Funding, News and Announcements

On behalf of Mark Filiaggi, CIHR University Delegate, Associate Vice-President Research

Hi everyone,

Following is a brief update from the September teleconference for CIHR University Delegates:

2014 Foundation Pilot Update

In total, 1374 applications (of the 1580 validated applications originally registered) were submitted by the September 15th deadline: 532 current OOG holders; 584 new / early career researchers; 242 applicants who had never held Open funding; 16 yet to be determined). Webinars for Stage 1 reviewers have already commenced. It was noted that all CVs submitted with the Stage 1 application will be presented to peer reviewers using the “old” PDF-layout version of the CCV (a much nicer PDF layout was launched by CCV on September 16). For now, each reviewer is being manually assigned a subset of applications for determining capacity to review and any conflicts; this will likely require a few rounds before all applications are fully assigned. This process is to be automated online in the future. Overall rankings will be provided to applicants and the institution after Stage 1 review. CIHR is still working out how to handle figures and tables for the Stage 2 applications; you can expect significantly more limitations than in the past. Application forms should be available by November. Stage 2 application requirements are available on the CIHR website (http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/47624.html).

CIHR is still looking to assess the efficiency and reliability of the Stage 1 review as a predictor of success in the Foundation competition. As noted in a follow-up to my update last month, this study – planned initially for this first Foundation Pilot – will be postponed until the second Foundation Pilot next year. The plan essentially is to have a small cohort of randomly selected applications that did not meet the cutoff for Stage 2 (Group “R”) be invited to move forward along with those that were rated more highly (Group “C”). Stage 2 and 3 reviewers will not be privy to the Stage 1 reviews / decision documents or the application category. While in theory it is possible that an especially well written Stage 2 application from this random cohort could result in a Foundation grant, CIHR did not feel this would likely happen if “everything works as it should”. I will keep you posted as the details of this study proposal evolve.

Update on Other CIHR Pilot Programs (“Project” Scheme)

Three Project Scheme Pilots are currently ongoing. The final stage committee meeting was held on September 23 for Round #2 of the Knowledge Synthesis Pilot (Winter 2014); a survey of committee members and applicants will close in November. The application deadline for the Fall 2014 competition is November 17. The Fall 2014 competition for the Knowledge to Action Pilot closed on October 1, with 87 applications received. The Partnerships for Health Systems Improvement (PHSI) project scheme pilot has an upcoming deadline of October 15.

An added wrinkle for these current competitions has been additional piloting of the Project Scheme Biosketch that is replacing the CIHR Academic CV. This new Biosketch

format had been distributed widely for consultation both within CIHR and externally within the research community, and the feedback regarding this more compact CV has generally been positive. [For those not familiar with this new Project Biosketch, I have attached a table comparing this new CV to the traditional CIHR Academic CV.] CIHR has acknowledged some growing pains as researchers adjust to the new limits (for example, you need to select your 10 most relevant publications) and with frustrations over “errors” that appear in the template due to missing information. Still, this new approach does help to address issues that have been raised in the past regarding CVs that were too long, contained irrelevant information or required too much time to complete.

CIHR is now considering including the Biosketch as part of the transitional OOG program competition to take place this coming Spring (March 2015). CIHR acknowledged that doing so may add anxiety and frustration to a transitional-OOGP that will be highly competitive and for which anxiety levels will likely be running high; however, from a change management perspective they see value in implementing this change now as part of the “old” system rather than introducing this change along with the new Project Scheme application process the following year. The feeling as well was that, with no Fall OOGP, applicants will have a comfortable amount of time to make the updates required to their Project Biosketch. Overall, the majority of University delegates agreed with this approach. The UDs did seek clarification as to whether “customized” Project Biosketches are possible in the case where the applicant may be submitting more than one project (and for which there may be a different subset of “most relevant” information to include from the CCV). CIHR will follow-up on this item.

SPOR Network Call

Finally, CIHR distributed a pre-announcement for the SPOR Network in Chronic Diseases that should be of interest to many of you. Launched this month, this funding opportunity has a registration deadline of December 2, 2014 and a letter of intent due January 6, 2015. More information can be found at the following link.

As always, please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Regards,

Mark Filiaggi
CIHR University Delegate

Associate Vice-President Research
Filiaggi@dal.ca
(902) 494-7102