Funding, News and Announcements

CIHR University Delegates Face-to-face Meeting Notes
June 23, 2017

It is clear that the immediate focus of the current interim leadership is to “stabilize the ship”, and in particular restore confidence to the peer review process (the primary agenda item at the face-to-face meeting this past week in Ottawa). This leadership will also look to re-examine the current role of Institutes (and in particular Scientific Directors), with the likely restoration of some of the responsibilities these Institutes previously enjoyed. In addition, SPOR will be under the microscope, though CIHR reiterated several times that there are no plans to cancel this initiative; there remains strong support for the vision but concerns with implementation, including the support units. Stay tuned for future consultations.

So on to some important decisions and considerations for upcoming competitions:

Project Grants
Discussions here emphasized what would be possible for the pending competition in Fall 2017, and what changes could be worked into the Spring 2018 competition. This much is true: the two-stage process for Project grants that included a Stage 1 virtual review is dead (cue applause); all future competitions it seems will revert to Face-to-Face only peer review. With the Fall deadlines coming in a few short months and with consideration to IT system requirements, CIHR will effectively be reverting to the pre-Reform review process in the short-term with just a few tweaks (as of June 23^rd!):
· Each application will be assigned 3 reviewers with appropriate knowledge of application (previously this involved 2 reviewers and a “reader”); reviewers will have a maximum of 10 applications
· Structured review (with the 3 adjudication criteria) will be retained, with reviewers to provide an overall written summary and comments on the strengths/weaknesses of each criterion
· Applicants will be allowed to respond to previous reviews (2 pages)
· Applications to be scored by reviewers (0 - 4.9) and not ranked
· Applications to be reviewed as part of a committee and reviewers assigned to committees based on areas of expertise
· A streamlining (triage) process to be applied by excluding non-competitive applications from the committees’ discussions
· Applications to be rated within their committees. Final rank of the application to be based on rating within the committee
· The Indigenous Health Research – Iterative Review Process format will be retained
· Reviewers’ declaration of expertise: will go back to High/Medium/Low model [the Full/Partial model could be used in future competition]

Expect the 10-page free-form application (including Figures/Tables) to be retained. CIHR is looking at this point to revert to the pre-Reform review committees (there were 53 in the last OOGP competition). UDs did spend some time looking at this list and made some recommendations for updating committee names and mandates; these are to be reviewed more fully this week with the current Competition Chairs. In any case, applicants will be able to indicate which committee they want their application sent to (along with a second choice, if appropriate). UDs did raise the issue of applications in the “old” system bouncing between committees, with data indicating that re-assigned applications were much less likely to get funded. CIHR acknowledged the need for strong competition (committee) chairs and scientific officers to lead the matching and assignment of applications to reviewers, and in helping to re-constitute these committees; invitations to prospective Chairs/SOs – particularly to some folks who did this in the past – are to be sent out this week. UDs also made the point that in reconstituting these committees, CIHR should strive as fully as possible for diversity, acknowledging that there are operational challenges to meeting all the levels of diversity / regional representation / etc. on these panels especially when considering the relatively small CIHR community. UDs would also like to see mandatory unconscious bias training, as was done with the 2016 Foundation competition.

To mitigate the impact of the delay on the research community, all existing Open Operating and Project Grants scheduled to expire between September 30, 2017 and March 30, 2018 will be financially extended to March 31, 2018. Note also that CIHR will assess NI eligibility as of the June date (June 15, 2017) so that eligibility is not lost for this delayed competition.

For the Spring 2018 competition, we may see the return of the 0-100 scale if IT issues can get worked out, as reviewers generally liked this scale. Under consideration as well is whether applicants will be provided reviews prior to face-to-face peer review (so some applicants will know “in advance” whether their application is likely to get triaged, enabling them to start working on a re-submission).                              

Foundation Grants
The vast majority of UDs (supported by feedback in the cross-country town halls) believe something needs to happen with the Foundation Grants – from outright cancellation to substantial trimming of the budget. Most felt that new investigators did not belong in this program, with the concern that they are being locked into what are effectively (at least budgetary) Project grants. There appeared to be consensus that ECIs currently holding 5-year Foundation be given opportunity to apply for Project grants in year 3. All felt that the review process was too lengthy and that a streamlined process, perhaps tied to the Project grant completion could be implemented.

It is expected that 70-75 applications will be funded in the 2016 competition (equating to a success rate of ~12%). This is down from the 120 funded in 2015, and far off the 150 funded in the inaugural competition. It is unclear at this point what will happen with the 2017 Competition (there was not a strong consensus to place a moratorium on this program while it underwent revision), though my guess is that – for continuity – the current structure will be retained but with a further decrease in awards (likely 40-50); doing so would allow ~ 80 more Project grants to be funded.  CIHR would then look to 2018 for streamlining the process (eg., eliminating Stage 1) and likely place some restrictions on eligibility (eg., requirement to hold at least one – possibly two – CIHR operating grants). Stay tuned to some further announcements regarding the 2017 competition.

College of Reviewers
Very briefly, invitations have been sent to 2,100 individuals including current and recently active reviewers as well as Foundation holders as part of wave 1 enrolment; more than 700 acceptances have been received after only 5 days. On the question of diversity, CIHR did acknowledge that the male/female ratio in this first wave is ~65/35; they will continue to monitor and strive for a diverse College. Note that institutions are also being invited to submit nominees for future enrolment waves. CIHR is also continuing a targeted recruitment strategy to address expertise gaps. University delegates generally felt that CIHR should consider mandated peer review for those who hold CIHR funding. While this is currently the policy with Foundation holders, the feeling was that this should be extended to Project holders. It was pointed out that with some other agencies, if you don’t review within two years of receiving a grant, you are not allowed to apply again. A non-punitive would be to offer extra time to submit an application if serving on a review committee. CIHR will look at data by institution to assess funds awards versus service contributions received.

As always, please contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

Regards,

Mark Filiaggi
CIHR University Delegate
Associate Vice-President Research
filiaggi@dal.ca