Reckitt Global Hygiene Institute

What Reckitt Global Hygiene Institute does

Reckitt Global Hygiene Institute (RGHI) is a not-for-profit foundation established in July 2020 with a $25 million multi-year investment from Reckitt plc. The institute is dedicated to funding hygiene science research, developing the next generation of hygiene research leaders, and convening multi-sector stakeholders to ensure evidence drives public health policy and behavior change. Its portfolio spans four program areas: a three-year Fellowship Program for early-career researchers, the International Collaboration Award (ICA) grant for institutional partnerships, the Collaboration Accelerator Award, and a publicly accessible Research Portfolio and Repository. Core thematic verticals include the climate-hygiene-health nexus, menstrual health and hygiene, food hygiene, hygiene among older adults, and gender-disaggregated WASH monitoring.

RGHI operates through a small core staff (1-10 employees) led by Executive Director Sarah Roberts and Director David Wheeler, supported by a multidisciplinary Expert Panel and Governing Board that includes luminaries such as Professor Peter Piot (LSHTM), Dame Sally Davies (Trinity College Cambridge), and Professor Teo Yik Ying (NUS). Its go-to-market model is event-driven and community-led: RGHI convenes stakeholders at symposia and roundtables (e.g., the Global Hygiene Symposium in Singapore, Chatham House roundtables, national stakeholder events in Brazil), funds researchers at leading academic institutions worldwide (Yale, LSHTM, Burnet Institute, Northumbria University), and disseminates findings through peer-reviewed publications, an annual Impact Report, and active social media channels. Notable outputs include the first RGHI-funded study in Nature Communications on drought and childhood diarrhea, and a Chatham House report concluding hygiene behavior change is essential to universal healthcare.

RGHI is wholly funded by Reckitt plc and does not sell products, services, or licenses. All activities — fellowships, grants, convenings, advocacy — are funded through the parent grant, with no disclosed additional revenue streams or commercial pricing. Its primary "customers" are academic researchers (as grant recipients), policymakers (as evidence consumers), international health organizations (WHO, UNICEF, PAHO as collaborators), and corporate funders (as aligned-giving partners). The institute serves populations in low- and middle-income countries most acutely affected by hygiene gaps, including the 2.3 billion people without access to basic handwashing facilities at home.

Name

Reckitt Global Hygiene Institute

Legal name

Reckitt Global Hygiene Institute

Website

https://rghi.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2020

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Reckitt Global Hygiene Institute is a not-for-profit foundation established in 2020 and funded by Reckitt plc with a $25 million multi-year grant. It funds hygiene science research through fellowships and grants, convenes global health stakeholders, and serves policymakers, researchers, and populations in low- and middle-income countries.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Public Health Research Funding

NAICS

Scientific Research and Development Services (5417), Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (54171)

SIC

Services-Commercial Physical & Biological Research (8731)

akta.pro industry

PRIMARYBPAHALAN

Healthcare Outcomes & Real-World Evidence (RWE) Analytics

Business & Public Services/Professional Services (Legal, Accounting, Consulting)/Research, Analytics & Expert Services

SECONDARYEDADAKAH

Research Administration & Compliance (Sponsored Programs, IRB/REB)

Education/Education Administration, Accreditation & Policy/Institutional Governance & Administration (School/College/University Admin)

Keywords

• Hygiene research funding
• Public health research
• WASH research
• Hygiene science fellowships
• Global health evidence

Headquarters

HQ city

Parsippany

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Research Funding from Reckitt plc: RGHI is funded entirely by a multi-year $25 million grant from Reckitt plc. The institute uses these funds to award fellowships to early-career academics, grant funding to research institutions, and to operate its convening and leadership development programs. As a not-for-profit foundation, RGHI does not generate revenue from product sales or services.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Reckitt Global Hygiene Institute (RGHI) is a not-for-profit research institute that funds hygiene and public health research at academic institutions globally. It supports early-career researchers through fellowship programmes, awards competitive grants (including the International Collaboration Award and Collaboration Accelerator Award), and convenes multi-sector stakeholders to translate hygiene evidence into policy and practice.

Product overview

RGHI is a public health research and innovation institute (not a software product company) focused on bridging epidemiology, public health, and behavioural insights to generate practical, high-quality scientific research that leads to enduring behaviour change. The organization operates through a portfolio of research funding programs including the Fellowship Program (supporting early career academics), the International Collaboration Award (supporting institutional partnerships), and the Collaboration Accelerator Award. RGHI does not deliver programmes but strengthens the system around them by advancing knowledge, convening stakeholders, and strengthening global research capacity in hygiene science.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Reckitt Global Hygiene Institute Fellowship Program
• International Collaboration Award (ICA)
• Collaboration Accelerator Award
• Reckitt Global Hygiene Institute Research Portfolio

Quantifiable outcome

• First RGHI-funded study published in Nature Communications showing that exposure to long-term drought correlates to higher diarrhoea cases among children under five in LMICs; water, sanitation, and hygiene practices mediate a low to moderate proportion of this association.
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers4 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

Twelve partnerships are on record, tiered core, major and regional.

• Yale Center on Climate Change and Health and Yale School of Public HealthcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerRGHI funded research by scientists at the Yale Center on Climate Change and Health and Yale School of Public Health, producing the first RGHI-funded study published in Nature Communications. This partnership exemplifies RGHI's model of supporting world-class academic research at leading institutions to address critical hygiene science gaps.
• Yale School of Public HealthcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerLed by Kai Chen, Assistant Professor at Yale School of Public Health and Director of Research at the Yale Center on Climate Change and Health. The research examined associations between long-term drought and diarrhoea among children under five in LMICs, demonstrating the climate-hygiene-health nexus.
• Chatham HousemajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerRGHI and Chatham House co-organized a roundtable discussion under Chatham House's Commission for Universal Health, bringing together 32 global health experts to discuss hygiene behaviour as an essential element of universal healthcare. The resulting Chatham House Report was published in November 2022, concluding that changing hygiene behaviours leads to better individual, population, and economic health outcomes.
• National Center for Infectious Diseases (Singapore)majorStrategic or Co-development PartnerNCID (Singapore) co-organized the Global Hygiene Symposium with RGHI in Singapore (February 2023), alongside the World Bank, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, WaterAid, and Chatham House.
• World BankmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe World Bank co-organized the Global Hygiene Symposium in Singapore (February 2023) with RGHI, reflecting shared commitment to hygiene as a driver of economic and health outcomes.
• Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public HealthmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerHarvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health co-organized the Global Hygiene Symposium in Singapore (February 2023), contributing academic expertise on public health and hygiene science.
• WaterAidmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerWaterAid co-organized the Global Hygiene Symposium in Singapore (February 2023), bringing expertise in WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) programming and advocacy.
• London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerLSHTM hosts RGHI Fellows including Giorgia Gon (Assistant Professor of Epidemiology) who received a three-year fellowship to research social norms and hygiene behaviour change. Professor Wendy Graham and The Soapbox Collaborative at LSHTM were also referenced in RGHI research context.
• Burnet Institute (Australia)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerRGHI Fellow Dr. Julie Hennegan, Senior Research Fellow at the Burnet Institute, conducted research on measuring unmet menstrual health and hygiene needs and their impacts on health and education, with findings informing national monitoring indicator lists.
• ABIHPEC (Brazil)regionalStrategic or Co-development PartnerRGHI partnered with ABIHPEC, a Brazilian not-for-profit supported by Brazil's main producers of hygiene products, to organize a high-level national stakeholder event in São Paulo focused on hygiene in later life for older people. The event aimed to create a national action network bringing together government agencies, civil society, private sector, and academia.
• Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO/WHO Americas)regionalStrategic or Co-development PartnerPAHO (WHO's office for the Americas) participated as a speaker and stakeholder in the São Paulo national event on hygiene in later life organized by RGHI Fellow Peter Lloyd-Sherlock, demonstrating engagement with international health agencies in policy-level hygiene discussions.
• Governing Board and Expert Panel MemberscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerRGHI's Governing Board and Expert Panel include founding luminaries: Professor Peter Piot (LSHTM), Dame Sally Davies (Trinity College Cambridge), Professor Feng Cheng (Tsinghua), Dr. Randeep Guleria (AIIMS), Professor Dr. Albert Ko (Yale), and Professor Teo Yik Ying (NUS). These cross-discipline experts guide RGHI's research priorities globally.

Scale indicators9 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• WaterAid: WaterAid is a global WASH-focused NGO working on water, sanitation, and hygiene access in LMICs. RGHI partners with WaterAid to co-organize the Global Hygiene Symposium, and the two operate as complementary actors in the same hygiene ecosystem.
• Global Handwashing Partnership: The Global Handwashing Partnership is a public-private coalition dedicated to promoting handwashing with soap worldwide. It is the closest thematic peer to RGHI in terms of a single-issue (hand hygiene) focus within global public health.
• Emory Center for Global Safe Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (CGSW): Emory's CGSW is an academic research center focused on WASH in low-resource settings, producing evidence to inform policy. It is directly comparable to RGHI's academic research arm, though anchored in a university rather than an industry-funded institute.
• WSUP (Water & Sanitation for the Urban Poor): WSUP is a non-profit tackling urban WASH access in low-income cities. It is directly comparable to RGHI's mission focus on hygiene inequities and behavior change in resource-poor settings.

Broad incumbents

• Wellcome Trust: Wellcome is a major global health research foundation funding R&D and public health initiatives at scale. It is comparable to RGHI as a charitable/foundation funder of scientific research but operates at far larger scale and across many disease areas.
• London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM): LSHTM is a leading academic institution in global hygiene and public health. RGHI places fellows at LSHTM (e.g., Giorgia Gon) and collaborates with faculty, functioning as a complementary research funder rather than a competing institution.
• WHO Water, Sanitation and Health (WASH) Programme: The WHO WASH programme sets global norms and indicators on water, sanitation, and hygiene. RGHI engages WHO and PAHO as convening partners, sitting in a complementary evidence-generation role to WHO's normative and policy-setting function.
• FHI 360: FHI 360 is a large global health and development organization with significant WASH programming in LMICs. Comparable to RGHI as a node in the global hygiene ecosystem, but as a multi-program implementing organization rather than a research funder.
• PATH: PATH is a global health nonprofit working on water, sanitation, and hygiene along with other health priorities. It overlaps with RGHI's evidence-to-policy translation work at greater scale and broader disease/area scope.

Regional players

• Water Research Commission (South Africa): The WRC funds and coordinates water and sanitation research in Southern Africa. While geographically focused, its research-funder model for WASH is structurally comparable to RGHI's industry-backed research institute approach.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/RGHIHygiene4All
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/reckitt-global-hygiene-institute

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles4 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about Reckitt Global Hygiene Institute