CIHR: Canada-EU Smart Living Environments – Transitions in Care: Team Grant

Sponsor

CIHR’s Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health (ICRH), Institute of Health Services and Policy Research (IHSPR) and Institute of Aging (IA), through the CIHR Transitions in Care Initiative

Program

Canada-European International Cooperation on Smart Living Environments that Address Transitions in Care Challenges for Aging People

For More Information

For additional information, please visit the program's websites CIHR and the European Commission for

• Program guidelines
• Application forms
• Evaluation criteria

2020 Joint Transnational Calls with Canadian Dedicated Funds slide decks can be found in the attachments below.

Description

CIHR is partnering with the European Commission to fund international teams tackling transitions in care challenges. The goal of this funding opportunity is to build a collaboration of stakeholders in Europe and Canada in the domain of smart living environments for aging people that will focus on the development, integration and evaluation of eHealth innovations addressing transition in care challenges in order to improve health outcomes. In addition, the collaboration should also consider ways to optimize the quality of outcomes and the cost-effectiveness of smart living environments that support care transitions (i.e. pragmatic evaluation and use in care delivery programs or systems), through rigorous research designs.

Canadian applicants must work in collaboration with stakeholders, including international research teams, eHealth industry partners, and health system decision makers, in order to improve health outcomes. It is strongly encouraged that applicants also work with patient/family/caregivers and clinicians.

Research team must have the capacity to:

• Establish productive partnerships with international partners and eHealth innovation industries to co-design eHealth-enabled service delivery programs to improve transitions in care;
• Evaluate the impact, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness of eHealth innovations in addressing gaps and inefficiencies in servicing CIHR Transitions in Care (TiC) focus areas. The evaluation will utilize pragmatic clinical trial design(s) to generate high-quality (valid and reliable) evidence that will assist in the subsequent spread and scale (sharing) of successful innovations; and
• Integrate successful eHealth innovations into care delivery programs and promote their uptake and use among health service providers.

Funding to the Canadian component of the team requires that a proposal also includes one or both of the following research areas as relevant to aging people.

Research Areas

This funding opportunity will support projects relevant to the following research areas:

• Changing health status or care: Individuals facing changes in their health status (i.e., suffering a stroke) or living with chronic or complex health conditions (i.e., atrial fibrillation). These individuals may experience several handovers among health providers, institutions, hospital units and/or have a change in care location (e.g., home to hospital; community care to tertiary care).
• Key populations to optimize transition in care outcomes: Populations at increased risk of adverse transition in care outcomes include First Nations, Inuit and Métis people; individuals residing in rural and/or remote communities; individuals who are transgender; individuals with an intersex condition; older adults and new aging populations (i.e., survivors of diseases/conditions that previously led to early death); new immigrants; and those who experience systemic, cultural and/or language barriers.

For complete information on the challenge to be addressed, scope, expected impact, and cross-cutting priorities, please refer to the European Commission funding opportunity.

Eligibility

CIHR Eligibility to Apply

For an application to be eligible:

1. The Nominated Principal Applicant (NPA) must be an independent researcher appointed at an eligible institution (see Institutional Eligibility Requirements for eligibility process and associated timelines).
2. The research team must include Principal Applicants from each of the following roles (including the Nominated Principal Applicant). Note that one individual can represent more than one role.
   1. A scientific lead (an independent researcher);
   2. A health system decision maker.
3. The research team must have an eHealth innovation partner as a collaborator.
4. The NPA must have successfully completed one of the sex- and gender-based analysis training modules available online through the CIHR Institute of Gender and Health and have submitted a Certificate of Completion (see How to Apply section).
5. Consistent with the program's emphasis on partnerships, the Canadian component of the team grants will require a minimum of two (2) partnerships in Canada, which requires at least one (1) Health System Partner and one (1) eHealth Innovation Partner. Applicants interested in exploring such partnerships are required to contact their potential partner to request supporting documentation by the deadline. Please refer to the Sponsor Description for more information on partner deadlines and specific requirements.

European Commission Eligibility to Apply

For more information concerning eligibility to apply and minimum number of countries, please refer to the European Commission funding opportunity.

Partners

Health System Partner(s)

A health system partner will include a decision maker who has the authority to make decisions about health policy or the delivery of health services. A decision maker is typically a health-system manager, policy-maker, or clinician-leader who is in a position to make significant changes to policy or practice. All relevant decision makers who would be responsible for implementation of the TiC solution(s) must be included in the application as members of the research team. Decision makers’ participation in the research activities is a concrete indication that the topic is important to them, the organization they represent, and solidifies their commitment to support the implementation of the proposed solution(s), and regular sharing of issues and results related to the research.

Applicants may obtain contributions (cash and/or in-kind) from the decision maker’s organizations that identify themselves with the project and with whom applicants negotiate directly. Such partners include but are not limited to Universities, Foundations, Voluntary health charities, Hospitals, Community groups, Health providers, Provider associations, Government departments, and Private sector.

eHealth Innovation Partners

Small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) are the primary driver of innovation in most industrial sectors, including eHealth. The Canadian component of the team grants are intended to foster an alignment of funding and incentives with SME funding and support agencies at the federal, provincial, territorial and regional levels, as well as with national and multi-national industries. As such, eHealth Innovation partners are targeted towards (but not limited to) Canadian SMEs and foreign subsidiaries in the digital health care/medtech sector.

Note: The eHealth Innovation partner may only be identified under the designation of a collaborator.

Funding Availability

Total amount available to the Canadian component of the team focusing on cooperation with Europe is expected to be CAD $1,920,000, enough to fund up to two (2) grants.

Maximum Project Value

The maximum CIHR amount per grant is $240,000 per year for up to four (4) years for a total of $960,000, per grant.

NOTE: Canadian applicants must secure partnership contributions equivalent to a minimum of 30% of the total grant amount requested, with a minimum of half (15%) of the amount must represent a cash contribution (i.e., a total of $288,000 partner match required per grant with a minimum of $144,000 as a cash contribution per grant), for a total grant value of up to $1.248 million per grant over four (4) years.

Project Duration

4 years

Special Notes

In order to facilitate the establishment of international, collaborative teams, CIHR and the European Commission are providing the following tools:

Webinar: CIHR will be hosting webinar(s) to support participants with the requirements of this funding opportunity and to answer questions. To find out more information and to register, visit the Webinars page.

Partner Linkage Tool: CIHR is providing a Partner Linkage Tool that is intended to facilitate connections between researchers and funding partners should there be interest. This is not a mandatory tool. Information is provided on a volunteer basis and does not confer any advantages in the evaluation and funding of applications. The table will be updated weekly, until the application deadline. If you would like to use this tool, please complete a short survey. The information you provide will appear on a public CIHR web page. Please note that potential applicants are not required to use the linkage tool or contact those who have submitted their information.

Attachment(s)

Attachment	Size
JTC European Commission/CIHR English webinar	2.09 MB
JTC European Commission/CIHR French webinar	2 MB