The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) was created under The CIHR Act that came into force on June 7, 2000.
CIHR is a Departmental Corporation listed in Schedule II of the Financial Administration Act. As an arms length agency of government, it is accountable to Parliament through the Minister of Health.
CIHR is managed by the President and the Governing Council, who are assisted by various Standing and Advisory Committees.
CIHR consists of 13 "virtual" institutes, each headed by a Scientific Director and assisted by an Institute Advisory Board. They work together to shape a national health research agenda for Canada. The institutes bring together researchers, health professionals and policy-makers from voluntary health organizations, provincial government agencies, international research organizations and industry and patient groups from across the country with a shared interest in improving the health of Canadians.
The work of the institutes embraces the four pillars of health research: biomedical; clinical; research respecting health systems and services; and the social, cultural and environmental factors that affect the health of populations. A major challenge for the institutes is to forge relationships across disciplines to stimulate integrative, multifaceted research agendas that respond to society's health priorities while adhering to the highest ethical standards.
Accelerating the use of health research findings for the benefit of Canadians is CIHR's second major challenge. Innovative strategies for knowledge translation are key to fostering changes in behaviour, systems and policy. Some examples include: working with health care givers to turn research into practice; making plain language overviews of research findings easily accessible; and providing incentives for the training of communicators with science backgrounds.
CIHR is also about encouraging innovation, facilitating the commercialization of health research in Canada and promoting and diversifying the growth of Canada's New Economy. A major source of discovery, health research fuels economic growth and has played a major role in propelling Canada to number two in the world in the field of biotechnology.
CIHR supports more than 9,000 researchers and researchers in training as part of the federal government's investment in health research. The peer review process is a vital part of CIHR. Review by panels of peers from the research community ensures proposals approved for funding by CIHR meet international accepted standards of scientific excellence.
