Sponsor

Canadian Institutes of Health Research

Program

Project Grant

For More Information

For additional information, please visit the CIHR website [1] for

• Program guidelines
• Application forms
• Evaluation criteria

Webinars

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 [2] page.

Description

The Project Grant program is designed to capture ideas with the greatest potential for important advances in fundamental or applied health-related knowledge, health care, health systems, and/or health outcomes by supporting projects or programs of research proposed and conducted by individual researchers or groups of researchers in all areas of health. The best ideas may stem from new, incremental, innovative, and/or high-risk lines of inquiry or knowledge translation approaches.

Research Areas

The Project 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." 

The Project Grant program is expected to:

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

Priority Announcements (PAs) offer additional sources of funding for highly rated applications that are relevant to specific research areas. Refer to the Project Grant: Fall 2021 Priority Announcements (Specific Research Areas) [3] for further details.

CIHR has made some changes to the Project Grant competition to reflect the context of COVID-19 and to make the competition work better for all. Find out what’s new [4].

Eligibility

1. The Nominated Principal Applicant must be:

   1. an independent researcher [5] or a knowledge user [6] affiliated with a Canadian postsecondary institution and/or its affiliated institutions (including hospitals, research institutes and other non-profit organizations with a mandate for health research and/or knowledge translation) at the time of funding.

      < >if the Nominated Principal Applicant is a knowledge user, there must be at least one Principal Applicant who is an independent researcher

      an individual affiliated with an Indigenous non-governmental organization in Canada with a research and/or knowledge translation mandate.

      OR

   2. an Indigenous non-governmental organization in Canada with a research and/or knowledge translation mandate (see Administration of Funds, below).

2. The Nominated Principal Applicant must have their substantive role in Canada for the duration of the requested grant term.

3. Principal Applicants must be i [7]ndependent researchers or knowledge users (inclusion of one or more Principal Applicants is optional).

4. Co-Applicants can be one of the following (inclusion of one or more is optional):

   • independent researchers;
   • knowledge users;
   • trainees [8];
   • other.

5. An individual or an organization cannot submit more than two Project Grant applications per competition as a Nominated Principal Applicant. If the Nominated Principal Applicant submits more than two applications, CIHR will automatically withdraw the last application(s) submitted based on time-stamp of submission.

6. Applicants must comply with CIHR’s Policy on Identical / Essentially Identical Applications [9] (see Section 5.2 Application Administration Guide [10]).

7. Individuals who hold a Foundation Grant in the role of Program Leader are eligible to apply to the Project Grant competition in the role of Nominated Principal Applicant or Principal Applicant only 18 months prior to their grant expiry date. Please contact CIHR [11] if you have questions about your eligibility.

Early Career Researchers (ECRs)

Inclusion within this cohort is based on the ECR [12] eligibility status of the Nominated Principal Applicant, at the application deadline.

All time spent in full-time independent research appointments/positions will be taken into consideration when determining eligibility irrespective of time spent in a clinical component or other duties (i.e., administrative, academic, etc.). Should an applicant hold or have held a part-time appointment/position, CIHR will count that time as 50% (e.g., a one-year part-time appointment/position will count for 6 months towards the maximum).

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

Funding Availability

The total amount available for the Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 Project Grant Competitions is $650M.

Maximum Project Value

Within the investment allocated to each Project Grant competition, there will be a funding envelope of:

• $16.25M dedicated to large grants. Large grants are defined as those within the top 2% largest total grant amount requested by all applicants within the competition and varies with each competition. This budget envelope is not intended for series of projects to be bundled together for long-term support. Individual grant applications requesting a total of more than the total dedicated amount for the competition will be withdrawn.
• $14.95M (4.6%) dedicated to supporting applications with an Indigenous health research focus.

Indirect Costs

0%

Special Notes

Please note that research activities carried out in the context of COVID-19 need to adhere to the University of Guelph COVID-19 research principles, policies, guidelines and processes as they may be updated from time to time and communicated on the Office of Research web-page [13].

Webinars

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 [2] page.

How to Apply

Specific Instructions

• Because CIHR is committed to ensuring that its programs and peer review processes result in the fair and impartial treatment of all participants, applicants to CIHR programs must complete an Equity and Diversity Questionnaire [22].
• The Nominated Principal Applicant is required to complete one of the sex- and gender-based analysis training modules [23] available online through the CIHR Institute of Gender and Health and upload with the application the Certificate of Completion in the Attach Other Application Material task.

• All application participants will require a CIHR PIN [24]. Although not required, it is important to provide a PIN number for Collaborators

• Indigenous Health Research (IHR): For an application to be considered for review by the IHR committee and for the IHR peer review members to assess the level of engagement as required by the TCPS 2 - Chapter 9 on Research Involving the First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples of Canada [25] and Indigenous partnering community/organization ethical guidelines

  • Select ‘yes’ to the question regarding the TCPS 2 – Chapter 9 (“Does your proposal address the TCPS 2 - Chapter 9 Research Involving the First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples of Canada [25] and Indigenous partnering community/organizational ethical guidelines?”);
  • Provide a detailed justification in the related text field to indicate how the proposal addresses the principles of the TCPS 2 – Chapter 9;
  • Select the Indigenous Health Research (IHR) committee as the first suggested peer review committee in Task 5.

Information For Co-applicants

If you need to meet a deadline set by the lead institution for this opportunity, please ensure that you provide the Office of Research with at least five days in advance of the lead institution’s deadline to review the application, or your proposed component of the project. Please be in touch with the Office of Research (contact information below) ahead of the deadline if it looks like it will be difficult for you to submit all the required documentation on time (i.e. budget, proposal, OR-5 Form).