Funder’s Website
The funder’s website can be found HERE.
Funding Value and Duration
An overall funding envelope of $1.4M will be available for this program to support three to four grants over two years. This funding opportunity is open to interdisciplinary research teams of two or more members and must include a minimum of two independent investigators.
Overview
Brain Canada, in collaboration with Brain Changes Initiative (BCI) has now launched the Innovation Grants for Research Impact in Traumatic Brain Injury funding opportunity to generate creative, novel and practical evidence-based solutions that address stakeholder-identified and prioritized needs, listed below, to improve the trajectory of recovery for individuals after brain injury.
- Full assessment and customized treatment plan informed by the areas of brain that were damaged and severity
- Goal: Create a comprehensive assessment tool and treatment planning template for trained frontline workers to inventory and rate all patient symptoms to inform a realistic treatment plan (with or without diagnosis).
- Less emphasis on structural characteristics and more on functional ability during assessments
- Goal: Ensure functional deficits are identified for concussion/mTBI so they can be treated; make fMRI more widely available by ensuring quality testing occurs in less time.
- Reduced waiting lists/immediate access to outpatient brain injury services and treatment facilities
- Goal: Prove the cost effectiveness of balancing the proportion of funding allocated to outpatient community services (as opposed to acute care) as evidence for provincial decision-makers to change funding model.
- Transfer of information from emergency departments to family physicians so brain injury is not missed
- Goals: More effective communication between emergency departments and family physicians for items to follow up on relating to the patient; prove the importance and cost-effectiveness of ensuring all patients have a family physician for follow up.
- Ongoing education (CMEs) for doctors about new research and therapies for brain injury
- Goal: To increase physician awareness and motivation a) about their need to take this training, and b) that it is available and how to access it.
- Accurate prognostication (to know expected outcomes) to inform decision-making by doctors, families, and insurance payees
- Goal: Make the assessment of existing prognostic factors systematic and standardized by consolidating what we already know.
- Reduced bureaucracy, paperwork, unnecessary delays, and barriers across systems (health, financial, insurance, legal, etc.)
- Goal: Create transparency of the paperwork needed for the patient’s recovery; seeking, gathering, completing, organizing and submitting and communicating about documentation.
- Minimize occurrence of incorrect assumptions that can prevent detection of brain injury, especially for Indigenous Peoples
- Goal: Understand the patient journey (process) from beginning to end to determine where and how brain injury in Indigenous patients is missed.
- Increased detection, treatment, and prevention for special populations (e.g., people in situations of abuse, people experiencing homelessness)
- Goal: Collect data using a simple screening tool for flagging possible brain
Eligibility Criteria
Applicants must select one stakeholder priority to be addressed in their research project and, as much as
possible, use the details in the hyperlinked document for each priority as a starting point for the project
design. Applications that cover more than one of the stakeholder priorities above will be considered.
• Stakeholders should be engaged at each stage of the research process to ensure meaningful
outcomes are achieved through co-creation of solutions. Appropriate budget should be allocated
to support these activities.
• Research applications can be related, but must be distinct from any other currently funded
projects. It is the responsibility of the applicant to notify Brain Canada immediately should overlap
arise from new funding awarded during the application and review process of this funding
opportunity.
• Applicants must be able to initiate the project in June 2024 when funding is expected to begin,
conditional on providing proof of institutional approvals to Brain Canada (e.g., ethics) prior to
funding release.
This funding opportunity is open to interdisciplinary research teams of two or more members and must
include a minimum of two independent investigators, see below, one of which must be designated as
the Principal Investigator.
• Investigators must be conducting research at, and affiliated with, an eligible Canadian academic
institution for the entire duration of the grant and must be considered an independent researcher
at their institution. Such an individual normally holds the rank of assistant, associate, or full
professor; can initiate and direct their own independent lines of research as principal investigator;
has full responsibility for running their laboratories; has full control of their research funds; and is
permitted to supervise trainees, if applicable, as per their institution’s policy. Postdoctoral fellows,
research associates, or adjunct faculty are not eligible to apply.
• Academic appointments must have started by the deadline for Full Application submission.
• Team composition must include all expertise needed for successful completion of the project,
including experience and expertise related to knowledge mobilization and social innovation:
planning, execution, stakeholder engagement for co-creation of solutions, and impact evaluation.
Internal Contacts
Potential applicants are encouraged to discuss this funding opportunity with their Faculty Research Facilitator.
VPRI Resource Contact: Rachel Hirsch
Deadlines
| Faculty Deadline | Consult your Faculty Research Facilitator. |
| OVPRI Deadline (Approval Form and Application) | January 18, 2024 |
| Registration Deadline | September 27, 2023, 17:00 ET |
| Submission to Sponsor (Full Application) | January 25, 2024, 17:00 ET |
Submitting Your Application
- Step 1) Submit an internal Carleton Approval Form
Submit an internal Approval Form through our central awards management database CUResearch:
https://ovpri.research.carleton.ca/Romeo.Researcher/Administrator/Default.aspx
For a user’s guide on submitting an Approval Form, click HERE. - Step 2) Submit an external application to the granting agency
Submit an external application to the corresponding grant or award agency. To navigate to the funder’s website, click HERE