The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will give the University of Washington $540.2 million — the largest one-time donation in the university’s history. The money is intended for the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), which studies the health of populations around the world and helps governments make health care decisions.
The University of Washington is the region’s largest research university and one of the centers of Seattle’s medical and scientific ecosystem. Its UW Medicine system includes the medical school, clinics and hospitals, including UW Medical Center, and is involved in patient care, professional training and biomedical research. The university also works with hospitals, biotechnology companies, government agencies and nonprofit organizations across the state.
The grant will run for 10 years and is intended to provide the institute with financial stability while allowing it to expand its work. IHME Director Christopher Murray called the amount “staggering” and said it would allow the organization not merely to continue operating but to thrive.
The Gates Foundation helped establish the institute in 2007, so the new grant is viewed as the next stage of a long-term partnership. After an unsuccessful attempt to place IHME at Harvard University, UW proved to be a suitable home because of its strong infrastructure in public health, epidemiology, statistics and computer-based data analysis. The university had the necessary experts and academic programs, while Seattle offered an established network of medical and technology organizations and international partnerships.
UW’s proximity to the Gates Foundation and other scientific and medical institutions in the region facilitates in-person contact, staff exchanges and the launch of joint projects. At the same time, the partnership depends not only on geography but also on scientific independence, funding conditions and shared goals. The foundation remains a major source of support for global health projects, while IHME analyzes data on disease, mortality and the effectiveness of health programs, producing estimates for governments, international organizations and philanthropic foundations.
Most of the money will go toward expanding the Global Burden of Diseases project — the world’s largest study of diseases, injuries and risk factors. The number of locations where data are collected is expected to increase more than fivefold, from 925 to nearly 5,000.
More detailed local-level information will make it possible to identify differences that do not appear in national statistics. Researchers will be able to determine more precisely where maternal or child mortality is rising, which diseases are overwhelming health systems and in which regions preventive measures are producing insufficient results. About 20,000 experts from 150 countries participate in the project, and its estimates have already been cited in nearly 8,000 government and analytical documents.
The grant will also support health forecasting and analysis of countries’ health care spending. Such databases help finance ministries assess whether previous investments have produced results and understand the potential consequences of future health care investments.
IHME gained particular prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic. The institute regularly published global estimates of infections, hospitalizations and deaths, and later analyzed the effects of vaccination and mask use, including projections of how those measures could slow the spread of the virus and reduce deaths.
The institute was created with substantial support from the Gates Foundation after an effort to establish it at Harvard University fell through. The foundation’s initial contribution was $105 million, while the University of Washington added $20 million. Today, the foundation still accounts for about 60% of IHME’s budget; the remaining funds come from U.S. federal grants, international projects and other philanthropic sources.
The instability of federal funding is particularly significant for UW because a large portion of its research budget comes from grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and other agencies. These funds pay for laboratory operations, researcher salaries, graduate education and clinical studies. Cuts could also affect other major scientific organizations in the state, including Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, leading to project closures and job losses while slowing the development of new treatments and technologies.
University of Washington representatives called the new donation especially timely amid cuts to government support for science. In recent years, the university’s medical divisions have also received other major gifts, including $50 million to cover tuition for laboratory medicine students and $25 million in scholarships for future doctors willing to work in rural areas. UW leaders believe that support for global and public health is more important today than ever.
Based on: Gates Foundation to give historic $540 million to UW health institute