Operating Grant
Note: The content of this opportunity has been updated (December 15, 2005).
Description
The objective of the CIHR Operating Grants program is to contribute to the creation, dissemination and use of health-related knowledge, and to help develop and maintain Canadian health research capacity, by supporting original, high quality projects proposed and conducted by individual researchers or groups of researchers, in all areas of health research.
Deadline Dates for Registration and Applications
All applicants must register their intention to apply for a new or renewal Operating Grant one month before the deadline date for the full application. The mandatory deadline dates for receipt of the full application for both new and renewal applications are September 15 and March 1. The mandatory registration deadline dates are August 15 and February 1, respectively. Applications for which there has been no registration will not be accepted.
Notes about CIHR deadlines
- Deadline dates indicate the latest acceptable date for a courier-stamped application.
- If the deadline date falls during a weekend or a holiday, the deadline will be the next working day.
Results for the September 15 competition will be announced in LATE JANUARY and results for the March 1 competition will be announced in LATE JUNE.
Period of Support
Grants will usually be awarded for two to five years. Non-renewable short-term grants of six months, one year or two years may be awarded for discrete, time-limited projects such as pilot projects and feasibility studies. Payment of yearly installments is subject to the appropriation of funds by Parliament.
How to Apply
The application process is comprised of two steps: Registration and Full Application.
Review the application instructions provided in How to Apply for Funding.
Select Operating Grants (Registration or Application) from the Application Packages.
Additional instructions must be followed for this program:
- When completing the Research Module Web form, select the check box for "Operating Grants" that is located under the CIHR column within the "Research Funding Programs" section.
- Applicants submitting a new Operating Grant application are not required to attach a one-page Summary of Progress, numbered Page 10, to their Research Module. However, if the applicant has completed work in the proposed area, he/she may attach this page.
- Up to five pertinent reprints, manuscripts that are in press or submitted for publication, and/or abstracts may be appended to each application.
Send Application by Courier to:
RE: "Operating Grants"
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Research Portfolio
Room 97, 160 Elgin Street,
Address locator: 4809A
Ottawa ON K1A 0W9
Additional Information
The Operating Grants program also supports:
- Pilot Projects and Feasibility Studies;
- Programmatic Operating Grants.
Pilot Projects and Feasibility Studies
There is no separate program for support of pilot projects or feasibility studies. Support for discrete, time-limited projects such as pilot projects and feasibility studies should be requested through an Operating Grant application. Sometimes a peer review committee will indicate it wishes to see pilot data by recommending a grant of limited duration.
Programmatic Operating Grants
CIHR would like applicants to familiarize themselves with the essential elements of proposals in CIHR Themes 3 and 4: Health Services, Population Health, Societal and Cultural Dimensions of Health, and Environmental Influences on Health.
Please note that the term programmatic operating grant does not refer to a special competition or application procedure. Applicants should use the regular CIHR operating grant application package and the usual competition deadlines. To assist researchers in preparing programmatic operating grant applications, CIHR provides the following examples.
I. What is a programmatic operating grant?
Programmatic operating grants are connected sequences of conceptually related research projects, executed by the same team of investigators over a number of years.
To qualify for programmatic grants in themes 3 and 4, proposals should:
- Include more than one project, inside a clearly conceptually-linked theme, presented as a "step-by-step line of inquiry ".
- Provide a rationale for the proposed sequence of specific projects or studies built around basic common resources (such as key personnel, databases or instrumentation/analytic tools) that require initial "capital investments" and ongoing support throughout the series of proposed projects/studies.
- Include detailed budget justifications for maintaining those resources that are basic to more than one related project/study in the proposed research program (e.g., in order to ensure their quality and/or to avoid wasteful "repeat start-up costs").
- Present a careful justification for three to five years programmatic support. CIHR requires a satisfactory progress report at midterm on a five-year grant before a grants committee can recommend further support.
- Document the applicants' capacity to execute successfully the full program of research for which funds are being sought.
II. Criteria for the evaluation of programmatic operating grant applications by Peer Review Committees
Specific requests for "programmatic support" will be assessed by criteria such as:
- The extent to which the applicants have convincingly documented a "line of inquiry" for the complete program which presents a compelling sequence of research questions.
- The extent to which this series of future studies, beyond those described in detail as initial investigations, show the potential to address adequately the program's specific research questions in terms of design, analysis, track record of the investigators, and other usual project review criteria. However, the Committees would not expect the series of future studies to be laid out in as much detail as the initial study/studies.
- The extent to which the applicants convincingly justify "front-end" investments for core resources to support the entire program of research, and demonstrate that the program cannot be supported efficiently by a series of separate grant proposals.
III. Generic examples
Some examples of the sorts of programmatic research applications that would be appropriate for submission follow.
Example #1
A program of research to develop systematically a new, or validate an existing, theoretical framework that describes, predicts, or explains health phenomena (e.g., health behavior, health outcomes, underlying mechanisms of health interventions).
The initial project would identify the relevant variables in the framework using inductive or deductive methods.
Subsequent studies would test the predictive and explanatory power of the framework in a variety of health situations using a range of study designs.
Example #2
A research program based upon the assembly of a real or "virtual" cohort consisting of:
- An initial project proposal for data collection to form a cohort base for several future studies - either an actual cohort or a "virtual" (e.g., record-linked) cohort.
- An additional programmatic component of subsequent sub studies which can be done on the cohort/database provided that on going maintenance costs are supported (for example to maintain contact with and ascertain outcomes on a real cohort and/or periodically update record linkage for a virtual one). Again, an applicant must describe the series of later studies in sufficient detail to demonstrate that each has scientific merit in terms of the research questions addressed and in terms of the designs proposed to address them. The applicant must also describe how sequential studies are best carried out inside a program of research arising from the initial cohort/assembled database.
Example #3
A program of research to develop and adapt an instrument to a range of applications.
- The initial project proposal would be for the development and validation of a new instrument in an important field - e.g., a Health-Related Quality of Life Instrument.
- Additional programmatic elements might include subsequent related sub studies such as sequential adaptation of the instrument to various settings. These might include for example, cross-cultural adaptation and/or a specific population. In this case, the ongoing programmatic funds might be used to support personnel who have particular expertise in the conceptual framework underlying the instrument and its analysis and interpretation.
- Application of the instrument to an epidemiology survey or an evaluation study assessing the impact of a particular health intervention could constitute additional possible programmatic elements, instrument, and its analysis and interpretation.
Example #4
A research program of a group of components that may represent different approaches of a multi-faceted intervention. The programmatic grant could attempt to ultimately address a multi-faceted health problem. For example, there may be past experience in community policy interventions to limit substance abuse of teens, along with some clinic-based interventions and school-based interventions. The programmatic grant may attempt to build up experience of all of these to develop and test approaches that integrate varying degrees of the components.
