Funding, News and Announcements

Hi all,

Following are highlights from the Febraury CIHR University Delegates teleconference:

CIHR Updates
A recording of the “Ask Me” webinar held January 27^th to field questions regarding the Fall 2016 Project grant competition is now available under “archived Webinars”.

Foundation Grant Update
Stage 1 decision notices have gone out (as of February 2^nd). A summary of the results, including a breakdown by career stage and gender, can be found here. Overall, 39% of applications are moving on to Stage 2. As indicated, the number of female applicants moving forward was proportionate to the number submitted for Stage 1, so no additional adjustments to applications moving forward was required. Also, a proportionally higher number of early career researchers were invited to Stage 2 (~ half) to ensure a sufficient applicant pool for awarding a minimum of 15% of Foundation grants. Interestingly, no geographic distribution was provided. Note that the Stage 2 application deadline is March 14^th; the application module should be available this week. The anticipated notice of decision is August 3, 2017.

Project Grant Update
CIHR has provided several recent updates to the Fall 2016 competition currently being adjudicated. Preliminary reviews are due February 20^th, with 2 weeks allowed for communication with the Cluster Chairs and/or Scientific Officers prior to submission of final reviews (March 3^rd). Applicants will be notified mid-March as to whether their application will move on to Face-to-Face review, though to reiterate my message from last month: 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.

Of the 2900 applications received, apparently only 7 had less than 4 reviewers assigned, though CIHR “was confident” that they will eventually have 4 reviewers. A few UD members did raise questions regarding the qualifications required to review, and specifically whether “co-investigators” on a funded CIHR grant automatically qualified as reviewers. CIHR indicated that while this only represented a small percentage of reviewers, additional criteria would have needed to be met (eg, having previously reviewed for CIHR a minimum of two other times). CIHR did affirm that they will not be “naming” the clusters formed to review these applications, though applicants will know following the competition who the Cluster Chair was as well as the reviewers who were involved in that cluster. (The fear I think is that by naming these clusters, one might lend an element of permanency to them.) UDs also asked how the 2 reviewers (from the 4) for each application moving forward to F2F will be selected. CIHR will look at availability first, then utilize an “optimization tool” to come up with the final roster. CIHR noted that all reviews filed for the application will be considered, not just the reviews represented by those in attendance.

International Peer Review Expert Panel
Jennifer McGrath, as University Delegate representative, provided a brief presentation to this Panel (January 17^th) in concert with Dr. Jim Woodgett and the representative of the Early Career researcher group. You can find her rather comprehensive report here (pdf). A report from the Panel is expected in the coming weeks.

College of Reviewers
There have been 2 in-person meetings of the College Chairs thus far, with a third planned for March. From the meeting in January several sub-committees have been struck to provide some greater focus to key aspects of this College (eg, mentoring). CIHR hopes to have a better idea of when this College will officially “open” following the upcoming March meeting of Chairs.

Indigenous Health Research Initiative
UDs were provided a brief update on efforts within CIHR to fulfill its commitment to indigenous health research, including increasing research investment to 4.6% of the budget (to reflect the overall % of indigenous peoples in Canada). A new definition for “Indigenous Health Research” has also been developed to complement an existing SSHRC definition. More on this important initiative can be found here.

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