Eligibility criteria for the Foundation “live-pilot” competitions

The Foundation Scheme is designed to contribute to a sustainable foundation of health research leaders by providing long-term support for pursuit of innovative, high-impact programs of research.

To be eligible to apply to the Foundation Scheme “live pilot” competitions, applicants must meet the following eligibility criteria, as of July 30, 2013:

  1. An investigator is eligible to apply to the Fall 2014 Foundation “live pilot” competition if the individual is the Nominated Principal Investigator or Co-Principal Investigator of:
    • An OOGP grant with a grant term expiry date of March 31, 2015; or
    • An OOGP grant with a grant term expiry date of September 30, 2015; or
    • Any other Open grant with a grant term expiry date no earlier than October 1, 2014 and no later than September 30, 2015. This includes Partnerships for Health System Improvement, Knowledge Synthesis, Knowledge to Action, Proof-of-Principal Program Phase I and II, Industry-partnered Collaborative Research and OOGP grants with atypical expiry dates.
  2. An investigator is eligible to apply to the Fall 2015 Foundation “live pilot” competition if the individual is the Nominated Principal Investigator or Co-Principal Investigator of:
    • An OOGP grant with a grant term expiry date of March 31, 2016; or
    • An OOGP grant with a grant term expiry date of September 30, 2016; or
    • Any other Open grant with a grant term expiry date no earlier than October 1, 2015 and no later than September 30, 2016. This includes Partnerships for Health System Improvement, Knowledge Synthesis, Knowledge to Action, Proof-of-Principal Program Phase I and II, Industry-partnered Collaborative Research and OOGP grants with atypical expiry dates.
  3. An investigator is eligible to apply to both Foundation “live pilot” competitions if that individual is:
    • A new/early investigator. This is defined as a researcher who, at the time of the application deadline, has assumed his/her first independent academic position (e.g., faculty appointment) within the last 5 years, and/or
    • A researcher who has never held Open CIHR funding as a Nominated Principal Investigator. These are researchers who are new entrants to the Canadian research community and/or new to CIHR (e.g. funded by other agencies).

We encourage the research community to read the extensive list of Questions and answers that have been developed to provide further details on the development and application of the eligibility criteria for the Foundation Scheme “live pilot” competitions. Information on how to determine your grant term expiry date can be found in question #13.

Changes to CIHR’s early renewal policy

CIHR recognizes that many researchers eligible to the Foundation Scheme “live pilot” competitions may be better suited for the Project Scheme. In order to minimize funding gaps for this cohort of researchers, Science Council has approved modifications to the policy on early renewals. As a result, Nominated Principal Investigators who hold an Open Operating Grant with an expiry date of no earlier than October 1, 2014 and no later than September 30, 2016 are permitted to:

  • Apply early to one of the remaining OOGP competitions, including the Spring 2015 Transitional OOGP, without the early renewal penalty (i.e. applicants would keep existing funding if not renewed); or
  • Request a change to their grant term expiry date with no increase in budget.

Next Steps

The Foundation scheme funding opportunity will be released in Fall 2013, in anticipation of the Fall 2014 deadline. In order to profile the applicant pool and prepare for peer review, the Fall 2014 Foundation Scheme “live pilot” competition will include an early registration deadline. Given the scope and scale of the proposed changes, and the intention to learn from the results of pilots such as this one, course corrections and adjustments to timelines may be required along the way.

CIHR will continue to keep the research community informed as the Open Suite of Programs and peer review enhancements are implemented.

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