On March 4, 2026, the Global DPI Insights Community, led by the Center for Financial Inclusion (CFI), announced the launch of a 2026 Call for Research Proposals, opening a new funding cycle to support rigorous, context‑grounded research on the design, governance, and implementation of digital public infrastructure (DPI). The announcement was made at Mobile World Congress, organized by GSMA, an anchor technical expert of the Global DPI Insights Community. The Global DPI Insights Community is also supported by the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth.
As part of this new funding cycle, a series of research grants up to USD $50,000 each will be awarded to support new research exploring how DPI systems are being implemented, governed, and adapted across diverse country and local contexts. The call reflects a growing recognition that while DPI systems are rapidly expanding around the world, the evidence needed to guide their long‑term design, sustainability, and impact has not kept pace.
The research supported through this call will contribute to a deeper understanding of where gaps persist in the design and implementation of DPI systems, analyze potential solutions and the tradeoffs associated with different approaches, and generate insights that are directly relevant to efforts to build inclusive and responsible financial systems.
“As DPI systems scale, the key challenge is no longer whether they can be built, but whether they can be sustained, governed, and adapted responsibly to deliver inclusive financial systems that work everyone. Evidence grounded in local and country-specific realities is urgently needed to get this right.” – Edoardo Totolo, Deputy Managing Director at the Center for Financial Inclusion
“To deliver on the full promise of digital infrastructure requires all players to balance innovation with implementation realities. The Global DPI Insights Community provides a strong evidence base that can help identify critical gaps, explore effective models and launch new partnerships that mobilize expertise across sectors to ensure infrastructure systems remain responsive and sustainable, driving outcomes for all.” – Payal Dalal, Executive Vice President of Global Programs at the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth
“As countries increasingly rely on digital public infrastructure to support economic and social transformation, ensuring these systems are trusted, secure, and scalable is more important than ever. As an anchor technical expert, the GSMA supports research that captures real-world implementation experiences and informs how DPI can be designed to be secure, interoperable, and sustainable. This evidence is essential to help industry and governments work together to build trusted DPI systems at scale in ways that deliver meaningful value for the broader digital ecosystem.” – Ashley Olson Onyango, Head of Financial Inclusion and AgriTech at GSMA
The call for research proposals will remain open until April 30, 2026.
About the Global DPI Insights Community
The Global DPI Insights Community is a three‑year initiative launched in May 2025 to generate evidence and support rigorous research that helps shape the design, governance, and impact of digital public infrastructure. The initiative convenes leading experts and practitioners while funding new research to build a strong evidence base around how DPI systems function in practice and how they affect end users.
The Global DPI Insights Community is led by the Center for Financial Inclusion, and supported by founding funder Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth and anchor technical experts GSMA, Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance, the Universal DPI Safeguards Initiative, and David Porteous, Founder & CEO of Integral, who serves as an individual technical partner bringing deep expertise and thought leadership at the forefront of DPI.
