Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Project Scheme Competition (2016 1st Live Pilot) (see below for objectives of this opportunity)

Deadlines:
Brescia Research Officer: 1 week before agency deadline (allow for 2 weeks before if you wish to receive feedback on your application, and/or if you require additional materials or signatures)
CIHR Registration Period: November 16, 2015 through January 18, 2016
Application Deadline: March 1, 2016
Anticipated Notice of Decision: July 15, 2016

All registration and application materials are submitted via ResearchNet

Click here for Project Scheme Registration Instructions

Note: 

• The list of all participants must remain unchanged between registration and application; CIHR will not allow participants to be added or removed or roles to be changed once a registration is submitted. This is required to ensure a high quality of reviews, enabling CIHR to secure reviewers with the appropriate expertise for applications within the competition timelines. The list of participants will enable potential reviewers to declare any conflicts of interest.
• The Complete Summary must remain unchanged between registration and application. The summary of your research proposal will enable CIHR to match applications to reviewers with the appropriate expertise.

Common CV Requirements:

Nominated Principal Applicants, Principal Applicants and Co-Applicants are required to complete a Canadian Common CV (CCV). If you have previously completed a CCV template, please take the time to update your CV information using the new templates in theCanadian Common CV (CCV) or create a new CCV if this is your first application to CIHR.

The roles you select when identifying participants in ResearchNet (Task 1) will determine which CV type is required for each participant:

• The Nominated Principal Applicant and all Principal Applicants are required to submit a “CIHR Project Biosketch” CV, whether they are an Independent Researcher or Knowledge User.
• All Co-Applicants are required to submit a “Project Scheme Co-Applicant CV”, whether they are an Independent Researcher, Knowledge User or a Trainee.
• A CV is not requested for Collaborators.

Objectives of the Project Scheme
The Project Scheme is designed to capture ideas with the greatest potential to advance health-related knowledge, health research, health care, health systems, and/or health outcomes. It supports projects with a specific purpose and a defined endpoint. The best ideas may stem from new, incremental, innovative, and/or high-risk lines of inquiry or knowledge translation approaches.

The Project Scheme is expected to:

• Support a diverse portfolio of health-related research and knowledge translation projects at any stage, from discovery to application, including commercialization;
• Contribute to the creation and use of health-related knowledge;
• Promote relevant collaborations across disciplines, professions, and sectors.

Partnered/Integrated Knowledge Translation (iKT) projects: Special consideration
One of the expectations of the Project Scheme is to support a diverse portfolio of health-related research and knowledge translation projects at any stage, from discovery to application, including commercialization. To support this expectation CIHR will establish a minimum threshold of funded knowledge translation and commercialization projects that include a partnered/iKT approach. Competition processes and peer review for these projects will be fully integrated within the competition as a whole with no additional steps being required on the part of the applicant outside of identifying their application as a partnered/iKT and commercialization project (details can be found in Project Scheme: 2016 1st Live Pilot – Registration Instructions and Project Scheme: 2016 1st Live Pilot – Application Instructions (link to come)).

Funds Available
CIHR’s financial contributions for the Project Scheme are subject to availability of funds. Should CIHR funding levels not be available, or be decreased due to unforeseen circumstances.

• The combined total amount available for CIHR’s 2015-16 Open Grant Programs (Foundation Scheme: 2015 2nd Live Pilot, Project Scheme: 2016 1st Live Pilot and Project Scheme: 2016 2nd Live Pilot) is approximately $500M.
• The number of grants expected to be funded for this Project Scheme competition will depend on the application pressure, requested grant amount and duration and peer review recommendations.
• Based on historical modeling, it is expected that most Project grant budget requests will fall within a range of $50K to $750K per annum and the grant durations will range between approximately 1 to 5 years. Project grant funding levels will be commensurate with need, which is expected to vary by research field, research approach, and scope of project activities.

Partner Participation
The Project Scheme 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 Project Scheme 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”.