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New Discoveries - High Risk Grants (Archived)

Request for Applications

Institute of Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis

Summary

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.

Timeline

April 1, 2005	Registration Deadline - Registration packages must be courier stamped by this date.
June 1, 2005	Full applications must be courier stamped by this date.
November 2005	Anticipated Notification of decision.
November 2005	Anticipated start date.

Value and Duration

Duration of projects	Up to 2 years
Funds Available	For this initiative: Funding from the IMHA is contingent upon availability of funds Per grant: $60,000/year.

Summary
Background
Partners
Objectives and Eligible Research Areas
Funding Information
Eligibility
Evaluation Criteria and Process
General CIHR Guidelines and Conditions of Funding
Communications Requirements
Monitoring, Performance Measurement and Evaluation
How to Apply
Contact Information
Description of Partners

Background

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

IMHA is dedicated to identifying and developing collaborations with other CIHR institute(s), branch(es) or office(s), funding organizations and stakeholders to enhance the availability of funding for this strategic initiative, and to create, where appropriate, opportunities for knowledge exchange and translation related to the scope of this particular initiative. Applicants are invited to visit the Descriptions of Partners to find a list of partners and their respective mandates and/or strategic interests. This list will continue to evolve as new partners join in this initiative.

Objectives and Eligible Research Areas

The objectives of this initiative 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
To attract and retain the most innovative Canadian researchers.

Eligible research areas include:

The Institute of Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis encourages researchers across disciplines within the Arthritis, Bone, Skin, Muscle, Oral Health and/or Rehabilitation Research communities, and across all four of CIHR research pillars to develop research in areas covered by IMHA's three research themes:

Eligibility of Randomized Controlled Trials Applications

Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) will not be considered under this RFA. RCTs are defined as any study involving humans where at least two interventions are compared using random allocation, statistical methodologies and blinding techniques for the purpose of determining whether an innovative intervention leads to improved health.

Funding Information

Mechanism of Support

This Request for Applications will follow the General Guidelines for All Research Grants.

Allowable Costs

Applicants should review Use of Grant Funds and Eligibility of Expenses, Employment under Grants within the General Guidelines for All Research Grants for a complete listing and description of allowable costs and activities.

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

Funds Available

The maximum amount awarded for a single grant is $60,000 per annum for up to 2 years, including equipment. The equipment amount is awarded in year one.
Funding from the IMHA is contingent upon availability of funds. This amount may increase if additional funding partners decide to participate.

Based on the total funds available for the initiative, applications will be funded from the top-ranked down as far as budgets will allow. Applications receiving a score of less than 3.5 will not be considered for funding.

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

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).

Eligibility

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility criteria for all CIHR research funding programs apply. The business office of the institution of an eligible Nominated Principal Applicant generally administers CIHR funds. Please refer to the Eligibility Requirements for CIHR Grants and Awards regarding the eligibility requirements for individuals and institutions.

A CIHR - New Discoveries - High Risk Grant could be given to an excellent new investigator, an established investigator, or an outstanding team of investigators who have shown a clear capability of performing the work proposed. Demonstration of infrastructure support required for potential success of the application would be essential.
Applications could involve single institutions, national, or international consortia that would align to create a potential major health research innovation.

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.

Evaluation Criteria and Process

Evaluation Criteria

Each proposal must describe how the grant will address one of the important health issues described under "Objectives and Eligible Research Areas." General criteria for assessing applications are listed below. Because different applications will emphasize different approaches to research and to knowledge translation, it is understood that reviewers 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 and original 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 will consider the criteria below:

Relevance. Applicants should describe the alignment of the proposed program with the objectives of the strategic initiative, New Discoveries - High Risk Grants.
Innovation/Advancement. The project should challenge current research thinking and paradigms and/or address unexplored areas. The potential of great scientific gain should offset the risk of failure.
Approach. Conceptual framework, methods, hypotheses, design and analyses are adequately developed.

Evaluation Process

All personal information collected by CIHR about applicants is used to review applications, to administer and monitor grants and awards, to compile statistics, and to promote and support health research in Canada. Consistent with these purposes, applicants should also expect that information collected by CIHR may be shared as described in Use and Disclosure of Personal Information Provided to CIHR for Peer Review.

Prior to peer review, the appropriate CIHR institute, portfolio and partner representatives may first review proposals for relevance to their strategic interests. The relevance review will be based on the extent to which the proposed research relates to the mandates or strategic priorities of the Institutes, portfolios and partners. As such, representatives will have access to the anonymized project titles and summaries. This review will have no impact on the peer review process.

A CIHR peer review committee will evaluate the full applications. The committee may be drawn from one of CIHR's pre-existing committees or may be created specifically for this Request for Applications. Committee members are selected based on suggestions from many sources including the institute(s) / portfolio(s) and partner(s), following CIHR's policy on Conflict of Interest, Confidentiality and Privacy Issues in Peer Review. For information on CIHR's peer review process, see Peer Review.

On completion of the review, the appropriate CIHR institute, portfolio and partner representatives will receive the ranking list, merit scores (ratings) and recommendations of the peer review committee with regards to funding level, for the submitted applications that fall in the fundable range.

Access to Information Act and Privacy Act, and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA)

CIHR as a federal entity is subject to the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act, therefore the requirements of these two statutes will apply to all information located in CIHR's premises including, without limitation, cost-sharing agreements related to this Request for Applications and all matters pertaining thereto.

The Parties, while respecting the application of the Privacy Act to federal entities, will also be bound by the PIPEDA. All personal information (as identified by the PIPEDA) collected, used or disclosed in the course of any commercial activity under cost-sharing agreements related to the Request for Applications will be collected, used and disclosed in compliance with the PIPEDA.

General CIHR Guidelines and Conditions of Funding

All conditions specified in CIHR General Grants and Awards Policies shall apply to applications funded through this Request for Applications. Conditions cover areas such as Applicant and Institutional Responsibilities, Ethics, Official language policy, Access to Information and Privacy Acts, and Acknowledgement of CIHR Support. Successful applicants will be informed of any special financial conditions prior to the release of funds or when they receive CIHR's Authorization for Funding (AFF) document.

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

Within a year after the end of the grant's term, the nominated principal applicant will be contacted by the IMHA to submit a final performance report, summarizing the results in lay terms, for communication to the IMHA's stakeholders.
Any patents that may have been issued as a result of the research grant should also be reported. This in turn helps to demonstrate the economic benefits of research on society and will strengthen the case to sustain funding to continue offering this program in the future.

Communications Requirements

Grant recipients are required to acknowledge CIHR, its institutes and partners in any communication or publication related to the project. See CIHR General Grants and Awards Policies, Acknowledgement of CIHR's Support for details on CIHR's communication requirements. The contributing institutes / partners will be identified on the Authorization for Funding and decision letter.

Monitoring, Performance Measurement and Evaluation

CIHR is committed to demonstrating results to Canadians for the money invested in health research. Therefore, processes for monitoring progress and appropriate use of funds, as well as for performance measurement and program evaluation are in place. As a result, funding recipients must:

adhere to CIHR's reporting requirements and provide required information in a timely fashion.
contribute to the monitoring, review and evaluation of CIHR's programs, policies and processes by participating in evaluation studies, surveys, workshops, audits and providing data or reports as required for the purpose of collecting information to assess progress and results;
encourage their associates, trainees and administration to participate in the monitoring, review and evaluation of CIHR's programs, policies and processes as required.

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 a Grant or Award.

Select Operating Grants (Registration and Application) from the Research Funding Programs Application Packages.

Additional instructions must be followed for this RFA:

In the Research Funding Program section of the Research Module (page 7 of the web form printed report), select "Strategic Initiative/RFA" and enter the title of this RFA.

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 the regular operating grants) 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.

Send Application by Courier to:

Re: "IMHA - New Discoveries - High Risk Grants"
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Room 97, 160 Elgin Street
Address locator: 4809A
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0W9

Contact Information

For questions on CIHR funding guidelines, how to apply, and the peer review process contact:

Marie-Lynne Boudreau
Program Delivery Officer
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Telephone: (613) 941-0861
Fax: (613) 954-1800
E-mail: mboudreau@cihr-irsc.gc.ca

For questions about this initiative and research objectives contact:

Institute Representative

Sophia Tsouros
Project Manager / Analyst
CIHR - Institute of Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis
Telephone: (613) 954-3469
Fax: (613) 954-1800
E-mail: stsouros@cihr-irsc.gc.ca

Description of Partners: CIHR Institutes and Partner Organizations

Although there are no partners currently engaged in this initiative, the IMHA is in the process of soliciting interest from partners. Furthermore, researchers are also strongly encouraged to seek out additional partners to support and disseminate research within the IMHA's three research themes.

Created: 2004-12-01
Modified: 2004-12-01
Reviewed: 2004-12-01
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