Funding, News and Announcements

Hello everyone,

The April CIHR-UD meeting was held by webcast on April 4, 2019. Here are the highlights.

CIHR Updates

Pierre Côté chaired the meeting. The University Delegate Executive Committee (UDEC) meeting was held on March 20-21. The focus of the meeting was to outline a strategy on how CIHR can best inform and represent the research community. This will be a theme for the CIHR-UD face-to-face meeting sometime in the latter half of June 2019. The inaugural New Frontiers Research Fund competition is now complete and the official announcement of recipients is anticipated very soon. Details of funding success rates, total amount of the competition awards, etc. were not available. Successful recipients have been notified.

Project Grant Competition

Spring 2019 received 2,447 application, compared to 2,484 applications in the Fall 2018 competition. Recruitment of core membership is 76% complete for peer review committees as of March 28. Reviewer webinars are ongoing until mid-April and Conflict and Ability to Review task has been released to 78% of committees. Peer review committee meetings will be held from May 14 to June 11, with anticipated Notice of Decision on July 10, 2019.

Foundation Grant Update

Stage 2 review process is currently underway for the 2018-2019 competition. Reviewer and Competition Chair webinars have been completed. Notice to Stage 2 applicants (147) confirming whether their application will be reviewed at Final Assessment Stage will be sent early May.  Final Assessment Stage face-to-face meeting in Ottawa on June 20-21, 2019. Anticipated Notice of Decision for the Final Assessment Stage will be July 16, 2019. No decision has yet been made regarding the program – an update is expected by the end of April or early May. Staff presented data on the Male/female self-identification of the applicants invited to Stage 2, showing that both mid-career and senior investigator categories contain approximately 30% women and 70% men, which is the same distribution as the number of applications submitted.  

Strategic Grant Update

Operating Grant: CEEHRC (Epigenetics) 2019 – Application deadline 2019-04-09

Operating Grant: ECIs in Maternal, Reproductive, Child & Youth Health – Registration deadline 2019-04-02; Application deadline 2019-05-14

Operating Grant: New Investigator Grants in Child and Youth Health – Application deadline 2019-04-22

Team Grant: Indigenous Component of Healthy Life Trajectories (I-HeLTI) - Application deadline 2019-05-01

Team Grant: Transnational Cardiovascular Research Projects - Application deadline 2019-04-29

Operating Grant: Active and Assisted Living Program - Application deadline 2019-05-24

Team Grant: Cannabis Research in Priority Areas - Application deadline 2019-05-15

Team Grant: Pediatric concussion CIHR-NIH 2019 - Application deadline 2019-04-12

Strategic Grant Results

Operating Grant: Data Analysis Using Existing Databases and Cohorts (201810DAE) – 9 out of 53 proposals funded for an investment of $0.9M over 1 year

Team Grant - GACD Intervention scale-up - Hypertension and/or diabetes (201807HAD) – 2 out of 14 proposals funded for an investment of $2.9M over 5 years

Operating Grant: Transitions in Care - Best and Wise Practices Grants (201810BWP) – 11 out of 47 proposals funded for an investment of $1M over 1 year

Summer Program in Aging Host Support (201901SPH) – 1 out of 1 proposal funded for an investment of $75k over 1 year

Operating Grant: Sharing Big Data for Health Innovation (201812SBD) – 1 out of 1 proposal funded for an investment of $167k over 2 years

Catalyst Grant: Analysis of CLSA Data (201809ACD) – 17 out of 55 proposals funded for an investment of $1.2M over 1 year

Operating Grant: Epigenetics Clinical Translation (201810ECT) – 5 out of 12 proposals funded for an investment of $5.9M over 4 years

Operating Grant: Evaluation of Interventions to Address the Opioid Crisis (201809EOC) – 10 out of 34 proposals funded for an investment of $1M over 1 year

Operating Grant: Geroscience Demonstration Grants (201811GER) – 8 out of 24 proposals funded for an investment of $3.6M over 3 years

Catalyst Grant: SPOR Innovative Clinical Trials (201811SCT) – 10 out of 28 proposals funded for an investment of $1M over 1 year

Federal Budget Implications for CIHR

The federal budget contains several initiatives to support graduate students, including research scholarships in the amount of $114 million over five years, starting in 2019–20, with $26.5 million per year ongoing. This means $32M/5years to CIHR, $34M/5years to NSERC and $48M/5years to SSHRC. Over the 3 agencies it means 500 new MSc scholarships and 167 PhD scholarships.

There is an additional commitment from the federal government to increase paid parental leave program by $37.4 million over five years, starting in 2019–20, and $8.6 million per year ongoing, to CIHR ($14M/5yrs), NSERC ($15M/5yrs) and SSHRC ($9M/5yrs). This additional funding is to expand parental leave coverage from six months to 12 months for students and postdoctoral fellows who receive granting council funding. It will support the agencies’ commitment to ensure that all researchers and research trainees have equitable access to support.

In response to the Fundamental Science Review, activities of third-party research organizations that receive federal support be assessed. Budget 2018 committed to consider a new approach to determine how to allocate federal funding to third-party research organizations, and the new budget proposes to establish a Strategic Science Fund starting in 2022–23. No details are available at this time.

New investments were announced to existing research initiatives as follows:

Stem Cell Network - $18M over 3 years starting in 2019-2020

Terry Fox Research Institute – up to $150M over 5 years to establish a cancer center network

Ovarian Cancer Canada - $10M over 5 years beginning in 2019-2020

Brain Canada Foundation - $40M over 2 years starting in 2020-2021

Genome Canada - $100.5M over 5 years starting in 202-2021

TRIUMF - $196M over 5 years starting in 2020-2021

Let’s Talk Science - $10M over 2 years

Several other investments may also impact some CIHR investigators through other departments outside of CIHR, including Veterans Affairs, ISEDC, Indigenous Affairs, PHAC and Health Canada.

Next CIHR-UD meeting is on May 2, 2019. Bye for now!!

Roger McLeod
CIHR University Delegate
Associate Dean (Research)
Faculty of Medicine