Sustainable improvement in human nutrition is one of the major issues in the portfolio of the Foundation. During more than 40 years basic and applied research in nutrition has been supported by the Foundation in more than 50 developing countries. In view of the past activities of the Foundation as well as the world’s situation at the turn of the millennium, it was recognized that the public health relevance of the supported research as well as aspects of sustainability, capacity building and educational issues should have a higher priority.

Thus, priority is given to projects which lead to sustainable developments with strong elements of capacity building, and the implementation of the results of a research project should be immediate and sustainable. Highly sophisticated nutrition research of mainly academic interest without public health relevance has lower priority for support as well as solely laboratory based studies or animal experimentation.

At present the Foundation's work is primarily concerned with human nutrition research issues dealing with:

1. maternal and child nutrition, including breastfeeding and complementary feeding,
2. macro- and micronutrient deficiencies and imbalances,
3. interactions between infection and nutrition, and
4. nutrition education and health promotion

The precise priorities and goals of the Foundation are modified from time to time to meet emerging public health and nutritional needs in the developing world.

Studies in other areas of human nutrition research might also be considered, as long as they are dealing with problems of malnutrition in eligible countries (see above). Other areas of research may be eventually considered for support if the applicant can offer specific and convincing evidence and justification for the choice of their research topic.

Funded projects are usually of one- to three-year duration. Projects with a high potential for effective and sustainable improvement of the nutritional status as well as a high capacity building component will be funded preferentially. The budget of the projects must be appropriate and reasonable and has to be justified in detail.

One of the Foundation's main aims is the transfer of scientific and technological knowledge to target countries. In cases where Foundation-sponsored research projects are realized in collaboration with scientists at universities and research institutes in high-income countries, at least 75% of the budget has to be earmarked for use within the low-income country.

Research grant applications from high-income countries are normally not considered except under rare and exceptional conditions.

The Foundation does not normally fund:

1. projects with low public health relevance
2. projects with doubtful sustainability
3. projects lacking transfer of scientific, technical and educational knowledge, i.e. lacking a capacity-building component
4. large budget projects i.e. – projects that exceed US$100,000 per year or US$ 300,000 over the total duration of a 3 year project
5. nutrition surveys or surveillance studies
6. research on food policy, food production and food technology except when linked to an intervention with high potential for sustainable improvement of the nutritional status
7. in vitro and/or animal experiments.

Although obesity and related diseases are of emerging importance in several low-income countries, the Foundation does not generally support projects in this specific area unless the proposal demonstrates linkages with under nutrition, the protocol is innovative and exceptionally well justified.

Eligible institutions are departments or institutes from universities, hospitals other institutions of higher education in low- or lower middle-income countries. Joint applications from more than once institution (especially South-South) are welcomed. Joint applications from more than one institution involving a North-South collaboration may also be considered. For project applications demonstrating North-South collaboration, it is important that the following criteria are fulfilled: (i) the Principal Investigator is from the South and the proposal has relevance to nutritional problems of the South, and (ii) the majority of the budget is earmarked for the South, and (iii) demonstration on the completion of the project of institution and capacity building in a sustainable manner in the South.

The capacity building component represents a core issue for all applications to the Foundation. This means that in every application needs to demonstrate a training and human resource and capacity building component for the developing world. Ideally graduate students or young investigators should play a key role and if need be designated as the Principal Investigator (PI) i.e. be the primary grant applicant or Co-PI. Established researchers can nevertheless apply but need to clearly indicate the capacity building component and the designated beneficiaries.

Established investigators alone are not usually eligible to apply for a grant, except when they address innovative and exceptionally well justified research questions in developing countries. Such applications need to clearly state the capacity and human resource building components in the host country as well as the long term sustainability of research in the host institution. Applications from individuals who are non-affiliated researchers and not attached to research or academic institutions can be considered only in very special cases.