CIHR – Foundation Grant: 2018-2019 competition results

The Foundation Grant: 2018-2019 competition has approved 28 research grants, for a total investment of $81,416,036^Footnote 1. The average grant size is $2,907,716 over seven years.

As noted in the Review Process for the Foundation Grant program, CIHR committed to correct gender equity issues within the program. For the 2018-19 Foundation Grant competition, CIHR took corrective measures to ensure gender equity at stage 1 (by inviting additional female applicants to stage 2) and at the Final Assessment Stage.

CIHR recently announced that the Foundation Grant program will be discontinued. As such, the 2018-19 competition is the last (i.e., no further Foundation Grant competitions will be launched).

Breakdown of competition results

Geographic distribution

Province	Number of applications submitted	% of applications submitted	Number of applications funded	% of applications funded	Province-specific success rate
British Columbia	23	10.65%	1	3.57%	4%
Alberta	20	9.26%	3	10.71%	15%
Saskatchewan	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	–
Manitoba	2	0.93%	0	0.00%	0%
Ontario	111	51.39%	18	64.29%	16%
Québec	50	23.15%	5	17.86%	10%
New Brunswick	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	–
Nova Scotia	9	4.17%	1	3.57%	11%
Prince Edward Island	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	–
Newfoundland and Labrador	1	0.46%	0	0.00%	0%
Total	216	100%	28	100%	–

View full list of Foundation Grant competition recipients (coming soon)

Note: As some of the applications have been approved conditionally, these specific applications will not appear in the detailed funding decisions database until the conditions have been resolved.

Additional details

Application breakdown	Number of applications submitted	% of applications submitted	Number of applications funded	% of applications funded	Category-specific success rate
Mid-career investigators	74	34.26%	11	39.29%	14.86%
Senior investigators	142	65.74%	17	60.71%	11.97%
Investigators who identify as female	63	29.17%	9	32.14%	14.29%
Submitted in French	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	–
Indigenous health research	2	0.93%	1	3.57%	50.00%
Biomedical (Pillar 1)	131	60.65%	18	64.29%	13.74%
Clinical (Pillar 2)	41	18.98%	5	17.86%	12.20%
Health systems/services (Pillar 3)	17	7.87%	1	3.57%	5.88%
Social/Cultural/Environmental/Population Health (Pillar 4)	27	12.50%	4	14.29%	14.81%

Peer Review Details

The Foundation Grant competition was supported by a three-stage competition and review process.

Stage 1

• 216 applications were received and reviewed.
• A total of 121 individual reviewers participated in the peer review process, which was monitored by 26 Competition Chairs.
• 178 applicants were successful at Stage 1 and were invited to submit a Stage 2 application.

Stage 2

• 147 applications were received and reviewed.
• A total of 98 individual reviewers participated in the peer review process, which was monitored by 18 Competition Chairs.
• 45 applications were successful at Stage 2.
• Of those 45 applications, CIHR identified the highest-ranked applications to be considered for funding. These applications constituted the “green zone” and did not require further evaluation.
• The remaining applications moved to the final assessment stage.

Final assessment stage

• The final assessment stage committee held a face-to-face meeting. The committee was comprised of 17 Competition Chairs from Stage 2, a Chair and a Scientific Officer.
• 33 applications with high consolidated rankings and significant variation in those rankings were reviewed.

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