CIHR Internal Assessment - Report for the 2011 International Review

Table of Contents

• Introduction, History, Vision and Mandat
• Part 1: CIHR, the Organization
  • Governance and management
  • The CIHR Institutes
  • CIHR’s position within the federal research and innovation system
    • The Government of Canada’s Health Portfolio
  • Integration of CIHR within the Canadian health research landscape
• Part 2: CIHR’s Budget
  • Allocation of the budget
  • Putting CIHR’s budget into context
  • CIHR’s grants and awards programs
• Part 3: CIHR’s Evolving Role in Canada’s Science and Technology Landscape
  • Canada’s science and technology strategy and the Government of Canada’s priorities
  • Changes in the nature and location of Canadian health research
  • Evolution of Canada’s health research workforce
    • Preparing for tomorrow: research trainees
  • Canada’s performance in health research
    • Collaboration and interdisciplinary
• Part 4: CIHR 2005–2010
  • Achievements related to Blueprint, CIHR’s first strategic plan
  • Results of and responses to first International Review
    • Governance and management
    • Programs and peer review
    • Knowledge translation
    • Ethics
    • Evaluation
    • Communications
    • Canada’s research landscape
• Part 5: The Way Forward
  
  • The implementation of Roadmap, CIHR’s new five-year strategic plan
  • Future challenges
• Conclusion
• List of Acronyms and Abbreviations
• References

List of Figures

• Figure 1: CIHR organizational model
  
• Figure 2: The federal research and innovation system
  
• Figure 3: CIHR’s budgets and partners
  
• Figure 4: Grants and awards expenditures
  
• Figure 5: Canadian spending on health research 1999–2008
  
• Figure 6: Federal research funding programs, 2009–2010
  
• Figure 7: Increases in budget since 2000 (=1) for national health research funding
  
• Figure 8: Annual value of operating grants (all programs), 2009–2010
  
• Figure 9: Applications to Open Operating Grants competitions
  
• Figure 10A: Regional distribution of funding in 1999–2000 (MRC) and 2009–2010 (CIHR)
  
• Figure 10B: Number of research institutions 1999–2000 and 2009–2010
  
• Figure 11: PhDs awarded per million expenditures on R&D in the higher education sector
  
• Figure 12A: Growth in medicine publications
  
• Figure 12B: Relative citations
  
• Figure 13A: Growth in neuroscience publications
  
• Figure 13B: Relative citations
  
• Figure 14A: Growth in biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology publications
  
• Figure 14B: Relative citations
  
• Figure 15A: Growth in immunology and microbiology publications
  
• Figure 15B: Relative citations
  
• Figure 16: Growth of Canadian publications in selected areas relevant to its expanded mandate
  
• Figure 17: U.S. patents related to health awarded to Canadian inventors
  
• Figure 18: Foreign collaboration – percentage of papers from each country with co-authors from another country
  
• Figure 19: CIHR spending on commercialization programs
  
• Figure 20A: Venture capital investments in the life sciences in Canada
  
• Figure 20B: R&D to sales ratio, Canada and seven comparator countries
  
• Figure 21: Number and value of ethics grants
  
• Figure 22: CIHR’s Roadmap strategic plan
  
• Figure 23: Inter-relationship of proposed reforms to achieve CIHR’s strategic direction
  
• Figure 24: Current enabling strategies

List of Tables

• Table 1: Executive Management Committee
  
• Table 2: CIHR’s major program types, or funding schemes, 2009–2010
  
• Table 3: Comparison of number and value of grants and awards, 1999–2000 and 2009–2010
  
• Table 4: Provincial comparisons
  
• Table 5: Estimates of the total number of trainees supported directly and indirectly by CIHR and other sources, 2008–2009
  
• Table 6: Blueprint achievements

This report provides key information for the International Review Panel (IRP) and Expert Review Team, including an orientation to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the environment in which it operates, highlights on progress made under the guidance of the first strategic plan, details about CIHR’s response to the observations made by the first IRP, an explanation of the directions CIHR is taking in its second strategic plan, and an outline of the scientific and operational opportunities and challenges faced by CIHR. This report is designed to help reviewers frame their questions and address the goals of the Review.

Introduction, History, Vision and Mandate

CIHR was created 10 years ago to replace the Medical Research Council of Canada (MRC). In contrast to MRC, which supported only biomedical and clinical research, CIHR was mandated with supporting the whole spectrum of health research, including health services and public health research, which were formerly under the purview of the National Health and Research Development Program.¹

In addition to this broadened mandate, CIHR was to "excel, according to internationally accepted standards of scientific excellence, in the creation of new knowledge," and also to ensure translation of this knowledge "into improved health for Canadians, more effective health services and products and a strengthened Canadian health care system."2 The second part of this mandate, which deals with knowledge translation (KT), was novel for a Canadian research agency and unknown territory for most researchers. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research Act (CIHR Act) reflects the KT component of CIHR’s mandate with its commitments to "work in collaboration with the provinces to advance health research and to promote the dissemination and application of new research knowledge to improve health and health services," and "promote the dissemination of knowledge and the application of health research to improve the health of Canadians."²

Furthermore, CIHR’s operating model was fundamentally different from that of its predecessor and other federal research granting councils as it comprised 13 "virtual" thematic institutes. In contrast to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, CIHR’s Institutes are neither legislated entities, nor bricks-and-mortar organizations with intramural research programs. Nonetheless, they form the constitutive core of CIHR: "Through these Institutes, researchers will contribute their combined expertise in multidisciplinary approaches to understand the biological, social, economic, psychological and environmental determinants of health."³

One of the first intents in creating CIHR was to ensure balanced support of the four themes⁴ of health research, defined in the CIHR Act as:

1. Biomedical research (theme 1)
   
2. Clinical research (theme 2)
   
3. Research respecting health systems and health services (theme 3)
   
4. The health of populations, societal and cultural dimensions of health and environmental influences on health (theme 4)

CIHR was also conceived to achieve equilibrium between "open" (or investigator-initiated) funding versus "strategic" (or targeted) funding. The consensus of CIHR’s Governing Council was to move gradually to 30% strategic and 70% open, and indeed the strategic funding proportion increased from 11% in 2000–2001 to 33% in 2009–2010.

The creation of CIHR in 2000, in addition to other new federal funding agencies created around that time (notably the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Genome Canada), has profoundly transformed the health research scene in Canada. The number and size of research grants, as well as the number of researchers and research trainees, have markedly increased. Collaboration has become the norm and interdisciplinary approaches are thriving. Through the institutes, partnerships with either public or private sectors have proliferated, increasing not only the resources that can be invested in common priorities, but also the interest in and uptake of the research results. The immediate outcome has been a significant growth of Canadian publications in all major fields of health research.

The concepts and practice of KT have taken hold among the research community. Through innovative KT approaches, health-policy makers have gained appreciation of the value of health research for informed decision making. CIHR is indeed fully integrated into the Government of Canada’s Health Portfolio and is being regularly asked to provide advice to the Minister of Health on issues of science and technology. These changes have been significant, but the transformation is not complete. A lot remains to be done, in particular to ensure that research impacts on the quality and effectiveness of health care in Canada. Expectations have been raised. The challenge ahead is for CIHR to meet these expectations and maintain momentum in an economic climate very different from the one that prevailed when the organization was created.

Date modified:

2011-08-02