Funding, News and Announcements

We have received a number of questions from the research community seeking clarification with respect to an individual’s ability to hold both Foundation and Project Grants (e.g., the individual applied and was successful to both the 2016-17 Foundation Grant competition and the Project Grant: Fall 2016 competition). We are writing to you today to provide some clarification on this matter.

In the event that an applicant has applied to both competitions, they will need to choose between the two grants, as was the case in the previous round of competitions. The timing of when decisions are announced for these two competitions (Project Grants May 2017 and Foundation Grants August 2017) will mean that the Project Grant can be accepted as of April 1, 2017. This grant can be held until results of the Foundation competition are released on August 3, 2017 at which time an applicant who is successful in the Foundation competition will have the following two options:

1. Accept the Foundation Grant 
Should a Program Leader be successful in the Foundation competition and accept the grant, all of their existing CIHR Open grants, including their Project grants, held as a Nominated Principal Investigator will be terminated and replaced by their Foundation grant. Note that grants on which they are a co-principal investigator or co-investigator will not be terminated.

In this instance, the Nominated Principal Investigator can keep the funds received from any existing CIHR Open grants, including Project grants, until June 30, 2017 as the Foundation grant would begin July 1, 2017. Please note, the Project grant funds received from the Fall 2016 Project competition will not be included in the Stage 2 Foundation budget baseline as the calculation is based on the grants held by the applicant as of the date of the Stage 2 application deadline, which is prior to the decision date for the Project Fall 2016 competition.

2. Decline the Foundation Grant 
Should an applicant be successful in the Foundation competition and choose to decline the Foundation Grant, the Nominated Principal Applicants on all existing CIHR Open Grants will continue to hold and receive funding for those grants, including their Project Grant. No existing CIHR Open grants would be cancelled under these circumstances.

Please note that CIHR will not consider requests to change the role of any individual on any grant for the purposes of transferring/maintaining grants that will be canceled.

We hope that this information provides sufficient clarification. If you require additional information, please direct your questions to the Contact Centre at support@cihr-irsc.gc.ca or at 1-888-603-4178.

Sincerely,
CIHR Contact Centre
Canadian Institutes of Health Research