Strengthening the Foundations of Canadian Research

HealthCareCAN recognizes the crucial role that research hospitals and health research play in Canada’s future. Research hospitals are where the promise of health research meets possibilities for patient care. They are also the practice homes of clinician scientists cross trained in basic science and in clinical care.

Making the Case for Canadian Research

The reality is that science and health are tremendous economic drivers, and you don’t talk about that enough

.André Picard, Columnist, Globe & Mail @ 29.09 min.

Our Clarion Call

Research hospitals are essential partners. It is time to level the playing field and allow them to compete directly for infrastructure and innovation funding. Canadian hospitals and healthcare organizations are only asking that they be able to contribute on equal footing, with the same advantages provided to other sectors.

Action Required

HealthcareCAN strongly recommends that the Federal Government immediately implement a minimum floor of 25% funding with respect to the Research Support Fund – whose mandate is to support indirect costs for research.

Research hospitals are few, but mighty

There are ~40 research hospitals in Canada, who collectively house a $2.6B research enterprise.

Research hospitals are the only group of innovation leaders showing net growth in 2015-2016.

Many research hospitals have some of Canada's largest contingents of discovery scientists.

They build & strengthen national & global relationships

They are staunch supporters of every medical & doctoral university in Canada.

Many research hospitals have multiple overseas collaborations.

Research hospitals are noted as the most collaborative research sector in the economy.

Realizing the Canadian Advantage in the Health & Life Sciences

This submission answers the questions posed by the Canada’s Science Review Panel referencing three common themes, and includes 13 recommendations to truly maintain our tradition of success and achieve the Canadian Advantage in the health and life sciences.

Themes:

Strategic coordination
Strategic investment
Strategic policy

HealthCareCAN Recommendations

Reduce pressure on the current CIHR budget

By implementing an Innovation Fund that would cover the more applied aspects of the CIHR Act, without creating new machinery.

Create a more explicitly inclusive research ecosystem

One that rewards excellence wherever it is found, allowing research hospitals to apply directly to all federal research and innovation funds and programs, and explore a credentialed research hospital system.

Provide an immediate increase of $120M per year to the A base budget of CIHR

(in addition to the $30M committed in Budget 2016), with the view to restoring the lost ground since 2010.

Reconsider Government’s current practice

Of formulaic adjustments to the base budgets of the tri-council granting agencies in favour of a more integrated needs-based approach.

Review CIHR governance

To ensure that there are adequate checks and balances in the decision making and a closer relationship to the broader community including research hospitals

Implement the Chief Science Officer role

With sufficient authority to oversee the development of a Science Strategy and coordinating and integrating mechanisms across funding bodies.

Implement the following 2 points

(1) a strategic coordination mechanism and (2) a whole of government approach to the health and life sciences in part through a health and life sciences roundtable.

That the federal government undertake a funding flow study

To understand how its granting council dollars are being leveraged.

Revisit the current Federal Support for Research Programs

To assess an internationally competitive coverage rate of indirect costs and allow research hospitals to apply directly.

Restore a healthy sustainable CIHR budget

and explore implementation of the recommendations stated by the Association of Early Career Health Researchers to assist this group.

Ensure that there is “right sizing” of the university-granting council relationship

when it comes to the intake, training and incentive structure for graduate students and post docs.

That universities and granting councils engage in right sizing the system discussions

to ensure that peer review success rates are reasonable and that pilots be developed to allow peer review for novel and more risk-laden research endeavours.

Encourage greater strategic and operational coordination

between CFI and the granting councils; consider innovation conducted using traditional technologies as a fundable area of infrastructure; and explore the possibility of extending maintenance coverage beyond five years.

The Advisory Panel on Federal Support for Fundamental Science

We fully support the recommendations made by the Advisory Panel on Federal Support for Fundamental Science in its report “Investing in Canada’s Future – Strengthening the Foundations of Canadian Research”. We urge the federal government to act on the direction given by the Panel.

Among the 35 recommendations submitted by the panel, were:

Legislation to create an independent National Advisory Council on Research and Innovation (NACRI).

Working closely with Canada’s new Chief Science Advisor (CSA), the new council would raise the bar in terms of ongoing evaluations of all programming.

Wide-ranging improvements to oversight and governance of the four agencies.

This includes the appointment of a coordinating board chaired by the CSA.

Significant reinvestment.

To be undertaken on a multi-year basis.

New spending.

To be balanced across:

investigator-led research operating grants (the highest priority);
enhanced personnel supports for researchers and trainees at different career stages;
targeted spending on infrastructure-related operating costs for small equipment and Big Science facilities; and
enhancement of the environment for science and scholarship by improved coverage of the institutional costs of research.

A cumulative base increase to move annual spending in steady-state across the four agencies and closely related entities.

From approximately $3.5 billion to $4.8 billion.