Joining Alan Bernstein on the mission were several scientific directors, including Remi Quirion, Mike Kramer, Bhagi Singh and leading Canadian health researchers with experience in China, including Peter Liu, Weihong Song, Shoo Lee, Victor Ling, Robert Zhong, Tom Hudson, and Francis Ouellette. The group visited Beijing and Shanghai and had over 25 meetings with officials and researchers from the main health research organizations.
CIHR and NSFC are extremely pleased that the MoU they signed has led immediately to a Request for Applications (RFA) which is now posted on the CIHR and NSFC web sites. This competition will support joint teams from Canada and China. Six CIHR Institutes are supporting this RFA, which addresses areas that were identified as being of interest to both countries: the cardiovascular system, diabetes and obesity, genetics, infection and immunity, neurosciences, and reproductive, child and youth health. There will be 15 grants divided among these theme areas. In keeping with the research orientation of NSFC, this RFA will support proposals within these areas that primarily address questions of basic science. CIHR will provide grants of up to $30,000 for three years to successful proposals, and NSFC will provide a similar amount to the Chinese partners in the same application. For full information about the RFA, consult the China-Canada Joint Health Research Initiative - Grants Program.
Members of the delegation found Chinese researchers to be very interested in collaborating with Canadian researchers and in submitting proposals to the current competition. This interest in collaborating reflects the dynamic research environment in China and the strong interest there in building research collaboration with other countries. The Chinese government has been increasing its support for research, and plans to continue this trend into the future. In fact, during the mission, proposals arose for developing other agreements or MoUs to address training, clinical research and health services research. CIHR will be pursing these opportunities.
