CIHR requests more funding as it grapples with fall-out from new competition structure

New investigators a key focus

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research has submitted a Budget proposal to reverse the decline in federal support that has reduced success rates for researchers and enflamed its research community as it adjusts to a new process for adjudicating and selecting grant recipients. CIHR requires $80 million to close the gap in its funding between FY09-10 and FY16-17 — an amount calculated by using constant 2008-09 dollars (see chart).

The deterioration in federal funding has played havoc with the success rates of the granting council's Operating Grants Competition while changes in how researchers are reviewed and funded has resulted in confusion and often anger.

A series of three articles in the Ottawa Citizen prior to the holiday break captured some of the frustration experienced by a number of researchers who cited the new competition structure as the prime culprit.

CIHR president Dr Alain Beaudet says he empathizes with the sentiments being expressed but maintains the criticism is misplaced. He points to the confluence of stagnant funding and the new competition structure, combined with the trend of older researchers staying in the system longer, as having an unavoidable impact on competition success rates. The impact is especially hard on early-stage researchers who now have to wait longer before they succeed in securing their first research grant.

"Let's be clear, we've been flatlined. If you take into account inflation (our budget) has been decreasing. Our purchasing power is decreasing. Add to that the weak Canadian dollar (and) it's not as easy as it used to be," says Beaudet. "The mean age at which a researcher gets one's first CIHR grant is now 43 years — the age of the prime minister … We will be facing, if we don't do something about it, a real problem when people really start to retire and leave the system because there will be a gap."

Another factor aggravating the current funding environment is the directed nature of funding increases CIHR and the other granting councils received over the tenure of the former Conservative government (2007-2015). Rather than providing new money without strings attached, the funding was targeted to priority areas.

While Beaudet says that targeted funding was put to good use, it limited the ability of the granting councils to respond to emerging pressures or gaps in the granting system. It's a view shared by other granting council presidents, including Dr Mario Pinto, who is also calling for future increases to be provided with "as few restrictions as possible" (R$, December 21/15).

While funding levels are not under the control of the granting councils, criticism of the transition from the Open Operating Grants Program to the Foundation Scheme and Project Scheme structure has been aimed directly at CIHR.

Under the new structure, Foundation grants are intended to provide researchers with a longer funding horizon (seven years for established investigators and five years for new or early career investigators). Project grants are meant to support researchers who want to explore specific ideas with awards ranging from one to five years.

Beaudet acknowledges that he was taken aback at the magnitude of pushback when CIHR announced the results of the first pilot Foundation Scheme competition. Social media lit up with researchers opposed to the ranking of proposals which were then matched to virtual review bodies with the requisite expertise and the elimination of face-to-face peer review. He notes that the changes have been six years in the making, prompted by increasing multidisciplinarity, the breadth of the CIHR mandate and the findings of an international review panel.

"People are upset. It's a change and we're asking them to think differently and to write grants differently than they've been doing. We're asking them to focus on ideas for the Project Scheme and grand vision for the Foundation Scheme," says Beaudet. "I stand by what we were doing. I think it's been well done. It's been managed as well as we humanely could. We had to transition from one to the other."

Reaction to the changes was amplified by a series of newspaper articles containing scathing criticism from high profile researchers such as Dr Michael Rudnicki, a senior scientist and director of the Regenerative Medicine Program and Sprott Centre for Stem Cell Research at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. Rudnicki went as far as calling for Beaudet's removal, asserting that the "vast majority" of Canadian researchers concurred.

Also critical of the new competition structure is Dr Jim Woodgett, director of Research at Toronto's Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute. In a blog posted after the release of the first pilot Foundation Scheme competition last July, Woodgett said that the changes implemented by CIHR have "fundamental flaws" exacerbated by making multiple changes simultaneously.

Woodgett is also critical of the targeted nature of recent funding provided by the previous government — an approach the new Liberal government has said it would discontinue, opting instead for non-targeted funding that supports basic science.

Beaudet notes that the Foundation Scheme competition (to be followed by the initial Project Scheme competition early this year) is a pilot and that feedback has already resulted in several changes. Among the changes to the second pilot Foundation Scheme competition is a separate review of early-career investigators at each stage of the three-step competition. In addition, clearer instructions and training materials are in development.

While Beaudet says he's confident the research community will eventually adjust to the competition changes, he fears that, without new money, new investigators will suffer.

"I am worried about the future. These are the most creative years, the most dynamic years. This is the vitality of the system and you cannot lose that," he says. "I'm very encouraged by what I've heard from the new government in terms of bringing us back."

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