Funding, News and Announcements

Hi everyone,

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

Project Scheme 2016 Pilot Update
We were reminded that the closing date for registration to the Project Scheme competition is January 18, 2016; no applications will be accepted that do not adhere to this deadline. Complete registration instructions can still be found here.

In a complete (though not surprising) reversal, CIHR will now allow changes to the research proposal Summary submitted at the time of registration (though we were “warned” that any significant changes at the time of submission of the full application could compromise CIHR’s reviewer assignments and ultimately its ability to meet the July 2016 decision date). It is important to note that the List of Participants for the proposed project CANNOT change from the registration through to the submission of the full application in March. The participants list includes “knowledge users” if they have a role as a principal applicant on the project, but does not include “collaborators”. CVs can be updated at the full application submission stage but the roles of participants in the application cannot change. One scenario that could play out however concerns applications that include a principal applicant who also has an active Foundation scheme application; were that individual to be successful, s/he would need to be removed from the Project scheme application. CIHR will apparently be looking at these situations on a case-by-case basis.

CIHR still has not yet posted application instructions and other supporting materials for this competition – initially promised at the end of November. We are now told that the documents are awaiting translation and should be available between December 18^th and the 21^st (just in time for the holidays!). I can tell you that the application itself will include the 1-page summary, a section to describe the Concept (“quality of the idea” – ½ page; “importance” of the idea – 1 page), a section on Feasibility (Approach – 4½ pages; Expertise, Experience and Resources – 1 page) and a budget section. CIHR reiterated that there is an attachment component as part of the application, restricted to a maximum of two pages, which should include any figures and data tables (provided they adhere to formatting requirements). All nominated PAs and PAs will need to include Project Biosketch CVs that provide evidence of the necessary skills and experience required to conduct the proposed research; co-Applicants will need to fill out the Project Co-Applicant CVs that demonstrate the “experience, expertise and value” being brought to the proposed research project.

CIHR confirmed that there will be two Project Scheme competitions in 2016.

CIHR Foundation Scheme 2015 Updates
As you are likely aware, the results are out for Stage 1 of the 2015 Foundation Scheme competition. You can find a summary of the results here.

Approximately 30% of applications received are moving on to Stage 2. There remains for this second Pilot some confusion with the ratings systems – particularly with respect to a researcher's “percentile” ranking, and concerns persist regarding some very high standard deviations. This confusion has not been helped by what appears to be some contradictory information on the above web-link as to the conditions under which applicants were invited to stage 2; here and elsewhere there were researchers meeting the first of three possible scenarios (“at least two reviewers ranked the application above the 80^th percentile in their ranked list”) that did not advance beyond stage 1. We will hopefully see some clarification from CIHR in the coming days.

At this stage CIHR has not reviewed the application demographics (pillars, career stage, gender, etc.) but has promised to do so in the future. They did indicate that they expect most if not all of the Stage 1 Virtual Chairs to continue in that capacity for Stage 2; a new cohort of reviewers will be engaged for this stage. For this next stage, the length of the application has been adjusted, with more allowance for the research approach and budget justification. Adjustments have also been made to the weighting of sub-criteria, with increased emphasis on the research concept/approach and some de-emphasis of the quality of the support environment. More detailed information can be found here. Note that - as was the case in the first Pilot – Stage 1 information WILL NOT be available to Stage 2 reviewers and reviewer discussion will remain ASYNCHRONOUS.

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