Purpose

The Gender Wage Gap Grant Program (GWGGP) is intended to advance actions to promote equality between women and men that support efforts to close Ontario’s gender wage gap. This call for proposals supports the Government’s priority of economic growth by adding to our understanding of the gender wage gap and how the earning potential of Ontario’s working women can be maximized. This in turn benefits working families, the labour force in general and overall economic productivity. 

Program overview

Please note that this information is provided as an overview only, interested applicants should review the Guidelines carefully for more information and eligibility requirements.

In this context, two specific priority areas have been identified:

Actions/Research exploring gender wage gap and pay equity issues for members of racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants and youth.

Closing Ontario’s gender wage gap requires a multi-faceted approach to tackle wage inequalities. The Pay Equity Commission encourages interested candidates to establish partnerships on initiatives that have a broad impact on the gender wage gap and pay equity issues.

Sample activities/research:

• compensation trends and their effect on Ontario’s gender wage gap and pay equity in identified groups.

Actions/Research exploring compensation issues and gender inequality in Ontario’s emerging workplace conditions.

As the world of work shifts from permanent full-time positions to emerging trends of contract, part-time and temporary work, the concept of pay equality becomes a challenge to articulate. Recognizing that compensation trends continue to evolve to adapt to today’s working environment, the Pay Equity Commission encourages proposals that advance efforts to understand compensation trends and gender inequality in Ontario, and propose recommended solutions.

Sample activities/research:

• intersectional factors compounding the wage gap, with evidence-based proposal of solutions.
• sectoral approaches to addressing gender pay equity.
• union role in addressing the gender wage gap.

Innovation Grants have been created to support innovative, creative problem solving in cancer research. As competition for grant funding increases, peer review panels become more conservative and risk averse, emphasizing feasibility more than innovation. The goal of this CCSRI grant program is to support unconventional concepts, approaches or methodologies to address problems in cancer research. Innovation projects will include elements of creativity, curiosity, investigation, exploration and opportunity. Successful projects may be based on “high risk” ideas, but will have the potential for “high reward” (i.e. to significantly impact our understanding of cancer and generate new approaches to combat the disease by introducing novel ideas into use or practice).

Seed Grants support a variety of research activities, such as:

• Pilot and feasibility studies
• Secondary analysis of existing data
• Small, self-contained research projects
• Development of research methodology
• Development of new research technology

Applicants may request up to $30,000 in direct costs plus 15 percent Facilities and Administration costs for a period not to exceed 12 months.

Large Grants support two-year projects. Applicants may request up to $75,000 per year in direct costs and up to 15 percent in Facilities & Administration costs. Applicants are required to submit letters of intent to apply that are reviewed for scientific merit by the Scientific Advisory Board.

The Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease (PATH) award provides $500,000 over five years to support accomplished investigators at the assistant professor level to study pathogenesis, with a focus on the interplay between human and microbial biology, shedding light on how human and microbial systems are affected by their encounters.

The objective of the Idea to Innovation (I2I) Grants  is to accelerate the pre-competitive development of promising technology originating from the university and college sector and promote its transfer to a new or established Canadian company. The I2I Grants provide funding to college and university faculty members to support research and development projects with recognized technology transfer potential. This is achieved through defined phases by providing crucial assistance in the early stages of technology validation and market connection.

The objectives of this funding opportunity are to:

• Support strategic, collaborative, high-quality, novel and innovative HIV/AIDS biomedical and clinical research that contributes to the creation of new knowledge on co-morbidities in the biological and psychosocial aspects of aging and mental health, including sex and gender considerations;
• Foster a multi-disciplinary biomedical and clinical approach to address the complex issues experienced by people living with HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted and blood borne infections;
• Build capacity in HIV/AIDS research and nurture the next generation of researchers by supporting teams that actively engage established researchers, new investigators, trainees, and knowledge users; and
• Foster and support the translation and exchange of knowledge and the appropriate uptake and application of new discoveries through interdisciplinary collaborations.

Neuroscientific research yields constant progress regarding our basic understanding of the structure and function of the human brain under healthy and pathological conditions. This knowledge is fundamental for the development of new diagnostics and treatments for patients suffering from neurological or psychiatric diseases. At the same time, neuroscientific research has implications for the understanding, and thus potentially also the control, of human decision-making, behaviour, emotions, and social interactions. Findings from neuroscientific research can furthermore deeply affect human self-understanding and conscience as such. Therefore, it is of major importance to investigate the ethical, legal, and social aspects (ELSA) of neuroscientific research and recent advances in the field. This knowledge helps to ensure that neuroscientific methods and findings are utilized in ways which are of the best possible benefit for our society. The high societal relevance of neuroscientific research is underlined by continuously high public interest and ongoing public discourse on this topic.

The 'Network of European Funding for Neuroscience Research' (NEURON) was established under the ERA-NET scheme of the European Commission. The aim of ERA-NET NEURON is to co-ordinate research efforts and funding programs of European and partner countries in the field of disease-related neuroscience. Under the umbrella of NEURON, several joint transnational calls (JTCs) have been launched on different neuroscientific topics from 2008 to 2016. In acknowledgement of the high societal relevance of neuroscientific research, this year, "European Research Projects on Ethical, Legal, and Social Aspects (ELSA) of Neuroscience" has been launched.

The aim of the ERA-NET call is to facilitate multinational, collaborative research projects that will address important questions regarding ethical, philosophical, legal and socio-cultural aspects related to the neurosciences and their recent advances.

Research Areas

Research areas within the overall ERA-NET call include but are not limited to:

1. the consequences of the development of neuroscientific diagnostic methods (e.g. handling of incidental findings; the "right not to know"; very early disease prediction before symptoms occur; diagnosis in absence of treatment options; interactions between socio-culturally diverse patients and health personnel; availability of novel expensive methods).
2. abnormal behaviour reduced to deviant brain states (e.g. expansion of the concept of illness; seeing psychiatric symptoms merely as specific neurochemical imbalances); use of brain data and brain interventions in legal contexts (e.g. "brain reading" for the detection of deception; brain intervention of offenders; psychosurgery; insurance law).
3. neuroenhancement such as alteration of mental states (cognitive, affective) and abilities (e.g. cognition, sleep, appetite, sexual behaviour) in healthy subjects by pharmacological or by electrical/magnetic brain stimulation.
4. intelligent technologies and close human-machine interaction (e.g. Ambient Assisted Living, Brain-Computer Interfaces).
5. personality changes as side effects of neurological or psychiatric therapies (e.g. Deep Brain Stimulation; brain implants).
6. the impact of modern neuroscience on traditional philosophical questions, concepts and theories regarding fundamental aspects of human nature (e.g. the relationship between mind and brain, the nature of consciousness, self- and personal identity, free will).
7. biobanking of neural tissue (e.g. tissue donation, deceased donor, data protection, possible consequences for relatives).
8. clinical research with patients suffering from neurological or psychiatric diseases (e.g. developing tools to improve the assessment of decision-making capacity of the patients, analysis of legal measures to protect those who do not have the capacity to consent).
9. societal and cultural changes induced by neuroscientific knowledge and its application.

The individual components of joint applications should be complementary and should contain novel and ambitious ideas to answer key questions or lead to a step-wise change in understanding. There should be clear added value in funding the collaboration over the individual projects.