The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is making key changes to strengthen and streamline its funding programs and peer review procedures as it makes cuts to head office personnel and braces for potential funding reductions in the upcoming federal Budget. The overhaul responds to observations in a recent International Review Panel report that cited the granting council's processes for being too complex and time consuming both for researchers and those who volunteer to adjudicate awards competitions.

Any changes ultimately approved by CIHR's governing council will be delayed by one year to allow researchers and peer reviewers time to prepare.

The need to make substantial changes at CIHR was driven home in a December/11 update from CIHR's Science Council: "(It's) clear that our current research funding and review model is strained. This situation jeopardizes the ability of CIHR to deliver on the full spectrum of its mandate". CIHR president Dr Alain Beaudet has also stated in a letter to staff that " the current system is not sustainable".

The move by CIHR follows a major overhaul of the peer review process at the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) which introduced the so-called Conference Model for evaluating applicants to the Discovery Grants Program (R$, June 20/08).

Dr Jane Aubin, CIHR's VP research and chief scientific officer, is leading the consultation process prior to implementing the changes. She says the proposed changes are different from those undertaken at NSERC and reflect the pent-up demand for change that dates back to the transition from the Medical Research Council in 2000.

"We flipped the MRC processes into CIHR but the broader mandate was a sea change," says Aubin. "We have already made many changes in the interim but there remain multiple challenges — application burden, peer review burden and complexity in the system."

The changes being contemplated fall into two broad categories: the structure of CIHR's Open Suite of Programs (OSP) which currently support approximately 9,000 researchers including more than 3,000 uniquely nominated principal investigators and the council's peer review processes.

There are currently 12 programs within the OSP and the plan is to scale those back to two broad categories: the foundation/programmatic research scheme and the project scheme (see chart). In the simplest terms, the former is designed to evaluate and support researchers while the latter is intended to support research ideas.

During a February 16th address to researchers at the Univ of Saskatchewan, Aubin stressed that the changes are not about saving money. More to the point, the new structure will accommodate research areas such as medical anthropology that staddle CIHR and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

"A very important message is, none of this program design change is about decreasing the amount of money in an open competition. We have made a commitment at the level of the president, myself and the science council, that that level is sacrosanct. We would like to increase," said Aubin. "The modeling is to keep 3,000 people in the system. To go below this is not a comforting thought for any of us at the moment."

A decade ago, CIHR applicants had a 33% funding success rate but by 2011 that had dropped to 17%. In the same time period, the amount of CIHR operating grant funding going to open operating grants dropped from 91% to 67%, while funding towards strategic initiatives mandated by CIHR increased from 9% to 33%.

For peer review, CIHR is proposing to introduce a level of technology into the process to reduce the work loads of the 53 peer review committees. A three-step process will be introduced, with the first two being Internet-enabled to match opportunities to appropriate peer reviewers. A final step will include face-to-face engagement.

personnel cuts

In a separate but parallel development, CIHR is reducing its staff levels at the corporate level. CIHR would not confirm reports that 77 positions (term and permanent) have been eliminated and issued the following statement: "In order to start the 2012-13 fiscal year with a balanced budget, small organizational changes were undertaken in the fall of 2011 to maximize efficiencies and streamline operations. Nine positions currently with incumbents were eliminated as part of the organizational changes."

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