Call for Cost-Disruptive Diagnostic and Screening Innovations (India)
Deadline Date: July 1, 2026
Applicants are now submit applications to support breakthrough and cost-disruptive innovations for screening and diagnosis through transformative technologies and novel healthcare solutions in India.
The focus areas, include tuberculosis screening and diagnosis, emerging pathogens, syndromic panels, enteric infections, novel diagnostic approaches, new sensing modalities, software-defined diagnostics, artificial intelligence-enabled diagnostics, rapid actionable results, decentralized healthcare delivery, low-resource environment operability, thermostable reagents, reusable hardware architectures, reduced disposable consumables, technology readiness advancement, milestone-based development, operability, scalability, and cross-sector or cross-disease innovations.
The programme is being implemented under Grand Challenges India to encourage high-risk and high-reward innovations that fundamentally rethink how screening and diagnosis are performed. The initiative seeks proposals that demonstrate technically credible development pathways and clear strategies for scalability and deployment.
The call encourages innovative solutions that can deliver rapid results during a single patient encounter while remaining easy to use in decentralized and low-resource settings. Proposed technologies should function effectively under conditions such as heat, dust, intermittent power supply, and limited infrastructure.
Applicants are expected to submit proposals supported by evidence and aligned with clear technology readiness levels and milestone-based development approaches. Proposals in the ideation phase are not eligible under this call.
Funding support for exploratory proposals is available up to INR 250 lakh (USD 55,000) for projects with a duration of up to 12 months. Solution, product, or technology-oriented proposals can receive up to INR 2 crore (USD 200,000) for projects with a duration of up to 18 months.
Eligible applicants include nonprofit organizations, trusts, foundations, for-profit companies including startups, government agencies, academic institutions, and research organizations. The programme is open to Indian individuals and Indian entities, while partnerships with national and international experts are also encouraged in accordance with the programme guidelines.
For more information, visit BIRAC.