CIHR funds more grants than expected
CIHR announced this week the results of its fall Open Operating Grants competition. Roughly 600 grants were awarded, in excess of the usual 400-450 grants. One point of concern, addressed in the news release, is that 180 of these grants are only one-year grants. Also, while cutbacks on funds have decreased from as high as 22% a few years ago, the cutback rate is still 12%. The average grant size was $130,000. No mention was made of the number of applicants and the success rate, which is usually in the 25% range.
These CIHR grants are funded from resources in the last budget, and it remains to be seen how future competitions will be affected by the recently announced research budget cuts. These cuts will be of special concern to those grantees awarded one-year grants who will need to resubmit proposals in subsequent competitions.
