Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Canadian Scientists Are Refusing to Sit on Grants Panels

 
The results of the September 2006 CIHR grants competition are now available. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is the main funding body for biological research in Canada. The funding crisis will have a devastating effect on the careers of many of my colleagues.

A total of 310 grant renewals were submitted and 91 were funded. This represents a renewal rate of 29%. Keep in mind that most of these applications were submitted by well-established scientists with a long history of funding and publications. At this rate of renewal, 71% of functioning labs might have to shut down unless they're successful in the next competition.

When your grant is not renewed, you revert to the "new" category of applications. In the latest competition, 240 "new" applications were funded out of 1707 submissions. This is a 14% success rate. Remember, most of these "new" applications are from scientists who are in the prime of their career but who failed in their renewal last year.

Of those grants that were funded, 26.1% of the funding awarded by the peer review committees was clawed back in order to spread the money a bit further. What this means is that some of the "renewals" were funded at lower levels than the current grants. Post-docs and research assistants will be let go even when a grant is renewed.

The average grant was $109,000 and no equipment was funded. This is not enough money to run an effective biochemistry lab.

Pierre Chartrand is the Vice President, Research Portfolio, at CIHR. He posted a wimpy message on the CIHR website [A Word on the September 2006 Operating Grants Competition]. Here's part of what he had to say.
Competition for available funding has grown increasingly intense. This trend is unlikely to change as Canada continues to expand its infrastructure for health research. For this reason, within the Research Portfolio of CIHR, we cannot afford to be consumed by disappointment. Canada owes its reputation for research excellence to an open, accountable and very rigorous peer review system for funding applications. We must re-double our efforts to ensure that the peer review processes used to guide CIHR's funding decisions are the very best that they can be. In light of the recent competition results, we have heard from a small number of active peer reviewers and others who are frustrated to the point of no longer wishing to participate in the peer review process. Such frustration, no matter how limited, leaves me gravely concerned because CIHR is at a point in time where the participation of the absolute best in its peer review processes is critical.
Let me tell you, Pierre, you damn well better be "gravely concerned." Some of my friends are sick and tired of sitting on committees where they have to reject excellent grants from their colleagues knowing that this will be a knockout blow to their future careers as scientists. Is it any wonder that they don't want to act as executioners?

Now you tell us that things aren't likely to change but you still expect Canadian scientists to volunteer to do the dirty work. Not gonna happen. About 70% of those volunteers whose grants were up for renewal have just stopped being "peers." Don't expect them to be happy. As for the rest, I urge them to boycott the process until there's a change in the CIHR leadership that got us into this mess.

10 comments:

  1. I just happened upon your blog (in a search for Horganism, in case you're curious), and I'm impressed.

    Is your blog's title a reference to Joseph Fruton (and his autobiography "A Skeptical Biochemist"), or just an homage to Boyle (and/or Needham)?

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  2. Sage, read the bloody header of the blog: The Sandwalk behind Down House, the home of Charles Darwin.

    Larry, that's a damned shame, and I wish you well in your call for a boycott.

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  3. My sister has what I've come to regard as the misfortune to be an academic molecular biologist (at Northwestern, where I got my Ph.D., funnily enough- small world) so I know how dire the funding situation is in the US. I'm truly distressed to learn that it's even 10 times worse in Canada. Good luck.

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  4. My sympathies to your grantless colleagues, Larry. I agree, 100K is flatly not enough to run a modern research lab.

    I'm curious, however: what, exactly, do you want the CIHR to do? Is there some way it can get more money from the Canadian government? From corporate or private donors? Is there some other area that could be cut in order to boost grant funding?

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  5. Wolfwalker asks,

    I'm curious, however: what, exactly, do you want the CIHR to do? Is there some way it can get more money from the Canadian government? From corporate or private donors? Is there some other area that could be cut in order to boost grant funding?

    First, the leaders at CIHR should have managed the situation better. They supported a reorganization that the scientific community didn't support. This led to changes in funding priorities that working scientists repeatedly warned against. Also, the lack of funding for the latest competition could have been anticipated and steps taken to mitigate the damage.

    Second, the fundamantal problem is lack of money from the Federal Government in Ottawa and the constraints on the current money such that it has to be spent every year. It's the job of the CIHR leaders to lobby for stable and adequate funding. They have not been successful at their job and they should have the decency to resign and make way for someone else.

    The CIHR leadership may sincerely believe that nobody could have done a better job but that's not good enough. They no longer have the support of the scientific community they're supposed to serve. At the very least, they should resign out of protest.

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  6. Chickens coming home to roost? Canada has spent billions and billions to combat "global warming". Now they don't have enough money for real science. LOL.

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  7. What's up with the change in funding at the government level? Have they decided research should be done in the private sector or perhaps that other countries are doing enough and Canada can ride on their coattails? Last I looked Canada's economy was doing okay so I would have expected research funding to remain at least constant.

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  8. As a young canadian postdoctoral fellow, the last CIHR competition is a confirmation of my (and my fellow scientists) fears for the future of canadian research. CIHR funding is supposed to be a scientific career-creating institute, but it has become a career-destroying system. Funding basic research should always be a primary goal to keep Canada competitive worldwide. Instead, the administration of CIHR prefers to play (or get played) by the pharmaceutical/business side of scientific research.

    The intellectual capacity of young researcher is extremely undervalued. Our situation in academia is terrible as universities are hiring new researchers on conditions, primarily that they secure funding. With success rate for new funding decreasing (14%), and faculty salaries being what they are, scientist passion for science is just not enough to compensate this miserable situation.

    Our skills will be likely better rewarded in biotech businesses or as professional poker players ;)

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  9. RBH,

    Thanks, but I was referring to the "skeptical biochemist" part, which is not explained by the bloody header.

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  10. sage asks,

    Is your blog's title a reference to Joseph Fruton (and his autobiography "A Skeptical Biochemist"), or just an homage to Boyle (and/or Needham)?

    It originally refered to the fact that I'm a biochemist and a long-time member of Skeptics Canada. From now on, I'll claim that it's also a reference to Fulton and a homage to all other like-mined biochemists. :-)

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