Funding, News and Announcements

Hi everyone,

Following are the highlights from the October CIHR University Delegates teleconference:

CIHR Foundation Scheme 2015 Updates

CIHR received 1,053 registrations for the second Foundation scheme pilot, of which 911 were deemed eligible. (This represents a decrease of ~450 from the first pilot.) Of this total, roughly half were from applicants unsuccessful in the 2014 Pilot. Final numbers are still to be determined, but ~355 of the applicants were prior Open grant holders, ~265 are early career researchers (ECRs) and another ~325 never held an Open grant (and, yes, the numbers don’t add up to 911!). CIHR was able to hit their 450-reviewer target for Stage 1; this reviewer number is the same as last time (for fewer applications). It was noted that CIHR will be utilizing current Foundation grant holders for Stage 2 reviews and the final assessment phase. A number of webinars for applicants have already been held, with 600+ participants. There have also been webinars for reviewers, along with mandatory training for Virtual Chairs – who now have a more beefed up role along with increased support from CIHR staff. CIHR is currently tweaking the Stage 2 process based on prior feedback and promise to have these changes out in advance of the December decision date for Stage 1. CIHR has not committed to a number for funded Foundation applications, indicating that again the budget envelope includes the upcoming “Open Grants” competition (i.e., the 2016 Project Scheme Pilot) and will depend on application pressure for that competition and the final budget split (currently set at 45% Foundation / 55% Project).

Project Scheme 2016 Pilot Update

The registration deadline for this competition is January 18, 2016; no applications will be accepted that do not adhere to this deadline. Registration is being used not only to gauge application pressure, but also to inform recruitment and assignment of reviewers.

College of Reviewers Update

Recruitment for the College has begun in earnest. A summary of this process, along with related aspects around education / mentoring, quality assurance and recognition, is provided here. CIHR is currently working with institutions to identify and nominate reviewers not captured in the first wave of recruitment (i.e., existing and recent reviewers, Chair and Scientific Officers). The UDs queried CIHR on how long training might be expected to take. Purportedly, there has been one comprehensive webinar that took ~75mins (with lots of Q&A), but otherwise short modules are available that only take ~10-15 minutes to complete.

CIHR Training Strategy

A fair bit of the teleconference was devoted to describing CIHR’s evolving training strategy for health researchers. A detailed summary and status update can be found here. This strategy is in response to the increasing interdisciplinarity of health research, changing career paths (only about 15% of PhDs land academic positions), and the shortage of expertise in critical areas. We will be hearing more about this initiative in the coming future. Though not directly linked to this strategy, CIHR spent the remaining minutes defending their cancelation of MD/PhD program support.

There has been modest support (~$1M) for this program for many years, with ongoing concerns (according to CIHR) about the program design – specifically the “non-competitive” voucher system. CIHR’s position is that barriers to MD/PhD students in other competitions are no longer there (as evident from their success in these competitions); they also feel there are imbedded opportunities in SPOR and want to shift their focus to career mentoring of clinician-scientists (to this end, I direct you to the “SPOR Capacity Development Framework” distributed following the teleconference). Despite the protests and letters, a CIHR representative made clear that it is “highly unlikely” CIHR will reverse its decision.

As always, please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Regards,

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