CIHR-IMHA Intensive Grant Writing Masterclass 2022

Overview

The CIHR-IMHA Intensive Writing Masterclass aims to nurture research leaders by developing writing skills, fostering writer identity and strengthening writing community.

Objectives

The CIHR-IMHA Intensive Writing Masterclass Grant is designed to support early-career researchers enhance their grant writing skills through a series of six workshops held over the course of Spring 2022. The objectives of this award seek to:

  • Develop researchers’ writing skills through experiential learning and course work with a focus on rhetoric and grammar.
  • Enhance the writer’s ability to reflect critically on writing assumptions, style, and identity in order to use these tools to make a grant application clear and impactful.
  • Enhance the writer’s ability to give effective writing feedback when mentoring trainees.
  • Enhance collaborative writing strategies to strengthen the writer’s ability to contribute to successful grant writing and ultimately team science and real research impact.

Up to ten (10) spots to attend this event will be covered by IMHA.

Important dates

Expression of Interest: January 14, 2022
Anticipated Notice of Decision: January 30, 2022

Eligibility

Eligibility to Apply

For an application to be eligible:

  1. The Applicant must be:
    1. an independent researcher and be an early career researcher (Note: CIHR has recently updated the early career researcher definition to be a researcher within seven years from the date of their first research-related appointment, minus eligible days in research)
    2. hold their primary academic appointment at a Canadian institution (see Institutional Eligibility Requirements)
  2. The Applicant’s work must be broadly relevant to the CIHR IMHA mandate.

Conditions

Interested applicants must adhere to all of the following conditions of attendance to this intensive workshop:

  1. Participation (Zoom) in all six writing workshops is required. Writing workshops will take place from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. EST on the following dates:
    • March 7, 2022
    • March 21, 2022
    • April 4, 2022
    • May 2, 2022
    • May 30, 2022
    • June 6, 2022
  2. Participation in three additional 30-minute one-on-one coaching sessions with the workshop facilitator is required. Coaching sessions will be organized post-funding by the workshop facilitator together with the awardee. These coaching sessions will take place between March and June 2022, scheduled to accommodate both facilitator and awardee availability.
  3. Recipients must have a draft grant proposal relevant to the IMHA mandate to work on during the program. Awardees should submit a draft summary page of a grant to the course leader (Dr Lingard) by March 1st, 2022.
  4. Recipients must be proficient in English.
  5. All participants will be required to complete a short evaluation following the workshop.
  6. The Applicant has not been a Nominated Principal Investigator on a CIHR Operating Grant as of December 14, 2021.

Review Process

CIHR IMHA will conduct an initial review of applications to determine alignment with objectives and eligibility of this workshop. Applications who are not deemed to be relevant will be withdrawn.

Following this review, CIHR-IMHA will establish a selection committee which includes leaders of this workshop to evaluate the full applications and select the final attendees.

Selection Criteria

The following criteria will be used to select attendees to the workshop:

  1. Proficiency in academic writing as determined by a writing sample; and,
  2. Potential to share lessons learned from this writing course.

See “How to Apply” section for details on submission requirements for each of these criteria.

Decision

All applications that are deemed ‘Excellent’ and meet the expectations set out in this workshop for all selection criteria will be considered for this workshop. The selection process will be aimed at fair and equitable access for researchers from various geographies, genders, methodological backgrounds and ability to enhance grant writing among those who identify as belonging to equity-seeking groups. Additionally, two places will be reserved specifically for francophone applicants who write grants and/or publish in English.

How to Apply

The application package must include the following:

  1. Please submit a sample of your published writing (maximum 600 words) including a reference to the citation. We anticipate that for many applicants this will be a sample from an Introduction or a Discussion of published paper but you may choose whatever you think reflects your best writing.
  2. Please explain your potential to share the lessons from this writing masterclass (maximum 600 words). The evaluation aims to reward creativity and evaluators will rate your answers to the following questions:
    • Who do you mentor personally? Will you be able to amplify the lessons from this masterclass to faculty, departmental or lab writing groups (i.e., reach beyond your own students)?
    • Will you have access to other innovative ways to mentor writing (webinars, podcasts etc.)?
    • How would you use your lessons from this course to enhance grant writing among those who might identify as belonging to equity-seeking groups?

Apply here by 11:59 PM, Eastern Time January 14, 2022.

Contact information

For all inquiries please contact the IMHA Mailbox at: imha-iala@cihr-irsc.gc.ca

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