhance research and technical marine science skills. More senior researchers provided support, guidance, and leadership to junior colleagues, fostering career development within and beyond the institution.  

• An NGO in Lebanon improved its research and advocacy work through collaboration with a university partner, while in Vietnam, interdisciplinary collaboration between a university and the private sector sparked the creation of an enterprise to manufacture and market rice protein snack products.  

• In India, teams utilised their institutions’ existing networks and platforms to support official collaborations, which allowed for pooling resources and expertise, fostering a collaborative research environment. This created opportunities for early-career researchers and facilitated collaboration between UK-based researchers and Indian and Ethiopian partners, enabling knowledge transfer, capacity building, and the development of a strong international research partnership. 

Spotlight 3: Data, development and dialogue: African-led research for youth unemployment  

Africa has the youngest population globally, and youth unemployment is a significant challenge across the continent. A GCRF-funded project strengthened research capacities across African universities to tackle youth unemployment and ineffective policies, while engaging young people to identify root causes and solutions. It also developed a database to store and manage large amounts of digital information on policy models, programmatic solutions and other outputs tailored for governments and stakeholders working to resolve youth unemployed in Africa.   

The project strengthened skills, established knowledge platforms and technological systems across on the challenge of youth unemployment and why young people do not engage on government programmes designed to benefit them. Since the closure of the GCRF-funded project in 2022, an active network led from the continent remains in place in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and other countries, with ongoing discussions involving policymakers and key stakeholders on how to promote economic initiatives and entrepreneurship as routes to tackling youth unemployment. This includes continued training programmes, additional mentorship programmes at various African universities, funding being sought to establish incubation hubs, and ongoing webinars engaging the network. This represents a significant capacity shift in continental knowledge systems to generate evidence and policy innovations in the critical area of youth unemployment in Africa.  

• Increased productive collaboration across the continent between numerous African universities emerged during the project, with shared PhD students, co-authoring of papers, and regular ongoing meetings.  

• Various platforms were created – one brought together young people, researchers, government and industry stakeholders collaboratively to identify the problems that young people face in finding employment. 

• Training based on the project’s evidence includes a train-the-trainer programme in entrepreneurship and an Innovation Mentorship Education Certification workshop, which has to date trained over 900 researchers, young people, as well as representatives from the business sector across the 4 African countries. 

• Seed funding was competitively awarded to 9 new youth-led businesses to develop their innovation and generate employment for young people. 

• Responding to a timely opportunity, the project raised the profile of youth entrepreneurship as a solution to youth unemployment, leading the Nigerian President (2020) to support its inclusion in university curricula nationwide. 

• Connections on a continental scale have been enabled by the institutional members of the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA), who have provided funding and mentorship for smaller African universities to also participate in the youth employment initiative.  

Reference: Partnership, research and capacity building for youth unemployment solutions in Africa (PRAC 4 YUSA), Economic and Social Research Council.

Market development achievements: research and real-world change 

GCRF aimed to fund research to mobilise investment in markets and innovations, empower value chain stakeholders to provide products and services, and address barriers to uptake.  

There was less evidence of progress in this area, due to proportionally fewer market-facing awards sampled, as well as in GCRF overall. Nevertheless, those that were funded to stimulate value chains have been successful. , 

Small research and networking grants awarded in Vietnam and India enhanced opportunities for agricultural communities living in poverty by developing commercially relevant and innovative technologies to tackle environmental or public health issues and taking them through their different stages of commercial development to implementation and use.  

Spotlight 4: From space to strategy: responding to resilience needs in Malaysia 

Data and technology are important for understanding and managing ocean health, climate change, and biodiversity. A GCRF-funded project used satellite-based solutions to provide Malaysian government decision-makers with analysis on marine oil pollution, deforestation, and flooding via a live decision-support platform.  

The ‘Earth and Sea Observation System’ (EASOS) project brought together 23 Malaysian government agencies and 10 UK companies to create and test the platform. From the outset, the long-term sustainability and marketability of the system were built into the project, based on building trusted partnerships. Key to this was securing an ongoing arrangement with the Malaysian Government for the project to provide access to the online decision support tools and alert service for other government agencies and organisations.   

• EASOS aimed to expand its market by providing ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS) to enable continuous system improvements and updates. As part of the SaaS offering, government agencies had access to the visualisation tools and receive customised alerts for flood, oil spill, and deforestation events generated by the system. 

• Promotion in Malaysia continues through a non-governmental organisation, which showcases and demonstrates capabilities and manages negotiations with potential government clients. Once the project closed, a UK-based partner made a strategic investment to sustain the services, resulting in alerts issued pro bono to enable interested users to see the added value compared to their existing capabilities during live operations. 

• A commercial model was devised to support EASOS’s expansion into other countries and services. It focuses on leveraging the EASOS ‘brand’ under which UK satellite-based services in sustainable development and disaster resilience can gain greater market visibility and access. Interested government agencies and potential clients would engage with the service through a commercial agreement to cover the costs of tailoring EASOS services to their specific contexts, needs and budgets.

• Key to the success of the project was trust and buy-in from local stakeholders and high-level engagement within the Malaysian government to pilot and then extend the service. 

Reference: Earth and Sea Observation System, UK Space Agency.

Missed opportunities and challenges: potential for further impact 

While GCRF made strong progress across many areas, some missed opportunities and challenges limited its potential.  

Earlier coordination by funders to cluster and connect awards could have significantly improved collaborative efforts, amplified impact, and promoted shared learning, particularly in tackling issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion. A clustering approach would have facilitated the pooling of insights on involving vulnerable communities in research, enabling teams to work synergistically and achieve critical mass. Where the Fund took a programme-based approach to commissioning and connecting research, such as in the FLAIR Fellowships Programme, evidence showed more effective practice and better results.   

The lack of a unified fund-wide strategy to connect and coordinate awards in similar regions or on similar issues limited the scale of impact. Funding reductions in 2021 (due to ODA cuts) further curtailed the potential of networks. Many networks were sustained through the individual efforts of researchers leveraging existing relationships. GCRF projects highlight the crucial role of agile networks and champions in navigating complex environments in LMICs, leveraging international collaborations between LMIC and UK experts to bridge skills gaps and foster impactful partnerships. These insights underline the importance of strategic coordination and sustained investment to maximise the potential of stakeholder networks for real-world impact.

Drivers of impact – lessons for future funds 

GCRF’s progress along its pathway to impact was shaped by several key drivers of impact that supported research to translate into real-world change.  

Flexible funding 

Opportunities for follow-on funding to develop and scale research and innovation are a major global gap. GCRF was consistently seen as unique in offering a variety of flexible funding types, ranging from network and partnership development grants to early career support and fully-fledged research funding, with integrated impact activities.  

Adaptive ways of working 

GCRF researchers and innovators navigated challenges through a variety of common ways of working, including iterative stakeholder engagement, co-producing tools to help drive change, responding to opportunities to increase impact, developing networks to position credible evidence or innovations for take-up. 

For instance, as seen in the examples from India, Vietnam, the Indian Ocean, Kenya, and Lebanon, analytical tools and data applications, policy action plans and new practices that were co-produced with stakeholders were more in tune with the concerns of decision-makers and communities, responded more effectively to local conditions, and were more likely to be seen as credible. 

Networks  

Agile networks, both new and existing, were also crucial for navigating dynamic policy contexts. For example, in the Indian Ocean, GCRF-supported researchers and their network of partners in South Africa were able to respond to the opportunity presented by the nationwide marine spatial planning process, mobilising evidence, champions, and legal challenges to successfully support the integration of small-scale fishing communities’ customary rights to livelihood and food security as considerations in the policy process.  

Reciprocal capacity strengthening  

Mobilising mutual capacity strengthening, where both UK and LMIC partners developed skills and R&I infrastructures, helped to advance outcomes. For example, in India, collaboration between UK research institutes and local researchers brought together different expertise to develop algorithms and software for thermal data processing and training students in advanced techniques. Vietnamese partners were able to leverage the reputation of UK institutions to give them access to new networks and key stakeholders, which was important for uptake of their innovation. Involving local researchers, institutions and organisations helped to tailor technological innovations to the relevant market and value chain and to create demand for and interest in the tools and services.

Evaluating research and innovation: Lessons from 5 years of GCRF’s evaluation 

This Learning Brief is based on 5 years of evidence produced by GCRF’s evaluation. GCRF’s evaluation was conducted in 3 stages from 2020 to 2025.  

GCRF’s evaluation was innovative due to its large scale – 3000+ grants in the portfolio -, global reach and combination of large-scale quantitative methods – surveys and bibliometric data science -, and in-depth qualitative approaches, including country case studies..  

Evidence base and coverage over 5 years: 

• 392 awards reviewed in-depth – approx. 10% of the awards in GCRF’s portfolio, but covering £928.3 million of the expenditure, approximately 62% of the total GCRF budget of £1.5 billion. 

• 2336 award teams, both UK and LMIC partners, responded to the survey on processes, outputs and outcomes – approx. 77% of the GCRF portfolio 

• 146 programme managers responded to a survey on the same topics – 100% of GCRF programme managers 

• 650+ stakeholders in LMICs and the UK consulted through interviews and country visits. 

More analysis and evidence from GCRF’s evaluation

Year	Analysis and evidence from GCRF’s evaluation
2020 to 2022	GCRF Management Review
2020 to 2022	Stage 1a: Synthesis report of evidence on integration of relevance, fairness, gender, poverty and social inclusion in funded activities
2022 to 2023	GCRF Stage 1b Synthesis report: Synthesis of the evidence on programme processes and progress towards impact in GCRF’s 6 flagship investments
2023 to 2024	GCRF Midpoint Synthesis Report: Assessing quality, impact positioning and early outcomes against GCRF’s Theory of Change synthesis of the evidence from the assessment of research quality plus positioning for Use plus Results (RQ++) of GCRF awards
2023 to 2024	Drivers of impact in research and innovation for development: GCRF Survey Report
2025	UK Capacity Study GCRF Value for Money assessment 2023-2024 Research Quality Plus Infographic
Forthcoming 2025	- Learning Brief on enhancing value through a programmatic approach - Value for Money Assessment 2024-2025 - Research Into Use Synthesis Report: synthesis of evidence on GCRF’s Research-into-use outcomes in low and middle income countries (LMICs)