About
The CIHR Open Operating Grant Program (OOGP) provides operating funds to support research proposals in all areas of health research including randomized controlled trials. A randomized controlled trial (RCT) is an experiment in which investigators randomly assign eligible human research participants or other units of study (e.g., classrooms, clinics, playgrounds) into groups to receive or not receive one or more interventions that are being compared. The results are analyzed by comparing outcomes in the groups.
The mandate of CIHR is to excel, according to internationally accepted standards of scientific excellence, in the creation of new knowledge and its translation into improved health for Canadians, more effective health services and products and a strengthened Canadian health care system (Bill C-13, April 13, 2000).
CIHR’s Strategic Plan states: “Knowledge creation, the first tenet of CIHR’s mandate, is the source of changes to our understanding of the world around us. Each new contribution to the field of health science and technology brings us one step closer to understanding the origin of diseases and developing the most effective ways of delivering care and promoting health. Because all scientific progress stems from curiosity-driven questions, CIHR has always provided – and will continue to provide – strong support for discovery-based research.”
Excellence is the gold standard for supporting the best ideas and brightest minds and maintaining Canada’s competitiveness in today’s knowledge economy. As stewards of the public trust, CIHR will spare no efforts to ensure that investments in health research are made on the basis of excellence, a value that encompasses originality and creativity; scientific and ethical soundness; high probability of achieving measurable impact (while ensuring cutting-edge research); and peer review based on international selection standards.
The OOGP is the largest of the open calls for proposals within CIHR’s programming. CIHR recognizes that the creativity, skill, and insight of individuals and self-assembled teams lie at the heart of the research enterprise. The pursuit of excellence in research, as evaluated through the peer review process, inspires ideas that drive progress and ensures a continuous flow of fresh insights. Through the OOGP, CIHR aims to fund the best ideas in Canadian health research today.
The OOGP is flexible, in that there are:
- No specific requirements in relation to team size or team composition; nonetheless, the role of each applicant must be clearly identified.
- No specific requirements or restrictions on the specific research activities to be undertaken.
- No maximum or minimum with respect to the term of funding. No minimum dollar value, however due to budget restrictions with the large grant envelope (see below), no individual grant application exceeding a total cost of $12.5M will be accepted.
Funding
CIHR and external partner(s) financial contributions for this initiative are subject to availability of funds. Should CIHR or external partner(s) funding levels not be available or are decreased due to unforeseen circumstances, CIHR and partner(s) reserve the right to reduce, defer or suspend financial contributions to grants received as a result of this funding opportunity.
- The total amount available for this funding opportunity is $440M (i.e., $220M per competition) over the multi-year terms of the grants. This amount may increase subject to the availability of funds.
- It is anticipated that this will fund a minimum of 800 new grants per year (i.e., a minimum of 400 per competition).
- Within the overall OOGP budget, there will be a specific funding envelope of $25M, i.e., $12.5M per competition, over the multi-year terms of the grants for large grants. In each competition this is equivalent to approximately $2.5M per year for five-year grants. Large grants are defined as those within the top 2% of grant value within the competition and will therefore vary with each competition. Therefore individual grant applications requesting a total of $12.5M or more from CIHR will be withdrawn.
- Equipment will not be funded. CIHR will not be funding equipment through its Open Operating Grant competitions until further notice.