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Hi everyone,

Following are highlights from the April CIHR University Delegates teleconference:

Project Scheme 2016 Pilot Update
Shortly following the March teleconference, CIHR confirmed receipt of approximately 3,820 full applications. For this competition they have secured approximately 140 Competition Chairs (Virtual Chairs) to enable assignment of high quality peer reviewers; purportedly, over 1,800 expert reviewers – most of whom have reviewed for CIHR in the past – have accepted to act as reviewers. As indicated in this last update, however, CIHR has identified areas where they have gaps in expertise for review. In keeping with the primary objective of enabling high quality review, they will be approaching some Principal Applicants in the competition to review applications in areas of expertise where their help is deemed essential. CIHR noted that it has routinely used applicants as reviewers within the same competition in the past, so long as they did not participate in the committee reviewing their own application. In the 2016 Project Grant Pilot competition there is no opportunity for applicants to influence the ranking of their own applications as they have no access to or overlap with those reviewers assigned to rank their own application. Further, to mitigate against any potential bias (real or perceived) at the competition level, all reviewers will have to declare any potential conflicts before any review, all reviewers will be monitored by a virtual chair (who will be made aware of the status of the reviewer as an applicant), and all individual reviews will be open for challenge by other reviewers assigned to a given application through online discussion.

Overall, CIHR maintains that it is on track to deliver the competition results in July. In addition, they confirmed that there will be second Project Scheme pilot competition in the Fall – despite rumors that this competition would be delayed for budgetary reasons. With another Foundation Scheme round also planned for the Fall, UDs were polled on whether this Foundation competition launch should precede the second Project Scheme pilot rather than occur at the same time. Delegates were split on this issue, but did agree that the deadlines for these competitions should be staggered.

Federal Budget and Implications for Health Research
There was much interest in the $30M in increased funding being provided to CIHR in the 2016 federal budget. In an Open letter to the CIHR research community, Dr. Beaudet confirmed that this new investment will be entirely dedicated to the ongoing and future Project Grant competitions, with a focus on early career investigators. .

Other key investments in health research were also noted, including renewed commitments to Genome Canada ($237M/4yrs), the Centre for Drug Research and Development (up to $32M/2yrs) and Brain Canada (up to $20M/3yrs). .

As always, please feel free 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