Research Excellence Award

The Research Excellence Award is a strategic internal funding opportunity with the explicit goal of supporting and increasing the external funding competitiveness of excellent but unfunded research grant applications to the CIHR project grant competitions. 'Excellent but unfunded' grants are those unsuccessful applications that are ranked in the top 22% of applications evaluated within a funding panel (i.e. your 'Percent Rank within the Committee' is at or above 78% on the CIHR Notice of Recommendation).

The Research Excellence Awards provide short-term funding to enable the furtherance of a project or program until the next opportunity to re-apply to the external funding competition. Each award will be up to $80,000 for up to one year.

Governance

Administration of the program is overseen by the Internal Funding Chair, currently Dr A. Pruzsynski. The Chair will review submissions for alignment with the BrainsCAN mandate and provide funding recommendations to the BrainsCAN Executive Committee. There is no assessment of scientific merit by BrainsCAN since an eligible application has already been ranked within the top 22% of applications received for the external competition.

Contact Information:

The competition is administered by BrainsCAN's Support Team, for specific questions please email brainscan@uwo.ca.

Program Guidelines

Deadline:

Applications are due within two weeks of the publication of the Notice of Decision on ResearchNet from a CIHR operating grant competition.

Applicant and Project Eligibility:

  • All applicants must hold an eligible academic appointment with a significant research component. Interdisciplinary and diverse research teams are encouraged. Submitted applications must clearly contribute to the strategic priorities of BrainsCAN.
  • A principle applicant may submit only one application per competition and may only hold one active Research Excellence Award at a time.

Application Process Summary:

  • Applications must be submitted to BrainsCAN by 4:30 pm on the deadline date via email to brainscan@uwo.ca.
  • Lead applicant will submit a ROLA proposal.
  • A submission will be reviewed by the Internal Funding Chairs for alignment with the BrainsCAN mandate - if within mandate, a funding recommendation will be made to the BrainsCAN Executive Committee.
  • Successful awardees will submit an EDI Action Plan as part of the Post-Award Package for review by the BrainsCAN EDI Committee before release of funds can occur.
  • At the end of the award, the PI must complete a Close-Out Report.

Important Documents: