Learning from Abroad to Reimagine Health Knowledge Systems: RWJF Call for Proposals 2026

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) 2026 call for proposals, officially titled Learning from Abroad to Reimagine Health Knowledge Systems for Equity and Wellbeing, is closed. RWJF’s official opportunity page records that the application closed on April 13, 2026 at 3:00 p.m. ET. This page is therefore a historical reference, not an open application listing. RWJF has not announced a new round on the official page checked for this update.

The call supported organizations pursuing action-oriented projects that learn from efforts outside the United States and apply that learning to health equity, justice, and wellbeing in the U.S. Its central question was practical: how can communities and institutions produce, preserve, share, and use health knowledge in ways that are more inclusive, equitable, and resilient? The program was interested in more than collecting examples from other countries. It sought projects that could turn relevant international or cross-border learning into useful work in U.S. communities.

At a Glance

What the 2026 call was about

RWJF described the health knowledge system broadly. It includes the ways people generate data and evidence, decide which knowledge is credible, preserve history and culture, shape public narratives, and use information in policy and practice. The call asked applicants to imagine a system in which people most affected by health inequities have a meaningful role in producing evidence and making decisions about it.

The official description identified several characteristics RWJF wanted applicants to consider. The experience of people most affected by inequity should be centered in data generation, evidence, and policymaking. Health should include individual and collective healing and wellbeing, rather than being treated only as the absence of disease. Projects could also address mis- and disinformation, public trust in science and evidence, and the preservation of history, culture, and language.

RWJF also pointed to the value of bringing ecological and biomedical sciences into conversation with Indigenous, traditional, holistic, and community frameworks. Cross-sector and global learning networks were another part of the program’s framing, with room for connections among artists, researchers, public health practitioners, civil society organizations, and resistance movements. These themes were not a request for abstract commentary. The purpose was to support organizations carrying out useful, action-oriented projects in the United States.

An eligible proposal needed a clear connection between learning from outside the U.S. and a U.S. health equity objective. A project focused only on improving health equity outside the United States was not eligible. A credible proposal would have explained what could be learned from another country, community, or international network; why that learning was relevant to the U.S. problem; and how the applicant would adapt it with the people and communities affected by the issue.

Eligibility

All organizations based in the United States or its territories were eligible to apply. Teams could include both U.S. and international members, but the project still had to focus on improving health equity in the United States. International applicants were also eligible. If an international applicant had been selected, RWJF said it would recommend an award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Global Ideas Fund, a donor-advised fund of Charities Aid Foundation of America, commonly called CAF America.

RWJF welcomed project directors, principal investigators, and leads from all personal and professional backgrounds. The foundation especially encouraged applications from teams with backgrounds and life experiences under increased threat in the political climate described in the call, including Indigenous, Black, Latino, and other people of color; LGBTQ+ community members; people whose country of origin is not the United States; and other historically marginalized groups. The same eligibility section stated that RWJF would not select, exclude, or prioritize applicants on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, or other protected characteristics.

The call prioritized organizations that were new to RWJF. An organization was not eligible if it had received any RWJF award since January 1, 2021. The restriction applied whether the support came directly from RWJF or through a fiscal sponsor, and whether it took the form of a grant, program contract, or another type of award. The official page also directed organizations that had served as fiscal sponsors since January 1, 2021 to consult the program-specific FAQs about their eligibility.

The applicant organization could use a fiscal sponsor when needed for financial management, grants management, and reporting. That option did not remove the need to meet the call’s substantive requirements. Applicants still needed an organization and project structure capable of carrying out the proposed work and managing the award.

Biomedical, clinical, and bench science projects were not eligible. Medicinal remedies were also excluded. The call was aimed at health equity work involving knowledge, community power, systems, narrative, learning, and practical change—not a clinical trial or a laboratory research project presented under a health equity label.

Funding and award structure

RWJF planned to fund up to 15 awards, with each award of up to $500,000. The award ceiling was not a recommended request. The foundation asked applicants to request only what was necessary so it could support as many recipients as possible. It noted that larger awards would generally be expected to correspond to more distributed funding, such as multiple people’s salaries or multiple activities.

Awards were to be made as grants to organizations rather than individuals and could run for up to 36 months. Funds were intended to cover actual project costs, including personnel and other direct costs. For a grantee that was a public charity, the award could also cover indirect costs supporting the organization’s general operations. The official page stated that funds could not be used for clinical trials of unapproved drugs or devices, construction or renovation of facilities, lobbying, or political activities. Additional budget guidance was provided in the online application materials.

The payment structure was also specified: payment would generally be based on spending against approved budgets or milestones rather than invoices. That detail mattered for organizations planning their cash flow and internal grant-management process. A strong budget would have connected staffing, community participation, partnerships, travel or exchange activities, knowledge products, and other direct costs to the project’s actual work. The maximum award should not have been treated as an automatic budget target.

Official timeline for the 2026 cycle

The official page listed an optional applicant webinar on March 6, 2026 at 11:30 a.m. ET. The webinar was intended to provide an overview of the program and give prospective applicants an opportunity to ask general questions. The page linked to a recording and slide deck for people who wanted to understand the call after the event.

The first substantive deadline was April 13, 2026 at 3:00 p.m. ET, when brief proposals were due. That is the date retained in this page’s deadline field because it was the published application deadline for the initial stage of the closed cycle.

RWJF’s later milestones were part of a two-stage process. Invitations to selected applicants to submit full proposals were scheduled for May 28, 2026. Full proposals from invited applicants were due July 9, 2026 at 3:00 p.m. ET. Applicants were scheduled to be informed of full-proposal outcomes on September 21, 2026, and the planned start date for grants was November 15, 2026. These later dates applied only to applicants who advanced from the brief-proposal stage; they did not extend the public submission window.

Because the official page now says “Application is Now Closed,” there is no current application step for a new applicant to complete. The archived timeline is useful for understanding how the 2026 process worked, but it should not be read as an invitation to submit a late brief proposal or a full proposal without an RWJF invitation.

What applicants needed to prepare

During the open window, applicants should have started with the full funding opportunity page, the sample proposal, the applicant FAQs, and the program-specific FAQs. Those materials were the appropriate place to confirm the two-stage process, eligibility details, budget rules, and any required fields in the application system. The official page linked those resources under “Grant Resources.”

The central preparation task was a brief proposal that clearly connected three elements. First, it needed to define a U.S. health equity, justice, or wellbeing challenge. Second, it needed to identify meaningful learning from outside the United States rather than name an international example as decoration. Third, it needed to explain the action the organization would take to build a more inclusive and equitable health knowledge system in the U.S.

Applicants should also have prepared a credible project budget. A request near $500,000 needed to show why the work required that level of support and how the money would be distributed across staff, partners, activities, and direct costs. A smaller request could have been more persuasive when it matched a focused plan. The budget and narrative needed to describe the same project, with the same scope and staffing assumptions.

The project’s community role needed to be specific. The call emphasized community-driven knowledge generation, preservation, and narrative. Applicants should have explained who would help frame the questions, interpret knowledge, guide decisions, and use the resulting work. They also needed to make the proposed adaptation credible: a method that works in one country or community may require changes for a different history, policy setting, language, or trust context.

Organizations also needed to confirm their RWJF funding history before spending time on a proposal. The restriction covering awards since January 1, 2021 was broad and included support received through a fiscal sponsor. Teams with an international member or an international lead needed to confirm how the CAF America funding route would apply. Organizations using a fiscal sponsor needed to establish that arrangement early enough to support financial and reporting responsibilities.

How to use this historical entry

This page should be used to understand the 2026 program and its requirements, not to apply. The official RWJF page is the authoritative source for the closed-cycle notice, the published dates, the award terms, and the eligibility rules. If RWJF announces another Global Ideas for U.S. Solutions call, the new notice may change the program name, deadline, amount, eligible applicants, required materials, or selection process. Readers should review that new notice rather than assume that the 2026 terms carry forward.

For organizations studying the opportunity as a model, the durable lesson is the connection RWJF made between global learning and domestic action. The call was not simply for an international exchange, a comparative report, or a new health research project. It was for work that could help communities and institutions in the United States produce, share, preserve, and use health knowledge more fairly and more effectively. The strongest concepts would likely have treated people affected by inequity as participants in knowledge-making and decision-making, while showing exactly how outside learning would inform the work.

The call also demonstrated why eligibility screening belongs at the beginning of grant planning. Geographic fit, the RWJF funding-history restriction, the ban on biomedical and clinical projects, the need for a U.S. health equity focus, and the option of a fiscal sponsor all affected whether a concept could proceed. Confirming those points early would have prevented an organization from building a detailed proposal around an ineligible project.

Official source

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s archived 2026 opportunity page is the verified source for this entry:

Learning from Abroad to Reimagine Health Knowledge Systems for Equity and Wellbeing

The page states that the application closed on April 13, 2026 at 3:00 p.m. ET, records the subsequent selection timeline, describes awards of up to $500,000 for up to 15 organizations, and explains the eligibility and prohibited-use rules summarized above. No next-cycle deadline is provided there. For that reason, this entry keeps the real 2026 deadline as an archive date and is marked as a historical reference.