Funding, News and Announcements

Hi everyone,

Following are the highlights from the June CIHR University Delegates face-to-face meetings in Ottawa:

CIHR Updates

Jane Aubin reviewed briefly the new Health Research Roadmap II that will be driving CIHR’s decision-making over the next five years. Strategic Direction #1 is about investigator initiated research, while Strategic Direction #2 involves priority-driven research with emphasis in 4 areas: enhanced patient experiences and outcomes through health innovation; health and wellness for aboriginal peoples; healthier futures through preventive actions; and improved quality of life for those with chronic disease. Dr. Aubin noted several emerging policy issues that have garnered CIHR’s attention, including data access and sharing, enhancing the reproducibility of results; and new “disruptive” technologies with great potential but still unknown risks due to the lack of a specific regulatory framework.

CIHR reorganization is nearing completion, including centralization of many functions. Dr. Aubin acknowledged some of the growing pains being experienced as they transition to this new structure. With respect to Institute Advisory Boards, a working group involving 5 to 6 Advisory Boards Chairs, Scientific Directors, and assorted others is putting the finishing touches on a plan that will see the 13 boards reduced to 5 or so, likely around priority areas plus one board oriented around strategic direction #1 (i.e. investigator driven – big picture / research excellence-based stuff). [Note: The President recently posted an update regarding reorganization of IABs; please see: http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/49235.html] No big decisions have yet been made regarding administering of the Roadmap Accelerator Fund, referred to by most as the “common pool” of funds drawn from the Institute budgets and being made available to all of the Institutes for collaborative initiatives.

One big announcement – since communicated to the CIHR community – was the lifting of limits to the number of applications an individual can submit to the Project Scheme per competition and/or per calendar year. Dr. Aubin expressed some concern about the application pressure (both in terms of success rates and pressure on staff / reviewers) likely to ensue with the elimination of this restriction, and indicated that CIHR will re-consider this decision in the future.

Foundation Scheme

A substantial portion of the day was spent discussing the Foundation scheme reform. With Stage 2 results in hand, University delegates expressed some significant concerns with the peer review process and with the impact of this program on early career researchers. Probably not surprisingly, young investigators did not fare well in this competition, with many UDs wondering how CIHR would even meet its mandated 15% threshold for ECR awards. Many UDs also felt that the online discussion included in the peer review process did not work in its current format, leading to inconsistencies in reviews and notably large variances as well as some poor quality reviews overall, with many unsuccessful applicants finding of little use any comments they did receive; the results to this stage clearly surprised many of the UDs, with several notable researchers – presumably for whom this scheme was created – not making the cut to Stage 3. Currently, only about 180 applications remain in the competition, with final results expected by July 15. CIHR is currently struggling with some of the budget requests in these applications, with many far exceeding baseline calculations.

With an eye to making adjustments to the Foundation Scheme in advance of the second pilot (Registration Deadline: July 27), the afternoon was spent in small group discussions focused on these key topic areas: the Foundation CV; ECRs (Leadership Criteria, Limits); the Review Process (Asynchronous Review, Stage 2 review); and Budget. Among some of the early suggestions / recommendations:

• Raise or eliminate current restrictions on publications and supervisory activity for Foundation CVs (since you are being judged on your career in Stage 1) while adding some additional sections to the CV for committee work and other research output indicators

• Offer a separate stream within the Foundation competition for ECRs with modified interpretation guidelines and refined criteria examples (Less enthusiastically considered was maintaining ECRs in the full competition and alter some of the category weightings – eg. Leadership – to account for bias during adjudication)

• At Stage 2 review, make the applicant’s ranking at Stage 1 available; in addition, place more emphasis on the science and research approach (while reduce the weighting given to institutional support / environment), and merge the ‘research concept’ and ‘approach’ sections (including page limits) to allow for a more fully developed / detailed proposal.

• Require synchronous (not asynchronous) on-line discussions by scheduling 15-minute blocks, with Chairs flagging discussion areas (not all applications may have to be discussed); work towards consensus, or at least have others be able to see any changes their co-reviewers are making following discussion

• Have CIHR calculate the baseline and give to applicants early on in the process, while providing an opportunity to challenge this calculation or justify why more is needed

Clearly, the Foundation Scheme as it currently exists requires more than a bit of tweaking. Time will tell if some of the suggested improvements will make their way to the second pilot.

Note also that funding results are expected shortly (also July 15) for the last transitional Open Operating grant competition. While a fewer than expected number of applications were received for this competition – and seemingly with the number of Foundation grant awards in this first pilot coming in at the low end (recall that these two competitions draw from the same budget) – one might anticipate a slightly higher success rate for the OOG competition than has been the case in the past few years. Here’s hoping anyway!

Regards,
Mark Filiaggi
CIHR University Delegate
Associate Vice-President Research
filiaggi@dal.ca
(902) 494-7102