The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) has done an extraordinary job priming the pump with an approximately $1.3 billion investment. This funding will support competitive grants and awards for the 2024-25 funding cycle. To date, the CIHR has released its largest funding decision ever, awarding $411 million to 453 operating grants in its fall 2024 competition. That just masks a national success rate of 17.2 percent for applicants. Recent reversals in U.S. policy regarding the importance of diversity and inclusion have added further upheaval. This predicament may further muddy the waters for Canadian researchers and their ongoing work.
Canada’s research funding landscape includes three federal agencies: CIHR, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). The CIHR has pushed research applicants to include both sex and gender in their research design as applicable and appropriate. This guidance aligns with the agency’s commitment to advancing health research that reflects Canada’s diverse population.
For the Canadian Cancer Trials Group (CCTG), things were looking grim. They recently had to backtrack on including gender-inclusive language in U.S.-funded trials due to a new executive order from the Trump administration. This broader order declares that diversity, equity, and inclusion programs are discriminatory and therefore illegal. In addition, the executive order reduces scientific understanding of sex and gender to two binaries, thus removing “gender identity” from the conversation.
A March 20 letter from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) indicated that funding for a longitudinal study focusing on nearly 400 women accessing HIV care in Metro Vancouver would cease due to incompatibility with the agency’s current priorities. This project is in the fifth and final year of a competitive five-year grant. It was made up of about 90 percent cisgender women and 10 percent transgender/nonbinary/two-spirit/gender-diverse people.
Michelle Bulls, speaking on behalf of Theresa Jarosik, criticized research programs that prioritize “artificial and non-scientific categories,” arguing that such initiatives detract from scientific inquiry and do not contribute positively to health outcomes. She stated,
“Research programs based primarily on artificial and non-scientific categories, including amorphous equity objectives, are antithetical to the scientific inquiry, do nothing to expand our knowledge of living systems, provide low returns on investment, and ultimately do not enhance health, lengthen life, or reduce illness.”
Her sentiment is certainly in line with a developing anxiety over the effects of U.S. education and research policies on Canadian research programs. And Jennifer Bell, a senior bioethicist, emphasized the immediacy of making changes. She strongly urged the Canadian government to fund alternative research projects for those affected by these changes. She remarked,
“The Canadian government should step up and fund the trials that are affected by the U.S. executive order and help secure a financial pathway so that the CCTG and other researchers can be made independent from the U.S. and its current harmful political ideology.”
David Wolkowski acknowledged the prevailing unknowns of a changing U.S. policy climate. He read what Canadian researchers might be facing if these changes go through. He noted,
“Given that many factors are currently in flux in the U.S., the extent of the impact on Canada remains unknown at this time.”
CIHR is all-in on supporting some amazing research right here in Canada. External political changes pose the most serious threats to studies currently underway and future funded studies. The agency remains focused on understanding how these changes may affect Canadian health researchers as they navigate an increasingly complex funding environment.
