Operating Grant: National Women’s Health Research Initiative (NWHRI): Innovation Fund
Frequently Asked Questions

The total amount available for this funding opportunity is $9,000,000, enough to fund approximately fifteen (15) grants:

• $3,000,000 is available to fund up to five (5) projects relevant to the translational research funding pool;
• $6,000,000 is available to fund up to ten (10) projects relevant to the healthcare implementation research funding pool.

Applications relevant to each pool will be funded top down in order of percent rank within their pool. If a pool is undersubscribed or lacks fundable applications, the remaining unfunded applications that are deemed fundable will be pooled together and funded in rank order as far as funds will allow.

CIHR wishes to fund as many grants as possible, so please request only the amount that you require to carry out your proposed activities.

Should CIHR or 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.

Please note the following definitions for trainee and independent researcher as included on the CIHR Glossary of Funding-related terms webpage. Typically, a postdoctoral fellow is considered a trainee.

trainee (stagiaire)

• an individual who is enhancing their research skills through actual involvement in research and who works under the formal supervision of an independent researcher; or
• an independent researcher who has taken a leave of absence from their academic or research position.

  For example:

• an undergraduate student engaged in research at an academic institution;
• a graduate student enrolled in a graduate course of study at an academic institution;
• a postdoctoral fellow (post-PhD) at a academic or research institution;
• a post-health professional degree fellow (e.g., nursing, physiotherapy, medicine, dentistry) at an academic or research institution.

The list of examples is not exhaustive. Applicants are encouraged to communicate with CIHR.

independent researcher (chercheur indépendant)

An individual who:

• is autonomous regarding their research activities; and
• has an academic or research appointment which:
  • must commence by the effective date of funding; and
  • allows the individual to pursue the proposed research project, to engage in independent research activities for the entire duration of the funding, to supervise trainees (if applicable, as per their institution’s policy), and to publish the research results; and
  • obliges the individual to conform to institutional regulations concerning the conduct of research, the supervision of trainees, and the employment conditions of staff paid with CIHR funding.

Notes:

• Depending on the funding opportunity, an individual who does not meet the criterion of independence at the time of application may still be endorsed in the nominated principal applicant role, provided an official letter from the administering institution is included in the application confirming that the individual's independent appointment/position will commence by the funding start date. Refer to the relevant funding opportunity for possible restrictions.
• An individual who meets the above requirements but is also a "trainee" as defined in this glossary, is considered an "independent researcher" by CIHR provided:
  • the research proposal covers only areas of investigation for which they are an independent researcher and not areas of study in which they are a trainee; and
  • they demonstrate in their application that they will have sufficient time to devote to the proposed research.
    • In such cases, the individual must attach a description of their area of study as a trainee to their application

An individual or Canadian non-governmental organization (that is submitting an application as a nominated principal applicant (NPA)) cannot submit more than one application as an NPA. However, one university can be an Institution Paid for as many applications as needed.

In ResearchNet, the Summary of Research Proposal has a limit of 3,500 characters (including spaces) or approximately up to max one page. Please follow these specific steps to add your summary of research proposal into ResearchNet: prepare your summary in a Word Document outside of ResearchNet ensuring that the document follows CIHR’s Acceptable Application Formats and PDF attachments guidelines, and that the text does not exceed one page; copy-paste the text into ResearchNet Summary of Research Proposal task once final; click Preview PDF Summary and verify that you can view the full text in the one-page PDF document that gets generated, and then click Save. This task will then be marked as complete and you will be brought back to the list of other tasks that are to be completed. Should you need to make any changes to your summary after that, please delete the summary contained in the Summary of Research Proposal and then copy the updated version of the summary from your Word Document and paste it into ResearchNet Summary of Research Proposal task; then Preview PDF and click Save. Resume completion of other tasks for your application for this funding opportunity.

At the registration phase, the Enter Budget Information task collects information on your estimated budget. Indicate your average yearly estimated budget for your project in the field Total Amount Requested from CIHR ($) Year 1. No budget justification is required at this stage. You may change your budget request at the Application stage.

At the Application stage, provide a detailed budget justification in relation to planned activities and clearly justify all budget items.

You can find the Tri-Agency Harmonized CV on the CIHR website. Please note that recently the cm and inches measurements were updated on the acceptable format page on CIHR's website and the templates are in the process of being updated. If the template you access is not following CIHR’s acceptable format, the margins can manually be changed to 2cm or 0.79 inches.

You can also find the frequently asked questions.

As part of its mission, CIHR seeks to foster effective Canadian involvement in international health research that benefits Canadians and the global community (please see International and global health collaborations). Please note that the purpose of this funding opportunity is “to fund innovative applied health research to address implementation gaps and progress interventions towards real-world impact that improves access to health care and ultimately improves health outcomes for women, girls, and gender diverse people across Canada.” In addition, the funded projects “will be expected to link with the Pan-Canadian Women's Health Coalition during and at the end of their project to identify and facilitate translational opportunities for their research, as applicable.”

For the ease of access, we are including here the objectives the Pan-Canadian Women's Health Coalition – Hubs, which are to:

• Mobilize and scale-up newly generated and existing knowledge and models of care into effective, gender-sensitive, and culturally appropriate women's health and wellness services across Canada.
• Maximize research impact within and beyond the Coalition to help ensure evidence is integrated into health policy, decision making, and planning to support community, regional, provincial, territorial, and /or federal efforts regarding women's health.
• Build capacity for the next generation of women's health researchers through training and mentorship opportunities embedded within the hub to support the development of a sustainable women's health research ecosystem in Canada.
• Engage in community-based priority setting activities and identify future critical areas of women's health research based on community, regional and/or national needs.

Therefore, while some parts of the research could take place outside of Canada, the proposal should adequately address how the planned research meets the purpose and objectives of the National Women’s Health Research Initiative: Innovation Fund Funding Opportunity and how it plans to link with the Pan-Canadian Women's Health Coalition while being conducted outside of Canada, to be eligible. Please consult the funding opportunities for the full details on all the eligibility criteria.

Please also remember the following:

1. The NPA must have their substantive role in Canada for the duration of the requested grant term.
2. The Institution Paid must be authorized to administer CIHR funds before the funding can be released (see Administration of Funds).

The funds must be administered to a Canadian institution and cannot be administered abroad by CIHR; the primary Institution Paid could transfer portion of granted funds to institutions abroad, as appropriate according to the Tri-agency Guide on Financial Administration (TAGFA).

If the knowledge user is the Nominated Principal Applicant, they must be affiliated with a Canadian postsecondary institution and/or its affiliated institutions (including hospitals, research institutes and other non-profit organizations with a mandate for health research and/or knowledge translation). Knowledge User in another role on the application may be based outside of Canada.

All participants, including academics, knowledge users, non-academics, Indigenous organizations, and international applicants, in a role other than a Collaborator, are required to upload a Tri-Agency harmonized CV. A collaborator is not required to submit a Tri-Agency harmonized CV. The maximum length of CVs is 5 pages in English and 6 pages in French. Any content in excess of the page limit set for the language in which the application is written will be removed without further notice to the Nominated Principal Applicant.

For further details please see Step 2- Application, Task: Identify Participants.

This funding opportunity will support projects relevant to one of the following research areas:

1. Translational research focused on expediting the development and adoption of new healthcare diagnostics, therapeutics, and medical devices for the benefit of women, girls, and gender-diverse people within the healthcare system.
2. Healthcare implementation research focused on scaling up promising practices for removing barriers and improving access to healthcare for women, girls, and gender-diverse people.

More specifically, the translational research stream focuses on research that moves info from bench to bedside, meaning translating existing knowledge from basic science, previous studies, clinical trials, etc. into new, more efficient/effective treatments, diagnostics, therapeutics and medical devices.

It is the responsibility of the applicants in their application package to appropriately describe how their proposed work will do this and to convince the reviewers that the proposed study fits the requirements and objectives of the funding opportunity.

Applicants are not expected to be linked to an existing National Women’s Health Research Initiative Pan-Canadian Women’s Health Coalition Hubs at the time of application. However, applicants should outline in their proposals how they plan to link and work with Pan-Canadian Women’s Health Coalition. All funded research projects will be required to link with The Coalition in order to identify emerging knowledge mobilization opportunities to support improvements in policy, practice, services, and healthcare for women. This collaborative model helps to ensure that evidence improves women’s care and health outcomes, while also establishing an intersectional approach to research and care to effectively tackle persistent gaps for all women, girls and gender diverse people and inform better policy and decision making.

Once an application has been submitted to CIHR, it is considered under review. As such, the nominated principal applicant and/or members of the applicant team must wait for the notification on the funding decision before submitting the identical or essentially identical application to CIHR, NSERC or SSHRC. Once an application is funded by CIHR, the nominated principal applicant and/or members of the applicant team must not subsequently submit the identical or essentially identical application to CIHR, NSERC or SSHRC, if the start date of funding, as stated in the funding opportunity, is prior to the end date of the active grant. Please see CIHR Guidelines on Identical or Essentially Identical Applications for further details.

Considering that the peer review process timelines will overlap between the current funding opportunity and the Project Grant Spring 2024 competition, identical or essentially identical application can not be submitted to both competitions.

This timeline is a result of an administrative technicality based on CIHR's financial cycle. CIHR's financial year is from April 1 to March 31; a funding start date of June 1, 2024 means that the Nominated Principal Applicants will receive 10 months’ worth amount from June 1, 2024 – March 31, 2025. To provide enough time for applicants to apply and applications to be peer-reviewed, the notice of decision will be sent on August 28, 2024. This does not mean that funded teams will be required to start their projects before their notice of decision; it ensures that funded teams will receive a 10 months’ worth of funding. If the funding start date was in September, the grantees would only receive 7 months' worth of funding for the period of April 1, 2024 - March 31, 2025. The important date for applicants is the notice of decision date, not the funding start date, and please be assured that grantees are not required to start their work before their notice of decision.

We recognize that the term "women's health" is conceptualized and understood in a variety of ways. For the purposes of the National Women's Health Research Initiative, we offer a specific definition for the use of the term women's health. Please note that women’s health need not be in the title of the position that the NPA occupies, rather it is important that the NPA carries out research in the field of women’s health. NPAs are able to specify how they fit this position/mandate criterion in the participant table, the research proposal, as well as relevant sections of the Tri-Agency Harmonized CV. Please note that it is the NPA's responsibility to judge if their work/mandate conforms to the women's health definition. Official eligibility assessment will occur during the review process.