Funding, News and Announcements

Hi all,

Following are highlights from the May CIHR University Delegates teleconference and as well just-announced changes in the Spring 2017 Project competition:

Project Grant Update
On the heels of recently announced changes to the peer review process for the Spring 2017 competition (see here) – including reviewer clustering, reviewer matching and application ranking – comes word that CIHR is now opting to delay this competition until August /September (full announcement here). What this means in the short-term is that an additional $100M will now be available for the 2016 Fall applications currently being adjudicated (in addition to the $25M being transferred from the 2016 Foundation competition), which will go a long way to helping prop up success rates; CIHR confirmed that decisions for this past competition will be delivered on May 15^th (with awards backdated to April 1^st). For those who were currently preparing for a June submission, it is not clear at this point whether there will be any substantive changes to the application form or process. Needless to say, this has created a bit of chaos for our internal peer review process that is commencing this week. Please stay tuned for further notices.

UDs did bring up the issue again regarding mid-career researchers and concerns that they are being squeezed out of the funding for this competition, particularly given the historically low success rates. While equalization is in place with the Fall 2016 competition for early career folks as indicated in the April 13^th announcement, there is no such equalization in place for MCIs. CIHR will continue to monitor the results, though one challenge apparently is in clearly identifying who qualifies as “mid-career”. CIHR did affirm that for the Fall 2016 competition, reviewers will be identified by Cluster after the results are released; applicants will also be made aware of what cluster reviewed their application.

Foundation Grant Update
There is little to report here. Preliminary reviews for Stage 2 applications are due this week, with decisions on which applications will go to the final assessment stage expected June 1^st; those deliberations will be taking place July 10-11.  Notice of Decisions are to be released August 3, 2017.

Gender Equity and Application Data
University delegates were updated on the progress CIHR is making with respect to achieving gender equity as it pertains to research funding. Note that gender is just one of five components in CIHR’s overall Equity Strategy (the others: Career stage; Language; Indigenous Status; Size/Locale of the Institution). The presentation to delegates can be found here (pdf). Among the more recent actions undertaken has been the requirement for mandatory completion of an unconscious gender bias module for all peer reviewers prior to accessing applications. CIHR is also committed to equalizing Foundation grant results, though there was no need to intervene to ensure proportionate success rates at Stage 2. CIHR has also committed to releasing application and funding data to increase transparency of CIHR processes and procedures. The first wave of anonymous aggregated data currently going back 5 years for the Open competitions can be found here. Note that CIHR will be hosting a Data Summit on June 20^th to discuss how to best share CIHR competition data, given the considerations around privacy.

College of Reviewers
Progress continues to be made on developing the College, with College Chairs having developed a tool to support matching of applications to reviewers. This next version of the reviewer profile will be released shortly in advance of a first wave of recruitment to begin in June. Note that the College of Reviewers will be a substantive agenda item at the upcoming face-to-face University Delegates meeting in June.

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