Operating Grant: 2008-2009 – Funding Decisions Notification (March 2009 Competition: 200903MOP)

(Alternate Title: Operating Grant)

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is pleased to announce the results of the Operating Grant: 2008-2009 competition.

Determination of Grants Approved

In approving the results of the open operating grant competition, Scientific Council (SC) took into account:

• the number of applications to this competition, compared to historical numbers;
• the need to provide the highest level of funding, considering the constraints on CIHR's budget;
• the balance between size of grant and number of grants awarded.

Of the 1856 applications received, 403 were approved for full-term funding through the Operating Grant program and associated Priority Announcements programs.

• Total investment: $ 255.6 million over 5 years
• Average annual grant amount: $ 136,760

Budgets

Funding of these grants was made possible by reducing the recommended budgets of the funded proposals by a maximum 11%. For both new and renewal grants, no grant was reduced below $60,000 unless recommended by the peer review committee. CIHR is unable to fund the equipment requested on open operating grants.

Additional Notes

1. A streamlining process was followed in order to allow committee members to focus their discussion on the most competitive applications. An application was not discussed at the committee meeting if it was considered not to be competitive by the committee and if the average of the primary and secondary reviewers' initial ratings was less than 3.5. In these cases, Scientific Officer notes are not provided.

2. Rating scale and descriptors are as follows:

Descriptor	Range	Outcome
outstanding	4.5 – 4.9	May be funded – will be discussed by the committee
excellent	4.0 – 4.4
very good	3.5 – 3.9
acceptable, but low priority	3.0 – 3.4	Not fundable – may or may not be discussed by the committee
needs revision	2.5 – 2.9
needs major revision	2.0 – 2.4
seriously flawed	1.0 – 1.9
rejected	0.0 – 0.9

3. The recommendation of the peer review committee is summarized in each applicant's decision package. The term and the average annual budget recommended by the peer review committee may exceed the amount of funding approved by Scientific Council. This information may be valuable to applicants who wish to seek additional support for the research through other funding avenues.

The deadline for receipt of applications to the next open operating grant competition is Tuesday, September 15, 2009. All applicants who intend to submit an application to this competition must register their intent to apply to CIHR by Monday, August 17, 2009.

Visit our website for more information on the registration process. Applications will be accepted only from those who have registered by August 17, 2009. If you register and then decide not to apply, please notify CIHR a.s.a.p. to indicate that you are withdrawing from the competition.

Funding Decisions Data Report

Access to the "Operating Grant" funding decisions data report.