Ground rules established for CFI’s new $500-million Research Hospital Fund

Projects funded under the inaugural round of the Canada’s Foundation for Innovation’s new $500-million Research Hospital Fund (RHF) are being tied to proposals made under the CFI’s current Innovation Fund (IF) competition. The details were hammered out this spring in negotiations between the CFI and the federal government, with input provided by the Association of Academic Health Care Organizations.

The details were relayed to university presidents and were posted on the CFI’s web site last month. The CFI will consider enhancements to proposals made to the IF and originally submitted for a December/02 deadline, with complete applications due May 30. The 40-60 matching requirements for IF will also apply to the enhancements, which will add up to $100 million to the $450-million competition.

The RHF’s remaining $400 million will likely be awarded in conjunction with the the next two IF competitions, representing an infusion of $1.2 billion into hospital research infrastructure once leveraging is factored in.

“The $500 million must be committed by 2008, which is the period that coincides with the Accord on Health Care Renewal,” says CFI executive VP Carmen Charette. “We’re learning more from this competition on how to design future rounds.”

The RHF addresses a huge need across Canada for additional research space, targeting large-scale projects that take an integrated and multidisciplinary approach and which apply to infrastructure needs beyond what is normally supported through the IF. It’s a complex formula, but one that is defended as both effective and necessary to address demand while maintaining consistency of standards and criteria.

Project outlines for the enhancement component of proposals are due August 15 with more complete descriptions required once the winners under the IF competition are announced next February. Announcements on the enhanced funding under the RHF are slated for early summer/04.

“During the decision making process for the Innovation Fund, $450 million in projects will be selected. If there are hospital components to those projects, they can be enhanced by $100 million in total,” says Dr David Strangway, CFI’s president/CEO. “The Innovation Fund has been successful at funding projects that include a visionary future. That’s why the new fund is being linked to the IF because its processes and selection criteria have been successful.”

Under the RHF competition, eligible hospitals may submit applications directly or through universities as is done under IF guidelines. If the former is used, the presidents of both the hospital and the university must sign the application.

“This is a very exciting program for the health research community in Canada. The growth of health research has been quite dramatic over the past five or six years,” says Dr Bernie Bressler, VP research Vancouver Coastal Health, the provincial authority responsible for the Vancouver General Hospital (VHG). “One always wants to start yesterday because the need is already there, but there’s no easy way around the timing. We’re hoping to hear by May or June and the CFI is committed to try and meet that deadline.”

Bressler says the VHG and other research-intensive hospitals have already begun identifying ways to enhance projects they’ve submitted under the IF, in preparation for the submission of detailed proposals in February. He says the potential to be unleashed by the new Fund will open up new possibilities for health research in Canada.

“The RHF will allow us to develop research facilities that contribute in a far greater way to the translation of laboratory research,” he says. “We can now get our bench research through the clinical research phase to the bedside.”

In its negotiations with the federal government, the CFI also took the opportunity to formalize various reporting and accountability practices. Current procedures such as regular evaluation, annual reports tabled in Parliament and published plans for the next FY have now been written into the funding agreement.

“We’re formalizing things that are appropriate and with which we have no concerns,” says Strangway. “ We were already practicing them voluntarily.”

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