“How do we balance our appreciation with our frustration?” Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) President Alain Beaudet heard this question in many guises Monday when Western researchers tackled the need for more long-term funding from the nation’s major federal funding agency for health research.
“I agree that we need to strive for more multi-year grants,” says Beaudet, who visited The University of Western Ontario Monday morning. “I’d rather fund less, but have those that are funded properly to give us a return on our investment.”
CIHR President Alain Beaudet
Beaudet spoke of the strong growth of CIHR, from $310 million in 2000 to just short of $1 billion today – increasing $142 million in just the last three years. The average grant has also risen over that time from $71,000 to $131,000.
But while the numbers look good, researchers are concerned over the number of one-year grants that get projects off the ground but don’t sustain that work; the overwhelmingly strong focus on bio-medical research – as opposed to clinical health systems and services, and population and public health; and a lack of funding causing researchers to be unable to deliver on promises – or “setting us up for failure.”
Beaudet says it’s important not only for CIHR but for researchers to stay positive in their approach with future grants and not be overly critical of government.
“We need to realize how much is being invested,” he says. “We are always prone to complain when we don’t get funding, but we tend to forget to send that ‘thank you card’ when funding is there.
“But it remains critical for us to educate not only the public, but those who give us the money. The decisions they are making are very often anchored in science. How can they make the proper decisions if they’re not educated about sciences? I believe the government is committed and see the importance of research.”
Beaudet spoke of CIHR’s upcoming five-year strategic plan, which will focus on four areas:
* investing in world-class excellence;
* setting health and health systems research priorities;
* accelerate the capture of health and economic benefits of health research; and
* achieve organizational excellence, foster a culture of ethics and demonstrate impact.
“We need to pick-up on innovation early, see what is potentially groundbreaking and support it early,” says Beaudet.
“And what we need now is operating money. It’s been great for infrastructure, recruitment, training and other areas, but we need money for operations. We need to make sure these people can produce at the level they’ve been trained for. It’s a return on investment.”