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CIHR University Delegate Report: January 2018

Posted by Danielle Andres on January 15, 2018 in Announcements

Hi all,

Following are brief highlights from the January CIHR University Delegates teleconference:

Sex and Gender in Peer Review

Cara Tannenbaum, the Scientific Director of the Institute of Gender and Health, provided an update on funding opportunities that explore issues of gender and sex in research along with considerations around sex and gender in peer review. The full presentation can be found here. She noted in particular that for the Fall 2017 Project and Foundation competitions, both the Peer Review Manual and Grants & Awards Guide addressed integration of sex and gender in research proposals. Still, feedback from reviewers suggested that few provided any formal assessment in this regard, with several not sure where to speak to sex/gender in the review. Starting in Spring 2018 Project competition, peer reviewers will be given a “box” to provide feedback to applicants on sex and/or gender integration (eg., strengths, weaknesses, applicability, suggestions for improvement, etc.). Note that at least for the time being, no specific score will be attached to this component; reviewers will need to determine what impact, if any, this consideration may have on the scoring of the application as a whole. Dr. Tannenbaum further recommended that the institution’s internal review processes begin to consider this aspect. Also for this upcoming competition, Chairs and SOs will be asked to complete the IGH training modules. Though not an explicit requirement for Project grants, applicants would be served well to complete the modules (noting that for some strategic / directed grant RFAs, this is already a requirement). The training modules can be found here: discoversexandgender.ca

Project Grant Update

Application reviews for Fall 2017 were completed on December 14th.  NODs are being finalized and will be released on January 23rd , as scheduled. Unfortunately, CIHR has elected at least for this current completion NOT to provide rankings or comments prior to the NODs, though they do recognize the value of this information for applicants perhaps looking to re-submit for the next competition. It will remain on their radar and hopefully re-considered for subsequent competitions.

An updated RFA has been posted for the Spring 2018 competition; priority announcements have been sent out as well.  Registration opens on January 16th and will close on February 6th, with applications accepted until 8 PM EST on March 6th. Please take advantage of scheduled webinars for this completion. Chair and SO recruitment has already commenced. CIHR is anticipating a similar application pressure for this competition and therefore expects to maintain a similar number of committees, with no changes in committee mandates for the time being (any changes to these mandates based on survey results would be for the Fall 2018 competition). These committees will be scheduled to meet from May 14th to June 16th, though specific committee dates have yet to be finalized. As was the case for the Fall competition, CIHR will continue to use the new/old scale (0 -4.9) for reviewer scoring.

Foundation Grant Update

The deadline for Stage 2 applications remains February 6th. Webinars for applicants still in the competition have commenced, with the next ones scheduled for January 25th.

College of Reviewers

The College will be commencing its third wave of recruitment at the end of January. Universities will be provided with a list of folks to be tapped from their institutions about one week prior to these invitations being sent out. CIHR is looking to nab ~1,000 members in this next round to go with the four thousand or so members currently enlisted. Ultimately, they are looking to build a steady state of 6-7k members. CIHR did note that for the Fall 2017 Project competition, >70% of reviewers were from the College; this number exceeded 90% for the Foundation competition.

CIHR will again be running its ECR Observer program. The call is now open, with EOIs required by February 21st; please see eligibility requirements in the call. UDs suggested that CIHR allow observers to provide unscored reviews to increase enhance their engagement in the process. Apparently, CIHR is looking to do something similar for the Fall 2018 competition that will in essence take the form of “reviewer training”.

As a reminder, please note that we will again be providing formalized internal peer review for the Spring 2018 Project completion. If you are planning on submitting an application for this competition and would like to take advantage of the internal peer review process, please notify Carla.Ross@dal.ca by January 24 and include a brief summary and project title, key words and co applicants (or your CIHR registration). Full, draft applications are due January 29. The face-to-face panel reviews are scheduled for February 14 and 15, with participants receiving their peer review comments by February 16.

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