Funding, News and Announcements

Happy New Year everyone,

Following are highlights from the January CIHR University Delegates teleconference:

CIHR Updates
As many of you are no doubt aware (and some may have even viewed as an early Christmas present), Alain Beaudet announced his retirement from public service effective March 31, 2017. You can view the official announcement here. This is a Governor in Council appointment, with a successor to be appointed through the Office of the Minister of Health. This will take several months (previous Tri-Agency president searches have taken up to a year), so you can expect that an interim President will be put in place on April 1 (note that Governing Council can appoint an interim for up to 90 days).

Foundation Grant Update
Adjudication for this Foundation competition is actively underway, with preliminary reviews due January 10^th. Asynchronous online discussions are scheduled from January 16^th to 18^th, with final reviews expected on January 23^rd. Stage 1 decision notices will go out on February 2^nd; note that the Stage 2 application deadline is March 14^th. CIHR has indicated that they are still committed to awarding a minimum of 15% of grants to early career investigators as planned (you’ll recall that the number of ECR applications was lower than anticipated), as well as ensuring that approximately 50% of the applications from this cohort move from Stage 1 to Stage 2. In addition, CIHR will be looking to maintain the gender ratio from Stage 1 to Stage 2. There will be no major changes to the Stage 2 application and process (the focus with respect to mid-course program corrections remains on the Project Grants). CIHR has yet to model the number of applications they expect to advance to Stage 2.

Project Grant Update
Draft reviewer assignments were submitted on January 4^th (with a few extensions granted). UDs did ask about concerns that have apparently been voiced by some Competition Chairs regarding having insufficient information on some reviewers to allow them to adequately assess level of competence to review an application (i.e., potential discrepancies between the “self-declared” ability to review compared to what the Competition Chairs believes to be true in this regard). CIHR did indicate that Chairs do not have access to more comprehensive College of Reviewer profiles, but did say that this issue has come up in only a few of the clusters (hence the extensions); according to CIHR, a “vast majority” of applications had a high complement of reviewers with “full” expertise. [Note that CIHR has done away with the “low-medium-high” ability to review in favor of a “full-partial-none” rating.] In addition, reviewers assigned applications particularly owing to their methods expertise must still demonstrate some content expertise as well. Reviewers are expected to be notified of their final assignments the week of January 16^th and can expect 8 to 12 applications; those for whom only a handful of applications could be identified will not participate in this competition. Reviewers will have 4 weeks to complete their reviews, followed by 2-week period to allow for subsequent communication with the Competition Chairs and/or Scientific Officers. Prompted by the UDs last month, CIHR has indicated that applicants can expect a notification (by email) in March indicating whether their proposal will move on to Stage 2 face-to-face adjudication (40% of project applications will proceed to Stage 2), though applicants unsuccessful at this stage will NOT receive their ranking or comments until the Notice of Decision goes out to all applicants for this competition on May 15^th (see details on the CIHR website).

The timeline for the next Project competition has also been announced. Note that the registration deadline will be May 30^th, with the application due a short two weeks later on June 13^th. An anticipated Notice of Decision is expected on November 23^rd, with a funding start date retroactive to October 1^st, 2017. Please keep an eye out for notices regarding a collaborative internal peer review process Dalhousie, the IWK and NSHA will be organizing for this competition, similar to the one held in the Fall but with a more expanded timeline. CIHR has already indicated that there will be a second Project competition deadline in 2017 with a funding start date of April 2018. Having two opportunities per year at 6 month intervals will likely mean always having a month between the NOD for the previous competition and the application deadline for the next one.

International Peer Review Expert Panel
UDs were provided a brief update concerning the International Peer Review Expert Panel, details of which can be found here. Dr. Jennifer McGrath (Concordia) has been invited to serve on this panel as the University Delegates representative. The Panel will be meeting in Ottawa January 16-18, 2017, with a report expected to be tabled at CIHR’s Governing Council in March/April prior to public dissemination.

As always, please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

Regards,
Mark Filiaggi

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