Regenerative Medicine and Nanomedicine – New Discoveries: High-Risk Seed Grants (Archived)

Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction (co-lead)
Institute of Genetics (co-lead)
In partnership with
Institute of Aboriginal Peoples' Health
Institute of Aging
Institute of Cancer Research
Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health
Institute of Infection and Immunity
Institute of Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis
ALS Society of Canada
Canadian Space Agency
Canadian Stroke Network
Jacob's Ladder
Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation
Stem Cell Network

Request for Applications

Important Dates
Opportunity Launched	June 2005
Content Last Updated	(No updates since launch)
April 3, 2006	New Discoveries: High-Risk Seed Grants Registration Deadline - Registration packages must be courier stamped by this date.
May 1, 2006	Full applications must be courier stamped by this date.
October 2, 2006	Anticipated notification of decision.
October 2, 2006	Anticipated start date.
Summary
The purpose of the New Discoveries: High-Risk Seed Grants program is to encourage novel, innovative, and inventive research in the areas of regenerative medicine and nanomedicine. Successful applications will be unique, original, and /or extraordinary but of excellent quality and potential. For more information, please see the Regenerative Medicine and Nanomedicine - Strategic Initiative Announcement. Funds Available: CIHR's contribution to the amount available for this initiative is subject to availability of funds voted annually to CIHR by parliamentary appropriations, and the conditions that may be attached to them. The total amount available for this Strategic Initiative remains to be determined. This amount is dependant on the availability of funds among the funding partners on this initiative.

Table of Contents

Background
Objectives of the New Discoveries: High-Risk Seed Grants Program
Eligibility
Allowable Costs
Peer Review Process and Evaluation Criteria
General CIHR Guidelines
Conditions of Funding
Communications Requirements
Monitoring, Performance Measurement and Evaluation
How to Apply
Contact Information

Background

This Request for Applications is announced under the Strategic Initiative in Regenerative Medicine and Nanomedicine. Please consult the announcement related to this strategic initiative for information on Background, Partners, and Objectives and Relevant Research Areas.

Objectives of the New Discoveries: High-Risk Seed Grants Program

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 the New Discoveries: High-Risk Seed 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, innovative, inventive and exciting to peer reviewers despite their inherent risk.
• Demonstrate the potential for significant impact.
• Facilitate the rapid transfer of research findings through appropriate communication strategies.

Please see the Regenerative Medicine and Nanomedicine - Strategic Initiative Announcement for more information on eligible research areas.

Eligibility

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.

Specific Eligibility Requirements

There are no specific requirements. 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, are encouraged to apply.

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 CIHR stipends levels, and 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 supporting innovative research projects (e.g. methodological or intellectual content innovations) as opposed to innovative personnel or training programs (the latter being supported by CIHR elsewhere).

Applicants should review -A9">Use of Grant Funds and -A10">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.

Peer Review Process and Evaluation Criteria

Each proposal must describe how the grant will address one of the eligible research areas described in the Regenerative Medicine and Nanomedicine - Strategic Initiative Announcement.

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 in general, see Peer Review.

Peer review will be conducted in accordance with The CIHR Peer Review Process: Policies and Responsibilities of Grants Committee Members, including the standard evaluation criteria described under "Factors for Assessment" (section 6.2).

On completion of the review, the Institute(s) and partner(s) will receive the anonymized 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. External partners may choose to fund independently applications deemed relevant to their strategic interests which might not otherwise be funded on the basis of the rank order of merit. Applications receiving a score less than 3.5 will not be considered for funding by any party.

General CIHR Guidelines

This Request for Applications will follow the -A">General Guidelines for All Research Funding Grants.

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 six months after the end of the grant's term, the Nominated Principal Applicant is required to submit a final performance report, summarizing the results and describing how the grant funds were used. A standard form will be provided by CIHR.

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

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.

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.

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:

• 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.

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 in regenerative medicine and nanomedicine.	Development of new important knowledge.	Success/effectiveness of the research project.
	The generation of valid, reliable data.	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 in regenerative medicine and nanomedicine.	Increase in the number of successful applications to carry out innovative research.	Number of projects that follow through to the regular operating grants competition.
	Innovative culture is accepted.	Amount of collaboration between researchers.
	Increased collaborations 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).

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

Additional instructions must be followed for this RFA:

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 three copies, of both the registration pages and the CV pages to CIHR by April 3, 2006 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 " Regenerative Medicine and Nanomedicine - New Discoveries: High-Risk Seed Grants, " 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 Registration 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.

1. 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 "Regenerative Medicine and Nanomedicine - New Discoveries: High-Risk Seed Grants" under the heading "Strategic Initiative/RFA".

2. 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.

3. Common CV Modules

• 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 May 1, 2006 via courier service (i.e. courier stamped by this date at the latest). Only complete applications will be considered.

Send Application by Courier to:

RE: "Regenerative Medicine and Nanomedicine - New Discoveries: High-Risk Seed 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:

Kelly Fitzpatrick
Program Delivery Officer
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Tel: (613) 941-4640  
Fax: (613) 952-2277
Email: kfitzpatrick@cihr-irsc.gc.ca

For questions about this initiative and research objectives contact:

Eric Marcotte, Ph.D
Team Lead
Regenerative Medicine and Nanomedicine
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Tel: (905) 467-1822
Email: emarcotte@cihr-irsc.gc.ca