Funding, News and Announcements

Hi Everyone:

The University Delegates held a teleconference last week. Because of the summer hiatus, there were not a lot of issues, but we did spend a lot of time discussing the upcoming ‘live pilot’ of Foundation grant applications. I think that CIHR has been clear about eligibility for applying for a Foundation grant, and those faculty members at Dalhousie who are eligible have already been informed (hopefully!!). CIHR emphasized that eligibility for the September 2014 Foundation competition is for those investigators who have grants with an expiry date of March 2015 or September 2015. Those eligible for the September 2015 Foundation competition are those with grants ending March 2016 or September 2016. As mentioned previously, there will be others who are eligible - the complete eligibility criteria can be found on the CIHR website (frequently asked questions section).

One issue that I raised (and has been raised before) concerns the actual criteria that will be used to assess Foundation applications – this information about assessment is essential for making any decision about who should be encouraged to apply. CIHR staff did commit to having assessment criteria established and available to us by the end of October, so I will organize an information session in early November to outline these issues. A number of delegates also asked about the expected success rate in the Foundation grant competition. Not surprisingly, CIHR staff is unwilling to make a guess about the success rate for Foundation grants since they cannot predict accurately the number of applicants and cannot predict the recommended budgets attached to any application. Nevertheless, there is a reasonable expectation that each Foundation competition will fund about 250 new Foundation grants. Normally, the fall competition awards about 400 grants (in the ‘old’ system), so the actual success rate is likely to be lower than was the case for open operating grants. Hopefully, I will have better information in a few weeks and will get back to you.

In the meantime, feel free to get in touch if you have any questions of comments.   

Gerry Johnston