ResearchNet - RechercheNet

Table of Contents

• Objectives
• Eligibility
• Guidelines
• Review Process and Evaluation
• How to Apply
• Contact Information

Objectives

The Foundation Grant program is designed to contribute to a sustainable foundation of new and established health research leaders, by providing long-term support for the pursuit of innovative and high-impact research programs.

The Foundation Grant program is expected to:

• Support a broad base of health research leaders across all career stages, areas, and health-related disciplines with a demonstrable track record of excellence and impact in their field of study;
• Develop and maintain Canadian capacity in health research and other related fields;
• Provide research leaders with the flexibility to pursue novel and innovative lines of inquiry;
• Contribute to the creation and application of health-related knowledge through a wide range of research and/or knowledge translation activities, including relevant collaborations.

New/Early Career Investigators: Special Consideration

New/Early Career Investigators are eligible to apply to the Foundation Grant competition as Program Leaders. To support the objective of the program – a sustainable foundation of health research leaders – a minimum annual intake of New/Early Career Investigators into the Foundation Grant portfolio will be maintained. Eligibility for consideration as a New/Early Career Investigators is outlined in the eligibility section below. 

The success of New/Early Career Investigators in the Foundation Grant program will be actively monitored. Peer reviewers will be instructed to take into consideration the career stages, research fields and institutional settings of all applicants.

Please note that for any application with multiple program leaders all Program Leaders must be New/Early Career Investigators to be considered in this cohort.

Funds Available

CIHR's financial contributions for the Foundation Grant program are subject to availability of funds. Should CIHR funding levels not be available or be decreased due to unforeseen circumstances, CIHR reserves the right to reduce, defer, or suspend financial contributions to grants received as a result of this funding opportunity.

• For the grants funded from the 2016 Foundation Grant competition, approximately $225M will be invested over the funding period.
• The number of grants funded will depend on the requested budgets and peer review recommendations. 
• Foundation grant levels will be commensurate with need, which is expected to vary by research field, research approach, and scope of program activities. 
• Mid Career/Senior Investigators will be awarded 7-year grants. New/Early Career Investigators will be awarded 5-year grants.
• For existing CIHR grantees, the budget request should be consistent with the applicant's previous CIHR Open Funding history as a Nominated Principal Investigator. CIHR will provide a calculated baseline budget to all Stage 2 applicants. Stage 2 applicants must provide robust justification for requests that are significantly higher than their historical grant levels.

Partner Participation

The Foundation Grant program has no formal requirements for partnering, however, depending on the nature of the research project a commitment (cash or in-kind) from interested or engaged knowledge user(s) or other partners may be reasonably expected by peer reviewers.

Research Areas

The Foundation Grant program is open to applicants in all areas of health research that are aligned with the CIHR mandate: "To excel, according to internationally accepted standards of scientific excellence, in the creation of new knowledge and its translation into improved health for Canadians, more effective health services and products and a strengthened Canadian health care system".

Eligibility

Eligibility criteria for all CIHR research funding programs apply. The business office of the institution of an eligible Nominated Principal Applicant generally administers CIHR funds. Refer to the Individual Eligibility Requirements regarding the eligibility requirements for individuals and institutions.

Eligibility to Apply

Foundation grants are designed to support research leaders at any career stage to build and conduct programs of health research across CIHR's mandate. Eligible applicants will include New/Early Career Investigators, and Mid Career/Senior researchers who are independent researchers with a demonstrable track record of excellence and impact in their field of study.

For your application to be eligible:

1. The Program Leader who assumes the role of Administrative Coordinator must be an independent researcher with an academic or research appointment at an eligible institution at the registration deadline (See Institutional Eligibility Requirements)
2. Single applications from multiple Program Leaders will be eligible in the Foundation Grant program. Such joint applicants will need to convincingly demonstrate synergy and a history of co-managing programs of research. Other Program Leaders must be one of the following: 
   1. An independent researcher;
   2. A knowledge user;
   Note: Individuals who are not located within the Canadian academic or research environment at a CIHR eligible institution, (e.g., knowledge-users, researchers who are not located in Canada), may apply as a Program Leader. These individuals must apply jointly with a Program Leader who is eligible to assume the role of Administrative Coordinator.
3. Program Experts must be one of the following:
1. An independent researcher;
2. A knowledge user;
3. A trainee.
4. All Program Leaders must be included as participants at the time of Registration. Program Experts may be added as participants as part of the Stage 2 application.
5. Individuals cannot simultaneously hold a Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) and Foundation Grant. CERC holders are eligible to apply for a Foundation Grant in year 6 of their CERC. 
6. An individual may only submit one application in the role of Program Leader per competition.
7. An individual may hold only one Foundation Grant in the role of Program Leader at any one time, and may not apply for, or hold funds as a Principal Applicant from the Project Grant program or any other CIHR Open Grant program.
8. CIHR strongly encourages potential applicants to consider the objectives of the Foundation Grant Program when making their decision to submit an application to this competition.

New/Early Career Investigators:

New/early career Investigators are eligible to apply to the Foundation Grant competition as a Program Leader. For the purpose of the Foundation Grant competition, CIHR defines a New/Early Career Investigators as someone who, at the registration deadline, has held a full-time appointment as an independent researcher (e.g., faculty appointment providing eligibility to apply for grants and/or supervise trainees) for a period of 0 to 60 months. Exceptionally, for this competition, eligibility as a new/early career Investigator will be calculated as of July 27, 2016 (similar to the registration deadline for the 2015 Second Foundation Live Pilot competition).

Note: All time spent in research appointments will be taken into consideration when determining eligibility. Should an applicant hold or have held a part-time appointment, CIHR will count that time as 50% (e.g., a one-year part-time appointment will count for 6 months towards the 60 month maximum).

Leaves of absence will be considered in the calculation of eligibility (i.e., will not count towards the 60-month maximum) and should be included in the Employment section under Leaves of Absence in your Common CV.

Institutional Support:

The appropriate individual at the Program Leader's or Leaders' institution(s) must approve the application confirming that it agrees to support the Program Leader(s) as articulated in the Grants and Awards Guide and also as may be further articulated within the application.

Note for Foundation Grant Holders:

Foundation grantees interested in continuing their program of research beyond the duration of the Foundation grant may submit a new application in Year 6 (for 7-year grants) or Year 4 (for 5-year grants) to the regular Foundation Grant competition. 

In exceptional circumstances, Foundation grantees may choose to submit a new application in an earlier year with the goal of obtaining a higher level of grant support. If a new application is submitted to this competition and is unsuccessful, the currently-held Foundation grant will be terminated early. The end date of the currently held grant will be revised to one year following the funding start date for this competition.

Guidelines

General CIHR Guidelines

This funding opportunity will comply fully with the policies and guidelines as outlined in CIHR's Funding Policies. CIHR policies reflect areas of importance such as (but not limited to): Gender and Sex-Based Analysis, Knowledge Translation, Open Access, Global Health Research and International Collaborations. Policies and guidelines also cover areas such as applicant responsibilities, Official Languages policy, Access to Information Act, Privacy Act, Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications and Communication Requirements.

Information collected by CIHR may be shared as described in the Conflict of Interest and Confidentiality Policy of the Federal Research Funding Organizations.

Allowable Costs

Recipients should review the Use of Grant Funds section of the Tri-Agency (CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC) Financial Administration Guide for a complete listing and description of allowable costs and activities. 

The following costs are not eligible for support through this funding opportunity: 

• Salaries for Program Leaders;
• Release time allowances.

Conditions of Funding

Successful applicants funded through this funding opportunity and any other individuals working on the program of research must comply fully with the CIHR Funding Policies. Successful applicants will be informed of any special financial requirements prior to the release of funds or when they receive CIHR's Authorization for Funding (AFF) document.

Successful Foundation grant applicants will have all of their existing CIHR Open grants held as a Nominated Principal Investigator terminated and incorporated in their Foundation grant to support their program of research. Note that grants on which they are a co-principal investigator or co-investigator will not be terminated. (Updated: 2016-09-13)

Other conditions of funding specific to this program:

• While the broader research team may evolve over the duration of the grant, all Program Leaders included on the application must remain unchanged over the course of the grant.
• The Program Leaders who are successful within this competition must actively participate in peer review and enroll as members of the CIHR College of Reviewers when invited – instructions will be provided to successful grant recipients.
• The Program Leader(s) will be required to submit an electronic Final Report to CIHR.
• To meet federal reporting and accountability requirements, Program Leaders will also be expected to report periodically on their research productivity and achievements.

Review Process and Evaluation

Adjudication and Selection Process

Peer review will be conducted in accordance with the Peer Review Manual - Foundation. The Foundation Grant competition will be a multi-stage competition with two distinct applications and three review stages. Only successful Stage 1 applicants will be invited to apply to Stage 2.

Stage 1 and 2 review will be conducted remotely by expert reviewers supported by an internet-assisted platform that will enable communication among reviewers in a virtual space. Reviewers will review their assigned structured applications by providing structured reviews that consist of a rating for each sub-criterion (see below) and comments on the strengths and weaknesses in each section. Aided by their ratings, reviewers will be asked to rank the group of applications they are assigned. CIHR will consolidate all individual reviewer rankings into a consolidated ranking for each application, which will be used to make funding decisions.

Stage 3, the final assessment stage, will involve a face-to-face discussion of applications by an multidisciplinary committee. This committee will be responsible for integrating the results of the Stage 2 reviews, with a focus on assessing applications that fall into the "grey zone" (i.e., applications that are close to the funding cut-off, and/or which demonstrate a high degree of variability in individual reviewer rankings). This committee will make final recommendations on which "grey zone" applications should be funded.

Adjudication Criteria

The adjudication criteria for Stage 1 and Stage 2 are different. Detailed descriptions of these criteria can be found within the Peer Review Manual - Foundation.

A structured adjudication process will be used to help reviewers assess the application in the context of each review criterion. The relative weight of each criterion is noted in parenthesis. Associated sub-criteria will be equally weighted.

Stage 1

Criterion 1: Caliber of the Applicant(s) (75%)

1. Leadership (25%)
2. Significance of Contributions (25%)
3. Productivity (25%)

Criterion 2: Vision and Program Direction (25%)

Stage 2

Criterion 1: Quality of the Program (50%)

1. Research Concept (25%)
2. Research Approach (25%)

Criterion 2: Quality of the Expertise, Experience and Resources (50%)

1. Expertise (20%)
2. Mentorship and Training (20%)
3. Quality of Support Environment (10%)

Budget

The budget requested will not be factored into the scientific assessment of the application; however, CIHR will seek a recommendation from peer reviewers on the budget requested.

CIHR reserves the right to determine the final amount awarded.

How to Apply

Important: Please read all instructions to familiarize yourself with the application process before applying. For new applicants or for those wanting a reminder of the main application procedures, an overview of CIHR's application processes can be found under Application Process. Note that these are general instructions only as the specific application instructions for this funding opportunity are located below.

Relevant materials

Registration

• Foundation Grant - Registration Instructions
• Foundation Registration CV - Quick Reference Guide
• Foundation Grant - Stage 1 Application Instructions

Stage 1 Application

• Foundation Grant - Stage 1 Application Instructions
• Interactive Lesson on the Stage 1 Application for the Foundation Grant
• Peer Review Manual - Foundation
• Foundation Grant CV - Quick Reference Guide

Stage 2 Application

• Foundation Grant - Stage 2 Application Instructions
• Budget Baseline Calculation Instructions
• Interactive Lesson on the Stage 2 Application for the Foundation Grant
• Peer Review Manual - Foundation
• Foundation Grant CV - Quick Reference Guide

Reminder to applicants: Please ensure that your application is complete and is submitted to CIHR on time. In order to ensure fairness in the evaluation of grant applications, equivalent time must be guaranteed for each reviewer to assess each complete application. As a result, CIHR will not accept updates to applications after the application deadline.

• Registrations will be accepted between August 30, 2016 and September 13, 2016.
• Individuals will have access to the Stage 1 application September 14, 2016, the day after the registration deadline. Stage 1 applications will be accepted until October 13, 2016.
• Eligibility assessment will be conducted during the application period. Applicants will be contacted directly should any additional information be required.
• Only successful Stage 1 applicants will be invited to apply to Stage 2. The Stage 2 application deadline will be announced at a later date.

Submission Requirements

• It is important to be aware of your internal Institutional deadline. 
• Your application must be submitted using ResearchNet.
• This funding opportunity follows the eApproval process. This means that when the applicant submits the application, it will be directed electronically to the Research Institution which the applicant has identified as the Institution Paid. The Research Institution will review the application and submit their approval electronically to CIHR on behalf of the applicant.

Contact Information

For all inquiries please contact:

CIHR Contact Center
Telephone: 613-954-1968
Toll Free: 1-888-603-4178
Email: support@cihr-irsc.gc.ca