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The CIHR reforms include changes to the grant funding streams, changes to the grant-writing process and, perhaps most controversially, abandoning the “international gold standard” of face-to-face peer review in favour of an online system that critics say has been a disaster.

“Instead of having grant proposals be reviewed by expert panels of scientists in the same place, as is the practice of virtually every other Canadian granting agency and worldwide, CIHR abruptly switched to an online review process.”

As a result, the letter says, a significant number of reviewers simply didn’t participate in the online discussions about proposals.

In addition, CIHR cancelled two competitions in order to implement the reforms. That meant the majority of researchers in the country applied to the latest competition, which made it difficult to find qualified reviewers. Some were inexperienced or under-qualified. Delays meant that a significant number of reviews were not submitted by deadline. A number of people involved have spoken out to express their frustration with the flawed process.

The letter notes that many of the problems were foreseen by the scientific community, but were dismissed by CIHR leadership, who were told that these are “pilot” competitions that will be tweaked based on feedback.

“But when over 75 per cent of active Canadian health researchers have no choice but to apply to the latest project competition, this can no longer be viewed as a test. These researchers had no options as other opportunities for funding were removed. Their research support is rapidly running out and there are thousands of jobs and research degrees on the line.”

The researchers have asked Philpott to suspend the rollout of the reforms and to reinstate expert panel-based reviewing done in person, rather than online. Timing is urgent, they say, and should be done by midsummer to save winter grant competitions.

“There is much at stake for far too many of our colleagues to endure another episode of this failed experiment.”

A group of 28 researchers sent a similar letter to Philpott in April asking her to address the damage done by CIHR reforms and to improve funding for health research.

epayne@postmedia.com