Funding Foundations
There are numerous funding foundations awarding grants to both academia and SMEs. In this overview we show the most relevant foundations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), the Michael J. Foxx Foundation (MJFF) and the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF).

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF)
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is focused on the areas of greatest need, on the ways in which they can do the most good.
For each issue they fund innovative ideas that could help remove these barriers:
- New techniques to help farmers in developing countries grow more food and earn more money
- New tools to prevent and treat deadly diseases
- New methods to help students and teachers in the classroom.
There are no open Grant Opportunities at this time.
The Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF)
Subsidy: $180,000
Scope: Movement disorder specialists (neurologists with subspecialty training in Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders) serve as an important bridge between scientific advances in the lab and positive patient outcomes in the care setting.
While the demand for movement disorder specialists is increasing, not enough neurologists are receiving this vital training. To address this unmet need, the Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF), in collaboration with the Edmond J. Safra Foundation, introduced The Edmond J. Safra Fellowship in Movement Disorders. By funding academic centers to train new movement disorder clinician-researchers, this program aims to develop a network of highly trained specialists to be the next generation of leaders in Parkinson’s research and clinical care.
Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF)
Founded in 1998 by co-chairmen Leonard A. and Ronald S. Lauder, the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF) is the only charity solely focused on finding drugs for Alzheimer’s. The ADDF focuses on translating the knowledge they have gained about the causes of Alzheimer’s disease into drugs to conquer it. They support an underfunded area—preclinical drug discovery and early-stage clinical trials of potential drug targets—that is often called the “valley of death” because it’s where good ideas go to die. These projects hold great promise, but also great risk.
At the moment there are the following projects active:
- Drug Development Program – Subsidy: $ 50k – 100k for epidemiological analyses; up to $ 3 million for clinical trials
- Program to Accelerate Clinical Trials (PACT) – Subsidy: up to $ 3 million
- Neuroimaging and CSF Biomarker Development Program – Subsidy: $ 600k
- Prevention beyond the Pipeline Subsidy: $ 50k – 100k for epidemiological analyses; up to $ 3 million for clinical trials
Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF)
JDRF is a non-profit organization that funds research on Type 1 Diabetes (T1D), provides a wide range of social and activist services for the T1D population, and actively advocates regulations that support medical research and approval of new and improved treatments.
Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative supports the solution that aim to solve the toughest challenges. It varies from preventing and eradicating disease through involvement in kids’ education and reforming justice system. The foundation was set up by Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg in 2015 with one overriding goal: to create better and prospective future for everyone.
There are three main areas of interest: Science, Education and Justice & Opportunity.
World Cancer Research Fund International (WCRF)
WCRF is a not-for-profit organization that guides, takes a lead and brings together a network of cancer prevention charities on a global scale. These charities are the American Institute for Cancer Research in the US, World Cancer Research Fund UK, Wereld Kanker Onderzoek Fonds in the Netherlands and World Cancer Research Fund Hong Kong.