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New Discoveries - High Risk Grants (Archived)

Request for Applications - Archive

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Institute of Genetics
Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction

Summary

The purpose of New Discoveries - High Risk Grants program is to encourage novel, innovative, and inventive research. Successful applications will be unique, original, and /or extraordinary but of excellent quality and potential.

The value of a single grant is $60,000 per year (including equipment) for two years. The Institute of Genetics has allocated 300,000 per annum for this program.

The Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction will contribute to this program through the strategic initiative in Regenerative Medicine and Nanomedicine: Innovative Approaches in Health Research.

Timeline
December 1, 2003	Registration Deadline - Registration packages must be courier stamped by this date. (Please refer to "How to Apply" section of this document.)
February 1, 2004	Full proposals must be courier stamped by this date. (Please refer to "How to Apply" section of this document.)
June 2004	Anticipated notification of decision
July 2004	Anticipated start date
Duration of projects	Up to two years
Funds Available	Up to $300,000 per annum from IG. The maximum amount per grant is $60,000 per annum, including equipment. Additional funding from INMHA is available through the strategic initiative in Regenerative Medicine and Nanomedicine: Innovative Approaches in Health Research. The total amount available will be determined based on the quality of applications.

Introduction
Specific Objectives and Eligible Research Areas
Who is Eligible to Apply?
Specific Eligibility Requirements
Mechanism of Support
Funds Available
Allowable Costs
How to Apply
Evaluation Process and Criteria For Peer Review
General CIHR Guidelines and Conditions of Funding
Performance Measurement and Evaluation
Address for Submitting Application and Contact Information

Introduction

Creating new knowledge rapidly through bold initiatives is a cornerstone of CIHR and its future directions. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to obtain seed funding to test high risk but high impact ideas in health research, since proof of concepts and other factors often take precedence in peer review deliberations. A program in which the most novel (high risk) research ideas are supported as a major criterion in the review process is required.

The purpose of this New Discoveries - High Risk Grants program is to encourage novel, innovative, and inventive research. Successful applications will be unique, original, and /or extraordinary but of excellent quality and potential. The proposals are expected to:

Be clearly novel and exciting to peer reviewers despite their inherent risk.
Demonstrate the potential for significant impact.

Partners

Institute of Genetics

The CIHR Institute of Genetics will support excellent research on the genetic and biochemical basis of health and disease (including the interaction of genes with the physical and social environments), to facilitate the translation of research findings into health policy and practice, and to examine the ethical, legal and social implications of genetic discoveries.

Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction

The vision of the Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction (INMHA) is that innovative research will provide new knowledge of the biological and socio-cultural processes underlying neurological, mental and addictive disorders. As such, the INMHA's mission is to foster excellence in innovative, ethically responsible research in Canada that aims to increase our knowledge of the functioning and disorders of the brain and the mind, the spinal cord, the sensory and motor systems, as well as mental health, mental illness and all forms of addiction. The INMHA intends to support initiatives that mobilize and link scientists in innovative collaborative programs across these research domains. The INMHA seeks to translate this new knowledge into a better quality of life for all Canadians through improved outcomes, health promotion and health care services.

As with all CIHR programs, partnership arrangements leading to health research innovations are encouraged.

Specific Objectives and Eligible Research Areas

The specific objectives of this request are:

To promote the development of novel, innovative, inventive, high risk, and high impact health research;
To create an environment and review culture in Canadian Health Research that supports the most novel applications and ideas;
To facilitate the rapid transfer of research findings through appropriate communication strategies.

The eligible research areas

The Institute of Genetics will accept proposals from any or all of the four CIHR research pillars (biomedical, clinical science, health systems and services, and the social, cultural and other aspects that affect the health of populations).

The Institute of Genetics encourages applications in any area within the mandate of the Institute of Genetics, including:

Basic biochemistry and cell biology research of any type;
Genetic research of any type.

The Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction encourages applications in any area embraced by the strategic initiative in Regenerative Medicine and Nanomedicine: Innovative Approaches in Health Research.

Please see the Regenerative Medicine and Nanomedicine strategic initiative announcement for more information.

Who is Eligible to Apply?

Eligibility criteria for all CIHR research funding (grant) programs apply. Please refer to Eligibility for Research Funding Programs on the CIHR website.

The business office of the institution of an eligible Principal Applicant generally administers CIHR funds. The eligibility requirements for Institutions are found on the CIHR website in the Financial Administration of Funds Guide.

Specific Eligibility Requirements

There are no specific requirements.

Investigators in the following categories are encouraged to apply:

Researchers and any medical, dental or allied health professionals affiliated with:
- Canadian postsecondary institutions and their affiliated institutions including hospitals and research institutes;
- Non-governmental or not-for-profit organizations (including community organizations, regional health authorities, and national voluntary organizations) with a research dissemination/promotion mandate;
- Canadian learned societies, federations, professional associations and scientific organizations.
Researchers from research disciplines such as biophysics, physics, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, statistics, who may not have a history of applying to CIHR but who have an interest in applying their knowledge to health research questions.

Mechanism of Support

This RFA will follow CIHR's general guidelines for the operating grant program, which provides support for a research project by an individual or team of investigators.

Funds Available

The maximum amount awarded for a single grant is up to $60,000 per annum for up to two years, including equipment.
The total amount available for this initiative is $300,000 per annum, from IG. This amount may increase if additional funding partners decide to participate.
Additional funding from INMHA is available through the strategic initiative in Regenerative Medicine and Nanomedicine: Innovative Approaches in Health Research. The total amount available will be determined based on the quality of applications.

This RFA is a one-time, non-renewable grant that will provide funding for up to 2 years

Allowable Costs

Support will be provided for:

The direct costs of performing the research, including equipment and maintenance costs, data collection and maintenance of information holdings, travel costs, and salaries for technical assistance and project coordinators, but not salary support for the members of the investigator team;
Support for a limited number of research trainees, based on a solid justification for the role of the trainees in the research program (this program will support an exciting training environment, but because of its high risk component, it may not allow trainees to acquire sufficient data to fulfill academic requirements);
Travel and subsistence costs related to conducting the program of activities (e.g. for data collection, team meetings, dissemination activities, etc.); and
Costs that will be incurred in dissemination and educational activities, such as holding seminars, public lectures and the preparation of educational materials such as videotapes (limited to 10% of grant).

Funds should be aimed at methodological or intellectual content innovations as opposed to personnel or training innovations (the latter being supported by CIHR elsewhere).

Applicants should review CIHR's guidelines on Eligible Expenditures for Research Funding Programs for a complete listing and description of allowable costs and activities.

The full application must provide a detailed justification of all costs.

How to Apply

Applicants should review the document CIHR Application Packages.
To access CIHR forms, applicants and co-applicants, if there are any, must use their CIHR or MRC Personal Identification Numbers (PIN). If they do not already have a PIN or they have forgotten it, they must request their PIN online. Please note that there will be a delay of approximately one working day to receive PIN confirmation. More than one working day may be required in peak periods - late January and early August.
- Applicants may want to read the technical requirements regarding CIHR's electronic application process before filling out the appropriate forms. Applicants are encouraged to use the Web forms.
- When using the Web format to prepare the required modules (with the exception of the Common CV Module), first the applicant's PIN and password are submitted from the entry page to CIHR Web forms, and then the link "Create a new application" is selected to complete the modules found under the appropriate program heading (see detailed instructions below)
- Before beginning the application process, all applicants should ensure that their proposals address all criteria described in the above-mentioned section "Evaluation Process and Criteria for Peer Review".
- In completing CIHR forms, applicants should refer to the applicable Grants and Awards Guides.

We strongly encourage applicants to use the Common CV. The existing CIHR CV module will be accepted for current competitions; however, it will not be accessible for revisions after May 4, 2003. The CIHR CV can only be viewed and/or printed for a one-year period from this date - this will allow users who do not need to update their CV to view and print it up until May 2004. Therefore, applicants wishing to update their CVs must use the Common CV, which can be accessed from the entry page to the CIHR Web forms (refer to the Checklist link below). First-time users must register to obtain access to the Common CV system. On the Common CV web page, the applicant has to select LOGON, and then consent to the End-User Agreement, in order to get to the registration form.

Applicants are advised to follow the "Guidelines for Completion" of the required modules, which are accessible through the links shown below. Note that the proposals must address the criteria described under the "Evaluation Process and Criteria for Peer Review" section in the text of the RFA.

There are two steps to this Request for Applications.

A. Registration:

Register for the competition by using the CIHR Operating Grants Registration Checklist to access the necessary guidelines and forms. Having selected "Create a New Application", choose the sub-heading "Operating" under Research Funding Programs to fill out the applicable sections, and then use the print option "Registration Pages Only". The registration package consists of pages from the CIHR Research Module, in addition to pages one and two of the Common CV for each applicant and co-applicant participating in the research project.

Signatures at the bottom of page 1 of the Research Module are not required at this stage. However, the Nominated Principal Applicant's signature is required on page 2.

Send the original, plus one copy, of both the registration pages and the CV pages to CIHR by December 1, 2003 via courier service (i.e. courier stamped by this date at the latest).

To ensure that your registration and your application are forwarded to the appropriate CIHR staff, indicate "New Discoveries - High Risk Grants, Institute of Genetics and/or Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction" under the heading "Strategic Initiative/RFA" in the Research Funding Programs section of the Research Module Web form (page 7 in the PDF format), and on the Routing Slip, which gets automatically generated when using the Web form.

B. Full Application:

Complete the full application by using the CIHR Operating Grants Full Application Checklist. Follow the same steps as in the registration stage, and then print the completed modules. The full application package consists of the CIHR Research Module; the CIHR Operating Budget Module; and a Common CV for each applicant and co-applicant participating in the research project. Be sure to refer to the Guidelines for Completion that are specific to each module. For instance, when completing the CIHR Operating Budget Module, it is important to be aware that a detailed justification of all project costs must be provided.

CIHR Research Module
- For the "Research Proposal" section, the submission is limited to a maximum of 6 pages (rather than the usual 11 pages required for regular operating grant applications) with at least one page of the six describing how the proposal is innovative, what its potential impact will be, and how it departs from the approaches currently used.
- All signatures are required, as requested in the module.
- Indicate "New Discoveries - High Risk Grants, Institute of Genetics and/or Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction" under the heading "Strategic Inititative/RFA".
CIHR Operating Budget Module
- Provide a detailed justification of all project costs. Costs to be covered by CIHR's funding partners should be listed in the "Other Funding Sources" column on Page 1 of the Budget Module.
Common CV Modules (or CIHR CV Modules if no updates)
- Submit full CV modules for the Nominated Principal Applicant and all other applicant (if applicable).

One original, plus four copies of the full application, must be sent by February 1, 2004 via courier service (i.e. courier stamped by this date at the latest). Only complete applications will be considered.

Evaluation Process and Criteria For Peer Review

Each proposal must describe how the grant will address one of the important health issues described under "Specific Objectives and Eligible Research Areas" above.

Applications will be evaluated by a CIHR peer-review committee. The committee may be drawn from one of CIHR's pre-existing committees or may be created specifically for this Initiative. Committee members are selected based on suggestions from many sources including the Institute(s) and partner(s). Names of committee members are published on the CIHR website. The committee will follow the CIHR peer review process for grants.

General criteria for assessing applications are listed below. It is understood that referees and committees will weigh questions such as these differently from one application to another.

The Research Proposed

How important, novel and/or original are the hypotheses or the questions to be addressed, and how clearly are they formulated?
How important are the contributions expected from the research proposed? What is the potential for important new knowledge or impact in health research?
How well will the proposed experiments address the hypotheses or questions? How appropriate are the methods for the conduct of the experiment and analysis of data? How well have the applicants anticipated difficulties in their approach and considered alternatives?
How critically is the relevant literature appraised and evaluated?

The Applicant's Productivity, Experience and Training

How appropriate to the research proposed is the training or track record of the applicant(s)? How important and original is the recent productivity of the applicant(s)? How much confidence do you have that the applicant can do the work proposed? (The proposed time commitment to the research may influence this judgment.)

In addition to these general criteria, the peer review committee shall consider the criteria below:

Applicant(s): Applicants must have a strong record of excellent research. There must be appropriate representation from all the expertise areas (pillars, disciplines) needed for the research proposed.
Research Plan: The research proposal must show strong originality and must address an important health research question/problem.
Impact/Value: The research must not overlap with the PI's currently funded research. The application must describe how the expected findings will advance knowledge.
Data: It will be recognized by reviewers that pilot data for novel ideas or totally new research directions will likely not be available, so preliminary data will form only a minor aspect of the review;
Approach: Conceptual framework, methods, hypotheses, design and analyses must be adequately presented.
Innovation: The project should challenge current concepts and paradigms and/or address unexplored areas. The potential of great scientific gain should offset the risk of failure.
Environment: The scientific environment must be an appropriate setting for the proposed research

On completion of the review, the Institute(s) and partner(s) will receive the ranking lists, merit scores (ratings) and recommendation of the Committee for the applications submitted. Based on the total funds available for the initiative, applications will be funded from the top-ranked down as far as budget will allow. Applications receiving a score less than 3.5 will not be considered for funding.

General CIHR Guidelines and Conditions of Funding

All conditions, as specified in CIHR's Grants and Awards Guides, shall apply to those funded through this initiative. Conditions cover areas such as Applicant and Institutional Responsibilities, Ethics, Official Language Policy, Access to Information and Privacy Acts, Acknowledgement of CIHR support etc. Successful recipients will be informed of any special financial conditions when they receive CIHR's Authorization for Funding Form (AFF). The Nominated Principal Applicant will be required to submit a final report to CIHR summarizing the results and describing how the grant funds were used.

In addition to CIHR standard guidelines and requirements the following shall apply:

Communication Requirement

Recipients who receive funding are required to acknowledge the CIHR Institute(s)/partner(s) in any communication or publication related to the grant as follows: CIHR-Institute of Genetics and/or CIHR-Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction.

Performance Measurement and Evaluation

The CIHR IG and INMHA have made plans to assess performance of this initiative through ongoing monitoring and periodic evaluation. We are committed to informing Canadians about the performance of our initiatives and the results that they deliver.

The following table is intended to further clarify objectives by linking them to expected outcomes and measures. All funded applicants will be expected to participate in the evaluation strategy, contributing advice, data and reports as required for assessment purposes.

Grant recipients are expected to participate in the survey designed to determine the effectiveness of this program, by filling out a questionnaire that will be distributed within two years of the termination of the program.

Objective	Outcome	Measure / Indicator
To promote the development of novel, innovative, inventive, high risk, and high impact health research.	Development of new important knowledge. The generation of valid, reliable data.	Success/effectiveness of the research project. High quality publications (long term). Conferences (short term).
To create an environment and review culture in Canadian Health Research that supports the most novel applications and ideas.	Increase in the number of successful applications to carry out innovative research. Innovative culture is accepted. Increased collaborations between researchers.	Number of projects that follow through to the regular operating grants competition. Amount of collaboration between researchers. The views of the research community on the relevance of health research.
To facilitate the rapid transfer of research findings through appropriate communication strategies.	Improved health care and strategies for preventing disease.	Translation, dissemination and use of results (quantity and quality of clinical and lay publications, etc.) (long term).

Address for Submitting Application and Contact Information

Send Application by Courier to:

RE: "New Discoveries - High Risk Grants"
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Research Portfolio
410 Laurier Avenue W., 9th Floor
Address Locator 4209A
Ottawa, ON K1A 0W9

Contacts for Further Information:

For questions on CIHR funding guidelines or how to apply contact:

Melody Sajedi
Program Delivery Coordinator
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
410 Laurier Avenue West, 9th Floor
Address Locator 4209A
Ottawa, ON K1A 0W9
Tel: (613) 957-6125; Fax: 613-954-1800
Email: msajedi@cihr-irsc.gc.ca

For questions about this initiative and research objectives contact:

Institute Representatives

Stephanie Robertson, MA
Assistant Director for Special Projects - Institute of Genetics
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Telephone: (613) 954-0533
Fax: (613) 954-1800
Email: msrobertson@cihr-irsc.gc.ca

Eric Marcotte, PhD
Project Manager - Strategic Initiative in Regenerative Medicine and Nanomedicine
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Telephone: (905) 464-1859
Email: eric.marcotte@regenerativemedicine.ca

Created: 2003-06-30
Modified: 2004-04-29
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