Canadian Institutes of Health Research
160 Elgin Street, 9th Floor, Address Locator: 4809A
Ottawa, Ontario K1A OW9
Tel.: (613) 941-2672
Fax: (613) 954-1800
Cat. No. Mr21-77/2006
ISBN: 0-662-49160-2
The objectives of this report are:
The report contains an introduction and two sections. The first section provides health research funding estimates by federal, provincial and private not-for-profit (NFP) sectors. The three sectors accounted for over $1.9 billion of health research funding 2003-04, with the federal sector responsible for 66%, the provincial sector 24% and the NFP sector 10%.
The estimates include an analysis of how funding is distributed between research grants, salary & training, infrastructure (capital expenditures), indirect costs and provincial support for research centres. There are distinct profiles for each funding sector. Research grants comprise the largest expenditure category for each sector. Training & support and research centres each account for approximately 30% of funding by provincial research agencies, but they are less prominent in federal funding. When infrastructure support by provincial departments of development is included, the provincial profile changes, with 23% of total provincial funding allocated to capital expenditures. The federal sector accounts for higher capital expenditures than the provincial sector in absolute terms, but capital expenditures account for only 14% of federal expenditure.
The second section examines the increasing demand for health research and the requirement for health research funding. CIHR research grant funding requirements in 2007-08 are estimated using assumptions about the growth in the community of researchers supported by CIHR and the levels of support to be achieved in future. This section also contains a synthesis of information and opinions provided by executives of research funding agencies and organizations in the public and NFP sectors.
Specific conclusions:
AFMC - Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada
AHFMR - Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research
CFI - Canada Foundation for Innovation
CGS - Canada Graduate Scholarships
CHSRF - Canadian Health Services Research Foundation
CIHI - Canadian Institute for Health Information
CIHR - Canadian Institutes of Health Research
CPHI - Canadian Population Health Initiative
CRC - Canada Research Chairs
FRSQ - Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec
GBAORD - Government Budget Appropriations and Outlays for Research and
Development
GDP - Gross Domestic Product
GERD - Gross Expenditure on Research and Development
MSFHR - Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research
NCE - Networks of Centres of Excellence
NIH - National Institutes of Health
NRC - National Research Council
NSERC - Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council
NSHRF - NS Health Research Foundation
OECD - Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
R&D - Research and Development
SSHRC - Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
Health Research Expenditures
'R&D; programs directed towards the protection and improvement of human health.
(Includes food hygiene and nutrition, medical radiation, biochemical engineering, medical information, rationalization of treatment and pharmacology, epidemiology, prevention of industrial diseases and drug addiction.) OECD, Frascati Manual, 1994.ii
Health Research Funding in Canada
Funding by agencies dedicated to furthering health research or funding by other agencies that fits the definition of health research.
CIHR: All funding
NSERC & SSHRC:
Other agencies or programs:
Allocation of Health Research Funding
Infrastructure and Equipment: the costs of well-equipped research facilities.
Types of Infrastructure:
Uses of infrastructure:
Human Resources: Academic training and the development of specialized skills. Salary support for researchers.
Goal Oriented Research: Research projects designed to further knowledge about the protection and promotion of health. Includes both investigator-initiated research and strategic research where topics are identified by funding agencies.
Knowledge Translation: The translation of health research results into forms that will influence decision-making in the health policy or medical practice sectors. The development of commercial products from health research.
Communications & Collaboration: Activities that promote sharing of knowledge or the development and
implementation of standards to guide research activities (e.g. workshops, ethics guidelines).
Clarification Notes
There is a tendency among some stakeholders to expand the definition of infrastructure to include support for researchers or research teams. In this conceptual framework human resources and infrastructure are distinct categories. This distinction is made in the interests of precision in financial estimates.
The scope of the estimates in this framework is limited to resources that are dedicated to research as a primary goal or a shared goal (e.g. research and teaching in academic activities). Knowledge resources that serve many purposes (such as surveys or databases of Statistics Canada and CIHI) are not included.
Demand for Health Research
Demand for health research: A derived demand that flows from the desire to improve prevention, public health, health care and health systems. Effective demand by society for health research implies a willingness to fund health research with public resources.
Requirements for Health Research Funding: Estimates of the amount of funding required to respond effectively to public demand for research, given the capacity of the research community.
Canada's Innovation Strategy recognizes the importance of research to economic growth, future productivity and the nation's ability to adapt to changing social and industrial exigencies that result from globalization.
The present research funding strategy is four pronged, including support for research activities in the form of research grants and indirect costs; and support for enhanced capacity in the form of training and salary support for human resources and capital grants for new infrastructure. New federal funding programs, which bridge the traditional boundaries of the three main research funding agencies1, have been developed. These programs include the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI, 1997), Genome Canada (2000), Canada Research Chairs (CRC, 2000) and Indirect Costs (2003).
Provincial health research funding agencies have expanded their activities during the last decade. Provinces have established new funding mechanisms to provide co-funding for large infrastructure projects in which CFI or Genome Canada is the federal funding agency. The private not-for-profit (NFP) sector continues to play an important role in funding research and training.
Partnerships within the research community and between the academic and commercial sectors are essential to future uptake of, and support for, research. Partnerships involve combinations of federal and provincial public sector agencies, private not-for-profit agencies and private industry.
This paper was commissioned by CIHR as a follow-up to a paper published in September 2004, which examined the allocation of federal health research funding in fiscal 2001-02 and projected funding to fiscal 2004-05. The present study updates the data and provides projections to 2007-08. This report also extends the scope of its estimates to include provincial and NFP funding for health research. Specific objectives were:
Section 1 of the report provides estimates of health research funding from 2003-04 to 2007-08 by funding sector. Estimates for 2003-04 are broken down into the functional categories of research grants, training & salary support, infrastructure (capital), indirect costs, support for research centres and administrative costs. Section 2 examines the future demand for health research and funding required to maintain CIHR support at present levels. It includes a conceptual model to analyze demand for health research, estimates of CIHR funding requirements in 2007-08 based on the growth of research capacity and a synthesis of expert opinion.
Estimates for fiscal 2003-04 by sector and category are summarized in Table 1. Total health research funding by government and private not-for-profit funders exceeded $1.91 billion in 2003-04, with research grants, training & support for researchers and capital expenditures accounting for the largest amounts. Federal funding sources accounted for 66% of the total, while the provincial and NFP sectors accounted for 34% (Figure 1).
Table 1: Estimates of Health Research Funding by Sector and Category
Fiscal 2003-04 ($000)
| Federal | Provincial Agencies |
Other Provincial |
Total Provincial |
Private NFP |
Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Research Grants |
807,927 |
106,398 |
38,014 |
144,412 |
143,021 |
1,095,360 |
| Training & Support |
159,001 |
94,358 |
12,175 |
106,533 |
24,055 |
289,589 |
| Capital - major |
148,876 |
0 |
104,574 |
104,574 |
104 |
253,554 |
| Capital - equipment |
8,401 |
3,080 |
|
3,080 |
0 |
11,481 |
| Research Centres |
0 |
89,759 |
2,748 |
92,507 |
0 |
92,507 |
| Indirect Costs |
79,585 |
0 |
|
0 |
0 |
79,585 |
| Admin costs |
53,987 |
15,995 |
|
15,995 |
7,944 |
77,927 |
| Sub-Total |
1,257,776 |
309,590 |
157,511 |
467,101 |
175,125 |
1,900,001 |
| Unallocated |
|
|
|
|
11,092 |
11,092 |
| Total |
1,257,776 |
|
|
|
186,217 |
1,911,093 |
Note: Other Provincial consists of provincial co-funding and Cancer Agencies
Figure 1
Table 2 shows a breakdown by organization of funding in fiscal 2003-04 and 2004-05.
Table 2: Health Research Funding by Federal Agencies and Organizations
| Federal Agencies | 2003-04 ($000) |
2004-05 ($000) |
|---|---|---|
| CIHR |
693,862 |
757,876 |
| NSERC |
88,384 |
96,848 |
| SSHRC |
11,966 |
15,889 |
| CFI |
142,852 |
115,627 |
| Genome Canada |
62,005 |
60,811 |
| NRC |
63,522 |
76,582 |
| Health Canada |
103,000 |
62,000 |
| CHSRF |
10,400 |
10,400 |
| Others |
2,200 |
2,267 |
| Indirect Costs |
79,585 |
87,789 |
| Sub-Total |
1,257,776 |
1,286,089 |
|
Included in CIHR Estimates Above: | ||
| Canada Research Chairs |
46 |
61 |
| Networks of Centres of Excellence |
25 |
25 |
| Canada Graduate Scholarships |
2 |
5 |
Figure 2
The three granting councils show modest increases each year, reaching a combined total of $980 million by 2007-08. Funding estimates for CIHR are from the 2005 Plans & Priorities report plus increases in the 2005 and 2006 federal budgets for the CIHR base budget and special initiatives. Canada Research Chairs funding is provided by the CRC program. The projections assume all Chairs allotted to CIHR will be filled by 2008. NSERC and SSHRC funding estimates are based on grants and associated administration costs for the subject areas of public health and mental health. Future years estimates are based on budget projections in plans and priorities reports.2
Annual projections of CFI and Genome expenditures are subject to more uncertainty than the granting councils. These organizations invest in large multi-year projects and competitions are not evenly spaced through time (e.g. CFI awarded $738 million in fiscal 2003-04 and $180 million in 2004-05). Each organization provided estimates of funding for the health sector based on commitments made in competitions to date. Both organizations publish detailed annual reports that include an accounting of all funds disbursed. Neither organization is required to publish plans and priorities reports, however, and it was necessary to forecast future disbursements based on program budgets and commitments made in competitions held to date.
The CFI forecasts beyond 2004-05 are based on amounts committed but not disbursed, plus the remaining CFI budget of $1.5 billion, which is to be committed by 2010. The estimates assume equal annual commitments of the unallocated portion and a 5 year project completion cycle for projects funded. Increases of $20 million per year contained in the 2006 budget are included with data for fiscal years ending in 2007 and 2008.
Genome Canada disbursements to 2004-05 are from annual reports. Genome completed Competition 3 during the summer of 2005, with approximately $346 million awarded. Genome estimates that $155 million of this amount will be disbursed over the next three years. Investment plans by the award recipients have not been finalized and the forecasts in Figure 2 assume disbursements in equal amounts each year.
The Other Agencies group is expected to have approximately the same level of funding between 2004-05 and 2007-08. NRC provided information on expenditures to 2004-05. A review of trends over the last seven years indicates that health expenditures (concentrated in biopharmaceutical and biodiagnostic expenditures) have been relatively constant with some year to year variation. Health Canada estimates for 2003-04 to 2005-06 were obtained from Statistics Canada.iii CHSRF provided expenditure estimates for its main programs (research and capacity building) to 2008; present funding levels are expected to be maintained. The last agency in this group is the Canadian Population Health Initiative (CPHI) of the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). CPHI was expected to finalize its research grant budget in 2004-05 and the remaining funds in its budget allocation will be used for policy synthesis and knowledge exchange.
Indirect costs consist of the Indirect Costs program administered by SSHRC, which provided estimates of the share attributable to CIHR funded research. The Indirect Costs program budget was increased by $20 million in the 2004 federal budget and an additional $15 million in the 2005 budget. The CIHR share increased from 31.7% to 39% between 2001-02 and 2004-05.
Provincial sector funding agency estimates are broken down by province in Table 3. Funding for provincial cancer agencies and provincial co-funding for projects in which the federal funding agency is CFI, Genome Canada or NCE are summarized for all provinces.
Co-funding for federal programs is usually provided by provincial departments of development or other provincial sources and is not managed by provincial research funding agencies. Another important difference between provincial agency funding and co-funding is that provincial agency funding is based on year-to-year budgets whereas provincial co-funding was estimated based on (1) the provincial share of total funding for projects, (2) the share of project funds allocated to health and (3) annual disbursements by CFI, Genome and NCE. As such, the annual allocations of co-funding should be treated as approximations based on total commitments.
Table 3
Health Research Funding by Provinces - 2003-04
| Agency and Province | Amount ($000) |
|---|---|
| NS Health Research Foundation (NSHRF) |
5,014 |
| Other Atlantic Provinces |
513 |
| Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec (FRSQ) |
83,968 |
| Ontario MOH & Dept of Innovation |
135,000 |
| Manitoba3 |
3,350 |
| Sask. Health Research Foundation |
6,343 |
| Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR) |
52,528 |
| Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research (MSFHR) |
22,874 |
| Sub-Total - Funding Agencies |
309,590 |
| Cancer Agencies |
24,350 |
| Provincial Co-Funding |
133,161 |
| Total |
467,101 |
Provincial agencies usually do not publish forecasts of future expenditures. When asked to estimate budgets in 2007-08, three agencies indicated that they expected to receive significantly higher funding:
If these projections are realized, provincial health research agency funding could increase by $38 million, or 11.4%, by fiscal 2007-08.
Cancer agency funding includes cancer care agencies in BC, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario and NS. Saskatchewan Cancer Care research activities are funded by SHRF and federal granting agencies.
The private not-for-profit (NFP) sector includes funding by charities and foundations. The estimates reviewed here do not include all NFP funding, but they are believed to include the main health research funders. Table 4 provides a breakdown by agency.
Table 4
Health Research Funding by NFP Agencies - 2003-04
| Agency | Amount ($000) |
|---|---|
| National Cancer Institute of Canada |
65,001 |
| Heart & Stroke Foundation |
54,465 |
| BC Cancer Foundation |
11,092 |
| MS Society |
10,589 |
| The Arthritis Society |
7,300 |
| Cystic Fibrosis Foundation |
6,616 |
| Cdn. Diabetes Foundation |
5,600 |
| Canadian Blood Services |
5,340 |
| CBCRA - Other NFP partners |
4,900 |
| The Kidney Foundation |
3,700 |
| Crohn's and Colitis Foundation |
3,603 |
| Sick Kids Foundation |
2,700 |
| Dalhousie Medical Research Foundation |
1,877 |
| Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research |
1,424 |
| Others |
2,010 |
| Total |
186,217 |
The National Cancer Institute of Canada (NCIC) is funded by the Canadian Cancer Society and the Terry Fox Foundation. Other significant funders of cancer research include the BC Cancer Foundation (BCCF), which owns the BC Cancer Research Centre. The $11 million annual contribution to research by the BCCF was not distributed by category in Table 1. BCCF funding includes infrastructure, operating costs and grant funding, but the proportions are not published. The Canadian Breast Cancer Research Alliance (CBCRA) is a five year project running from 2004 to 2008. Amounts shown in Table 4 consist of annualized contributions by agencies other than CIHR and NCIC (i.e. Canadian Cancer Society, Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation and Avon Flame).
The category, 'Others' includes agencies with amounts less than $1 million in 2003-04 (Canadian Lung Association, Canadian National Institute for the Blind and the Parkinson Society). Amounts in Table 4 were obtained from interviews with agency officials, annual reports on websites and annual reports filed with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).
The CRA Charities annual report database includes approximately 8,000 charities.iv The Association of Faculties of Medicine lists approximately 300 NFP that have contributed to research in medical faculties.v It would be very difficult to document all NFP sources of funding, but it seems likely that further attempts to expand the estimates would yield relatively small increments to the total identified to date.
The estimates above include foundations associated with the Sick Children's Hospital in Toronto and Dalhousie University in Halifax. The amounts included were identified as funding for research grants or fellowships. These foundations and other foundations or financial trusts also fund capital projects in universities or teaching hospitals and many of these projects include research infrastructure. These capital contributions are not included in the NFP estimates but they are believed to represent a substantial component of the institutional co-funding contribution for federal infrastructure programs funded by CFI. Institutional co-funding is discussed further in the sub-section, Partner Funding.
The Association of Universities and Community Colleges (AUCC) has developed a conceptual model of research funding in Canada. The model, which has four dimensions, is reproduced in Figure 3 with categories from Table 1 embedded in the major categories. The model can be sub-divided into elements of research funding (left side) and capacity building (right side). Table 1 includes an additional category for administrative costs. The analysis in this section use terminology from Table 1, with the two capital sub-categories combined.
Figure 3
Conceptual Model of Research Funding Categories
|
Direct Costs of research |
Infrastructure |
|
Indirect Costs of research |
Human Resources |
Provincial estimates include a category of funding for provincial research centres located in universities or teaching hospitals. This type of funding is included in the portfolios of funding agencies in several provinces, especially Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia. Provinces do not use consistent terminology to refer to this type of funding (for example, the Michael Smith Foundation refers to it as infrastructure funding). The factors that distinguish funding for research centres from other types of funding are:
Indirect costs of health research in federal estimates consist of the CIHR share of funding from the Indirect Costs program.
There is a gray area between infrastructure and indirect costs.. The Indirect Costs program facilities category includes items that could be considered infrastructure costs, such as maintenance. Similarly, CFI provides an Infrastructure Operating Fund that includes maintenance and could overlap with items included in the Indirect Costs program. In these estimates all CFI funding is counted as infrastructure and all Indirect Costs program funding is counted as indirect costs.
Sector Allocations by Category (figures 4 to 7)
Private NFP funding is concentrated in research grants. followed by training & support.
Figure 4
Figure 5
Figure 6
Figure 7
Partnerships are an important part of the current research funding environment. Partner contributions are cited by many agencies and there is a tendency for each agency in a partnership to characterize its contributions as leveraging funding by the other partners. Estimates of partner funding are shown in Table 5. An attempt was made to avoid double counting of estimates for other funding sectors included in these estimates. An exception was made in the case of provincial co-funding in order to show estimates of the magnitude of provincial co-funding for federal investments. SSHRC and CHSRF also reported partner funding, but estimates were not included here because the level of detail made it difficult to identify health projects (SSHRC) or to identify the contributions of specific funding sectors (CHSRF).
Partner funding by industry and institutions totaled $174 million (this includes institutions' co-funding for CFI investments, which includes amounts raised from a variety of sources). In-kind contributions are included where they are part of co-funding agreements. In-kind contributions are governed by a set of common standards in the case of federal funding organizations. They are an important component of co-funding by institutions and industry.
The category, other sources, in Table 5 includes federal departments other than the funding agencies shown explicitly in this report, foreign sources and amounts that could not be allocated to specific sources. Consequently there is a small possibility of double counting in the other sources estimate. Where co-funding is not governed by agreements, agencies do not always report or keep records of partner funding, and therefore the estimates are incomplete.
Table 5
Partner Co-Funding - 2003-04 ($000)
| Federal Agency or Ogranization | Partner Sector | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Provincial | Institutional & Industry | Other Sources | |
| CIHR |
29,240 |
15,480 | |
| NSERC |
19,765 |
||
| Genome |
25,839 |
29,715 |
10,336 |
| CFI |
104,574 |
85,560 |
|
| NCE |
2,748 |
9,791 |
6,550 |
| NRC |
6,339 | ||
| Total |
133,161 |
174,071 |
38,705 |
Notes:
All the estimates in this report have been collected through interviews with agencies, a review of agency annual reports, websites and annual reports to Canada Revenue Agency for certain charities. Statistics Canada's (STC) Science Statistics seriesvi and the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada (AFMC) publish annual estimates of health research funding.vii There are a number of circumstances unique to each source of information that affect the comprehensiveness of the estimates and the allocation of amounts to specific funding sectors. Table 6 provides a reconciliation of amounts that would be expected to be reported by all three sources. Important considerations are:
Table 6
Reconciliation of Health Research Expenditure Estimates for Selected Funding Sectors - Fiscal 2003-04
| Expenditure Estimates by Source of Data ($millions) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Funding Sector | This report | STC | AFMC |
| Federal |
1,258 |
1,101 |
756 |
| Provincial |
467 |
358 |
438 |
| Private NFP |
186 |
455 |
239 |
| Local Sources |
92 |
|
273 |
| Sub-Total |
2,003 |
1,914 |
1,706 |
Notes:
This section examines future requirements for health research funding. The conceptual model guiding the approach defines requirements for health research funding from a policy perspective as well as a conventional economic view of demand. A policy-oriented perspective on the demand for health research, illustrated on the following page, identifies demand drivers, dimensions of demand and receptors or agents who express demand.
In economic terms the demand for health research is a derived demand since effective health care and health systems require information from research. Demand drivers are the exogenous factors that influence the demand for health research.
Prevention, health care and public health are the dimensions of demand. Quality of life is directly affected by all three dimensions.
Receptors in the policy model correspond to sources of demand in economic terms. They are the actors who convert the multiple influences that affect demand into a willingness to pay the costs of health preservation and improvement. The willingness to fund research flows from the understanding that research leads to better health and treatment as well as gains in the effectiveness and efficiency of the health system. In this model the main sources of demand are:
Research funding provides a mechanism for society to express effective demand for health research. Most health research produces public goods, which are defined as commodities that are not paid for directly by consumers and cannot be sold in markets. Examples from research would be knowledge about the beneficial effects of lifestyle choices, or new surgical treatments in publicly owned health care systems. Much research is curiosity driven, consisting of basic research that builds new knowledge incrementally over time, without the prospect of immediate impact on society or the economy.
This type of research requires funding from the public and philanthropic sectors. Individuals cannot purchase health research, although they can support government research funding and personally donate to research funding charities.
Private markets for research are only viable in industries where R&D for product development is a cost of business (drugs, devices, etc.). Otherwise research is a public good.
A second purpose of research funding is to provide educational assistance to students and support for researchers (set-up and operating costs, and salary off-sets). Set-up and operating costs for researchers are conceptually similar to start up costs for a private sector employer. Even in the private sector, training is often provided at public expense or at the expense of students.
The classic determinants of demand for health are income, education and affordability. The Canadian public is well aware of the importance of health research and opinion surveys show high levels of support for increased health research funding. Economic growth and increasing levels of education suggest that demand for health research will continue to be a priority for the public. Estimates of future funding requirements in this section are based on the assumptions below. Future estimates draw on trends in CIHR grant funding and growth of researchers who look to CIHR for financial support.
Assumptions in Estimating Funding Requirements:
CIHR's research grant portfolio represented 68.5% of total CIHR expenditure in 2004-05 (Figure 8). The $516 million total includes approximately $108 million in strategic research grants administered by the 13 CIHR institutes (the $13 million for Institutes in Figure 8 is the cost of support grants for each institute). CIHR grants and the number of co-investigators participating in grants have increased steadily since CIHR came into existence in June 2000 (Figure 9). The largest increase occurred in 2001-02, the first full year of CIHR's operation. Increases during the next two years were affected both by increased funding from the federal government and an increase in the ability of CIHR, as a new organization, to expand its grants portfolio. In 2004-05, rates of increase for both grants and investigators participating in grants dropped to approximately 2.5% from approximately 8% in the previous year.
Figure 8
Figure 9
While overall trends suggest a leveling of grant support by CIHR, a closer examination shows that both average expenditure and investigators per grant have been increasing. Expenditure per grant was approximately $94,900 in 2004-05 and $77,200 in fiscal 2001-024 (Figure 10). This trend is due in part to a tendency for grant applications to involve collaborative projects with multiple investigators and research sites, and in part to inflation in research costs.
Figure 10
Figure 11
Trends during the first five years of CIHR support the following conclusions:
This section examines indicators that can be used to estimate research funding requirements over the next three years. The focus is on research grants. Other CIHR expenditures are assumed to remain constant - a simplifying assumption adopted with a view to forecasting funding requirements that result from an increasing demand for health research. The indicators used in the projections consist of (1) growth in the number of researchers who depend on CIHR for support, (2) growth in the number of funded Canada Research Chairs and their effect on grant funding, (3) inflation in the average cost of research grants and (4) a target of a 62% rate of funding applications that pass peer review with very good ratings. The budget implications in 2007-08 of each of these factors are shown in Figure 12.
Figure 12
Between 2002 and 2004 there was a close correspondence between the growth of full-time faculty and the growth of researchers funded by CIHR research grants the following year (Figure 14). It seems reasonable to conclude that there is a cause and effect relationship, with a growing numbers of researchers generating an increasing number of research grant applications. The other side of the coin is the fact that research funding is an incentive in recruitment of faculty. This correspondence suggests that rates of increase in medical sciences faculty can be used as a proxy to predict increases in requirements for CIHR grant funding.6
Figure 13
Source: Association of Faculties of Medicine in Canada. See notes to Figure 15.
Figure 14
Source: Association of Faculties of Medicine in Canada and CIHR
While full-time university faculty represent a substantial proportion of CIHR researchers, the Canadian research community includes researchers who are employed in research hospitals or other institutions. While there are no comprehensive estimates of the total number of researchers engaged in health research, trends in the number of researchers presently in training can be used as a source to estimate future increases in health researchers, either as faculty members or as scientists in other research venues. AFMC data on number of PhD students and post-doctoral fellows show a trend of strong increases since 2001 (Figure 15).
Figure 15
Notes: AFMC advises that data on enrollment are more consistent than data on full time faculty, due to changing definitions of full time in certain universities. A portion of the large increase in post-doc fellows from 1997 to 2001 is due to improved data collection at one university.
Source: Association of Faculties of Medicine in Canada.
The first component in the estimates of funding requirements in fiscal 2007-08, growth in researchers, assumes that the applications for CIHR grant support will parallel the growth in researchers between 2004 and 2007. Table 7 assumes a growth rate of 14.6% in the number of researchers between 2004 and 2007, the same rate of growth observed for full time faculty over the preceding three years. The first assumption is possibly conservative, in light of the trends in PhD graduates and post-doctoral fellows, who would be the most likely domestic source of new faculty:
The table also assumes the average rate of CIHR funding per investigator will stay constant, except for the effects of general inflation, which are estimated separately.
Table 7
Potential Increase in CIHR Grant Expenditure to Maintain Support for Increases in Researchers 2004-05 to 2007-08
| Faculty | CIHR Researchers | CIHR Grants | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 |
9,758 |
9,402 |
5,440 |
| 2007 |
11,180 |
10,772 |
6,233 |
| Increase |
1,422 |
1,370 |
793 |
| Increase in grant expenditure (000) |
$72,254 | ||
CIHR has been allotted 35% of Chairs under the CRC program. As of March 2004, 445 of the CIHR chairs had been filled. By October 2005 the number of active CIHR Chairs had increased to 541, with the full complement of 700 expected to be filled by 2008. The table below shows that direct funding required for additional CIHR Chairs will increase by approximately $35 million, based on experience to date. Changes in the balance between Tier 1 and Tier 2 chairs could affect the projections, since Tier 1 funding is $200,000 per year and Tier 2 funding is $100,000 per year.
Table 8
Number of Canada Research Chairs Allocated to CIHR
| Fiscal Year | Number of CIHR Chairs | CRC Annual Expenditure ($000) | Expenditure per Chair ($000) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2004-05 |
445 |
$60,603 |
$136 |
| 2007-08 |
700 |
$95,330 |
$136 |
| Increased direct funding |
$34,727 |
||
Direct funding for Chairs is provided to CIHR and the other two federal granting agencies by the CRC program. CRC funding is allocated to institutions that employ chairholders. CFI provides infrastructure grants to institutions based on their number of active chairs. Chairs generate research proposals and the available evidence suggests that they are very successful in obtaining funding - an evaluation of the Chairs program in 2004 found that CIHR chairholders increased their research grant funding at rates of 84% (Tier 1) and 105% (Tier 2) between 1999-2000 and 2002-03 compared to 22% for other researchers.ix The average amount of research funding for chairholders was double the average for non-chairholders.x As of March 2005, 31% of Chairs were recruited from outside Canada.
These evaluations suggest that additions to the number of CIHR chairholders will translate into increased requirements for CIHR grant funding. The CRC Steering Committee is considering an option to include a research operating grant as part of the CRC package for future awards. Within the context of these factors, it seems reasonable to estimate that there would be at least a one-to-one correspondence between additional CIHR Chairs and CIHR research funding requirements. This requirement would be valued at approximately $24 million in 2004-05 dollars, as shown in the next table.
Table 9
Research Grant Requirements - Additional CRC Chairs
| Additional Chairs | Research Grants per Chair (000) | Additional Grant Expenditure (000) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2007-08 |
255 |
$95 |
$24,210 |
The estimates of funding requirements in 2007-08 include inflation in grant costs at a modest rate of 1.5% per year, or 4.6% over the three year period. This assumption may be too conservative in view of the fact that the value of funded grants per investigator has increased by 12.5% since 2001-02 (from $48,833 to $54,932).
Achieving a funding rate of 62% of applications rated very good would have resulted in an additional 218 grants in 2004-05. Based on that year's average value per grant, an additional expenditure of $20.6 million would have been required. The estimate is conservative. The number of additional grants in 2007-08 would be expected to be higher, based on expectations of increases in the number of very good applications and on the carry-over of some grants from previous years.
The calculations presented above are speculative but they seem reasonable as an approximation of funding requirements looking ahead three years. They start from the assumption that the requirement for CIHR support will increase in proportion to the pool of health researchers. This assumption has been shown to be accurate during the last three years of CIHR's grant funding, following a marked increase in CIHR's second year.
Funding requirements are defined as maintaining a level of grant support at least equivalent to the level of support in 2004-05, and increasing the funding rate for Open Grant applications rated very good to 62%. In this context, requirements are simply a mathematical concept and do not imply an opinion about the merits of maintaining, increasing or decreasing support.
Taken together, these simulations assume additions to CIHR's annual grant budget that will total $155 million by 2007-08, in 2004-05 dollars. Inflation, using a modest estimate of 1.5% per year, will bring the total to $185.5 million. The CRC Chairs program will fund the estimated direct cost of additional CIHR Chairs. Subtracting this amount leaves approximately $150 million in additional budget requirements to maintain grant support.
The indicators used to develop the estimates above (CIHR grant trends and trends in medical sciences faculty, PhDs and post-doctoral fellows) have three advantages: they are current, they are drawn from sources that provide comprehensive data with relatively stable reporting standards and they avoid double counting. These indicators show a rapidly increasing pool of health researchers, which in itself points to the success of policies implemented in the late 1990s to improve Canada's research capacity.
Other indicators confirm these trends. Some of the main findings and projections from other stakeholders are summarized below. Indicators from other programs are not additive to each other or to the data presented above, however, since researchers often participate in several programs that carry out or support research.
Indicators of Increasing Research Capacity
The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) reports that faculty members in Canadian universities increased by 4,000 between 1997 and 2004. Student enrollment grew by 200,000 during this same period. In view of these trends, AUCC predicts that faculty may have to increase by as much as an additional 17,000 by 2011 (from 38,000 to 55,000).xi
A 2004 evaluation of the CRC program found that between 1999-00 and 2002-03 there was:
The Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) program reported an increase of 297 PhD students (from 264 to 561) and 367 Masters students (from 183 to 550) involved in participating Networks in the theme area of health, human development and biotechnology between 2000 and 2004.xii Rates of increase in this theme area were greater than in any of the three other theme areas.
CFI reportsxiii
Genome Canada reports that projects it has sponsored have attracted 85 researchers to settle in Canada, trained 1,278 researchers and created 1,818 jobs since the program was launched in 2000.xiv
CIHR training awards supported 1,422 students, 768 fellowships and 456 new investigators in 2004-05.xv
Collaboration and partnerships are major objectives of CIHR. Collaboration within the CIHR research community is evident in a number of multi-disciplinary research initiatives. In terms of grant funding, the increase in the average number of investigators per grant since 2000-01 is evidence of increasing collaboration.
In partnerships with other agencies, CIHR is most often the senior agency in terms of funding capacity. CIHR partner contributions to jointly funded research were $88 million in 2004-05, equivalent to 12.4% of combined grants and awards. Industry provided approximately 34% of partner funding, with a substantial portion of this amount allocated to awards such as joint CIHR and industry research chairs. Private NFP organizations provided 27% of total partnership funds. The remaining amounts of partner funding were provided by other federal agencies, international agencies and provincial funding agencies. The prospect for significant increases in partner funding is limited in sectors other than industry by constraints dictated by government budgets and the ability to raise funds in the voluntary sector.
Figure 16
Source: CIHR
Figure 17
Source: CIHR
Federal funding programs that require or attract substantial partner contributions consist of CFI, Genome and NCE. CFI funding covers 40% of project costs, except for the Infrastructure Operating Fund, which provides funding for infrastructure maintenance without the necessity of co-funding. On average, provincial governments cover 33% of CFI project costs while the institutions that receive infrastructure grants are responsible for the remaining 27% (including cash and in-kind contributions). Genome Canada projects require at least 50% co-funding, although Genome also has substantial investments in research platforms that support many projects. As of March 2005, Genome Canada and partner contributions represented a split of 51% to 49% of investments totaling approximately $1 billion.xvi Some new Genome projects have as much as 75% partner funding.xvii NCE federal expenditures were $77.4 million in 2004-05. Partner contributions were $71.6 million, of which $37.4 million was in the form of cash and $36.2 million was the value of in-kind contributions.xviii
Table 10 shows the percentage distribution of partner contributions for CIHR, Genome and NCE. Industry provides 34% to 40% for CIHR and NCE projects. Provinces account for almost 40% of Genome Canada partner funding, reflecting perhaps the large investments in regional genome centres. Differences in the funding models of CIHR and the other two agencies explain the lack of university contributions and the importance of NFP contributions in CIHR partner funding. University researchers are recipients of CIHR grants and awards and are not required to provide evidence of co-funding or in-kind support. NFP funders concentrate their resources in grants and awards, which explains why they are not shown as partners in the other two programs.
Table 10
Distribution of Partner Funding by Source 2004-05
| Source | CIHR | NCE | Genome Canada |
|---|---|---|---|
| Industry |
34.0% |
39.9% |
21.6% |
| Federal |
18.0% |
19.7% |
13.7% |
| Provincial |
5.0% |
14.2% |
39.2% |
| University / Institutions |
9.0% |
9.8% | |
| Private NFP |
27.0% |
|
|
| International and Other Sources |
16.0% |
17.2% |
15.7% |
| Total |
100% |
100% |
100% |
All agencies and organizations interviewed for this project were asked to comment on trends in the demand for health research and strategies to deal with increased funding requirements. This section summarizes responses to these questions. The first part provides a synthesis of comments from federal agencies, followed by comments from provincial and NFP agencies.
SSHRC has experienced steady increases in the number of applications for grant funding. The number of applications from new researchers is increasing more rapidly than applications from existing researchers. Peer reviewers in SSHRC's core program - the Standard Research Grants - recommend approx. 70% of applications but SSHRC is able to fund only 40%. This pressure alone has several implications for SSHRC including: (1) that resources must increase to keep up with demand; (2) that grants will be smaller in future; or (3) that success rates and/or funding rates will need to be adjusted accordingly.
NSERC is experiencing the highest rates of growth in researchers that it has ever seen. About 800 to 1,000 new researchers apply for funding each year. This trend holds for health related areas as well as science and engineering.
NCE is experiencing an increase in the number of proposals for new networks. Increases in the number of students participating in NCE projects have been impressive but more faculty are required to support continued increases in students. Expectations are being raised in the research community, but it is not clear that they can be met in future.
Commercialization of intellectual property is an important objective of the research effort in Canada. Private sector partnerships are welcomed by the granting agencies. Experts in the federal granting agencies were unanimous, however, in thinking that there were limits to the extent to which commercialization and private sector participation would be able to support growth in research capacity. Returns from commercialization are usually received by patent holding researchers or institutions and it is not clear how much of these returns are reinvested in additional research. Private sector participation tends to be concentrated in certain types of research and does not offer the prospect of replacing public sector funding for basic research.
The National Research Council and Genome Canada have an entrepreneurial outlook for some of their investments. Both Genome and NRC view revenues and partnership funding as mechanisms to fund growth and all revenues generated in both organizations remain with the regional centres or institutes where they originated. Federal funding is viewed as core funding and there is no prospect of replacing it with internally generated revenues or investments from other sources.
The CRC program Steering Committee is concerned about the adequacy of CRC grants. Chairholders have complained about difficulty in obtaining research funding from granting agencies, but investigations have not supported the validity of this complaint. Other issues include a possible expansion of the number of chairs - possibly targeted to national priorities.
The Indirect Costs program has found that university costs are increasing more rapidly than program funding. The program covered 26% of eligible university costs at its inception. This percentage has dropped to approx. 23% at present. Universities argue it should cover 40% to 50%. Some NFP funders believe that they are at a disadvantage in attracting the best research proposals since universities try to steer researchers to the three granting agencies in order to increase their share of the Indirect Costs program budget. (There is also a misperception that a grant funded by one of the three agencies automatically includes a top-up from the Indirect Costs program).7
Expansion of medical universities was cited as a factor in the increasing requirements for health research funding. Increases in faculty required by increased enrollment in medical training programs lead to increased requirements for research grant and career award funding in order to maintain a balance between teaching and research that will be attractive to new faculty. One provincial agency director suggested that mentoring is becoming a problem as the ratio of new to established researchers changes.
The requirement for research in policy relevant areas is also increasing. Provinces that support research centres see these centres as playing a key role in the development of policy and evidence to support their health systems. One province reported that there is increasing pressure to align research funding with provincial priorities and as a result it is difficult to continue to provide funding for curiosity-driven research.
Provincial agencies also provide support to provincial researchers in their efforts to obtain funding from the federal granting agencies. There appear to be no instances where provincial agencies see their role as substituting for the federal granting agencies in supporting future requirements for research funding.
One provincial agency director suggested that increasing participation in international research may be a strategy to deal with increasing demand. NIH could be a promising source of funding for Canadian researchers. This suggestion should be viewed in context with the fact that NIH presently funds approximately $100 million for Canadian health research (2004).xix The NIH budget proposed for the fiscal year beginning October 2005 provided only 0.5% in new funding.xx
In the NFP sector, the Health Charities Coalition of Canada (HCCC) suggested that hospice and palliative care will become larger research issues in the future. Many charities change their themes and priorities over time.
Both the National Cancer Institute of Canada (NCIC) and the Heart & Stroke Foundation (HSF), the two largest NFP funders, reported that demand for funding has increased during the last 10 years. HSF reports that the cut-off score for grant funding has been increased from 3.5 to 3.8 due to increased demand for funding. The quality of research proposals has also increased, with a larger percentage now exceeding the funding-quality threshold. This is due to genuine increases in the quality of proposals, but NCIC has found that it is also influenced by 'reviewer creep' - a tendency to score proposals higher over time.
One agency reported that the number of applications is relatively stable from year-to-year but average grant size is increasing. Another agency expressed a unique view: in disease based research, the researcher community tends to follow the money. If there is insufficient funding for one disease area, researchers will move into different areas. This is a different situation than the one faced by granting agencies, which fund all types of medical research.
NFP agencies often have competing demands for activities other than research support, including public education and support for persons who suffer from target diseases. In addition, the competition for charitable donations is increasing. These factors limit the ability of charities to increase research funding activities.
Experts in health research funding agree that research funding requirements are increasing apace with the growth in the importance of the health sector and the growth in health researchers. Growth in demand for research is evident in the natural and social sciences as well as in health. Much of this growth is due to an increased national emphasis on a knowledge based society. Policies to expand university enrollment and research capacity have been successful. Investments in both human capital and infrastructure have led to a rapid expansion of research capacity. Increasingly, the focus is shifting to the future sustainability of funding for higher education and research.
While there is a potential to commercialize intellectual property and to attract additional investments from industry, these potentials tend to be concentrated in certain types of research and they do not offer the prospect of replacing public sector funding for basic research.
The challenge for federal funding agencies will be to develop innovative and relevant funding models to increase the impact of research on society, while maintaining commitments to support curiosity driven research and meet reasonable expectations for funding from an expanding research community.
