EPIC Air Quality Fund
The EPIC Air Quality Fund is now accepting applications through September 10, 2024. Apply here. Outstanding applications received before this deadline may be evaluated on a rolling basis.
Poor air quality in the form of particulate matter (PM2.5) is the number one health risk to humankind, with EPIC’s Air Quality Life Index (AQLI) showing that the burden of pollution on life expectancy outstrips that of malaria, HIV/AIDS and transportation injuries combined. While research shows that installing air quality monitors and sharing real-time data with the public in places with very little or no data leads to cleaner air, nearly 40 percent of countries—many of which satellite data shows are highly polluted—aren’t producing open air quality data for their citizens. That is largely because they are caught in a vicious cycle of inequality where most of the funding to combat pollution goes to some of the cleanest areas of the world.
The EPIC Air Quality Fund breaks this cycle by supporting local groups and organizations in installing monitors and providing open data to communities that could benefit the most. Providing this data allows citizens to understand the depth of the pollution problem where they live and call for change. The data also provides a necessary guidepost for setting air quality policies and evaluating their progress.
The EPIC Air Quality Fund intends to provide support over multiple years because a long-term commitment to local actors is necessary to achieve change. It will require awardees to share the air quality data they produce in a fully open manner (compatible with a CC-BY-4.0 license, more guidance here) and on a freely accessible platform where the information will be findable alongside other global datasets. In this manner, the progress of the Fund’s supported efforts can be measured by anyone in the world, and the data produced can be ingested into a wide variety of international and national air quality efforts.
The Fund is now accepting applications from groups and organizations living and working in the countries where these monitors would be deployed. Applications are due September 10, 2024, though outstanding applications that demonstrate large impact potential and alignment with the goals of the Fund may be evaluated before this date on a rolling basis.
The EPIC Air Quality Fund is supported by Open Philanthropy.
Read more on the underlying research conducted to create the EPIC Air Quality Fund here. Learn about prior EPIC Air Quality Awardees here.
To learn more and apply, click here.
