NDLI: Flexible grant schemes: a systematic scoping review

Content Provider	Springer Nature : BioMed Central
Author	Klepac, Bojana Mowle, Amy Fitzpatrick, Erin Craike, Melinda
Abstract	Background Governments can take a range of approaches to funding public health initiatives. One way is through grant-making to other organisations to support the delivery of programs, projects, services, or activities. There is a growing interest in non-traditional approaches to grant-making, including flexible grant schemes. While there is no universally accepted definition of flexible grant schemes, they are commonly understood as granting models that are, unlike traditional granting models, designed to be adaptable to the needs of grantees by allowing them more flexibility in the use of funds, project timelines or objectives. Interest in flexible grant schemes is, in part, a response to criticisms of traditional granting models that are often deemed inadequate to support multi-sectoral and place-based responses to complex public health problems. To the best of our knowledge, there have been no attempts to map the available evidence on flexible grant schemes. Therefore, this systematic scoping review aimed to explore the literature on flexible grant schemes, interpretations of flexibility across the grant schemes, the extent to which and how grant schemes have been evaluated, and key factors associated with the perceived success of grant schemes. Methods A systematic search of academic and grey literature was conducted through eight databases. We followed a widely used five-phase methodological framework for scoping reviews and utilised PRISMA-ScR Checklist to enhance the methodological rigour of the review. Results Out of 10,368 screened documents, 38 publications met the inclusion criteria. Fourteen of the 38 publications were related to public health, and 28 were published after 2010. We found a lack of clarity and consistency in the interpretation of flexibility in the included studies. Three dominant, interrelated themes were identified: adaptation, autonomy, and coordination. Five publications were self-described as evaluations, a range of service-level or infrastructure outcomes were examined, and findings were generally positive. Seven factors were identified as being associated with the perceived success of flexible grant schemes: collaboration and partnership building, staff capacity, clear and effective communication, alignment among diverse stakeholders, uncertainty, accountability, and administrative burdens. Conclusion We found that the number of publications on flexible grant schemes has substantially increased since 2010. Although interest in flexible grant schemes has increased, there is a lack of clarity and inconsistent interpretations of ‘flexibility’. We suggest greater clarity in grant guidelines to improve communication and alignment across grantees and funders. The capacity of grantees and funders to implement and administer flexible grant schemes was identified as critical to their success, suggesting that investment in capacity development is needed. Finally, there are few published evaluations of flexible grant schemes, and robust evaluations are needed to determine their effectiveness and advance the evidence base. Clinical trial number Not applicable.
Related Links	https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/counter/pdf/10.1186/s12889-025-21543-8.pdf
Ending Page	15
Page Count	15
Starting Page	1
File Format	HTM / HTML
ISSN	14712458
DOI	10.1186/s12889-025-21543-8
Journal	BMC Public Health
Issue Number	1
Volume Number	25
Language	English
Publisher	BioMed Central
Publisher Date	2025-02-10
Access Restriction	Open
Subject Keyword	Public Health Medicine Epidemiology Biostatistics Vaccine Environmental Health Flexible funding Public policy Medicine/Public Health
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
Journal Impact Factor	3.5/2023
5-Year Journal Impact Factor	3.9/2023

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
5	Website/Portal (Helpdesk)	Queries regarding NDLI and its services	support@ndl.gov.in
6	Contents and Copyright Issues	Queries related to content curation and copyright issues	content@ndl.gov.in
7	National Digital Library of India Club (NDLI Club)	Queries related to NDLI Club formation, support, user awareness program, seminar/symposium, collaboration, social media, promotion, and outreach	clubsupport@ndl.gov.in
8	Digital Preservation Centre (DPC)	Assistance with digitizing and archiving copyright-free printed books	dpc@ndl.gov.in
9	IDR Setup or Support	Queries related to establishment and support of Institutional Digital Repository (IDR) and IDR workshops	idr@ndl.gov.in

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