The purpose of this funding opportunity is to support implementation research to determine the prevalence, direct cost, and burden of rare diseases in the Canadian health care systems. This effort will enable prospective research for patients in Canada by allowing their identification in the administrative databases. It is expected that the new knowledge generated through this funding opportunity will lead to more accurate and equitable partitioning of resources (e.g., diagnosis, treatment, research, indirect support for patients and families), based on the burden of rare diseases and impact on the health care system, patients, and their families. Importantly, the funded research will inform the required adaptations to the administrative coding system used in Canada to appropriately capture rare diseases data.

The specific objectives of this funding opportunity are to:

• Strengthen integration, uptake, deployment and/or scale-up (spread) of evidence-based solutions: Improve existing programs, services, and/or models of care including equitable and inclusive access for diverse groups of people living with cognitive impairment and dementia, and for those that care for them.
• Build capacity: Strengthen implementation science approaches informed by intersectional equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) considerations among research teams, including early career researchers and knowledge users (i.e., PWLLE, decision makers), in cognitive impairment research.
• Spark interdisciplinary collaborations: Build partnerships and collaborations across sectors and jurisdictions, as appropriate, to co-develop and implement projects to contribute to a sustained and equitable impact beyond the duration of the grant.
• Foster knowledge mobilization and impact: Foster patient-oriented and integrated knowledge mobilization approaches and strategies throughout the research process to inform timely uptake and maximize research relevance and impact.

Connection Grants are expected to respond to the objectives of the Research Partnerships program.

These grants support events and outreach activities geared toward short-term, targeted knowledge mobilization initiatives. These events and activities represent opportunities to exchange knowledge and to engage with participants on research issues of value to them. Events and outreach activities funded by a Connection Grant can often serve as a first step toward more comprehensive and longer-term projects.

Connection Grants support workshops, colloquiums, conferences, forums, summer institutes, or other events or outreach activities that facilitate:

• disciplinary and/or interdisciplinary exchanges in the social sciences and humanities;
• scholarly exchanges between those working in the social sciences and humanities and those working in other research fields;
• intersectoral exchanges between academic researchers in the social sciences and humanities and researchers and practitioners from the public, private and/or not-for-profit sectors; and/or
• international research collaboration and scholarly exchanges with researchers, students and non-academic partners from other countries.

The objective of the New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF) Transformation stream is to support large-scale, Canadian-led interdisciplinary research projects that address a major challenge with the potential to realize real and lasting change. The challenge may be fundamental, leading to a scientific breakthrough, or applied, with a social, economic, environmental or health impact. Projects are expected to be world-leading, drawing on global research expertise, when relevant.

Transformation stream grants will support projects that:

1. tackle a well-defined problem or challenge;
2. propose a novel world-leading approach that is different from the current state-of-the-art approaches to the issue;
3. are interdisciplinary, bringing different perspectives to the defined problem; and
4. have the potential to be transformative, defined as the potential to create a significant and real change or impact—a noticeable leap or tangible breakthrough rather than an incremental advance.

With the knowledge that stakeholder-informed research has the greatest potential for impact, Brain Canada undertook an extensive consultation process to understand the breadth of the needs of diverse stakeholders related to TBI and identify the top priorities that should be addressed first.  

Brain Canada, in collaboration with Brain Changes Initiative (BCI) has now launched the Innovation Grants for Research Impact in Traumatic Brain Injury funding opportunity to generate creative, novel and practical evidence-based solutions that address stakeholder-identified and prioritized needs, listed below, to improve the trajectory of recovery for individuals after brain injury.  
 

• Full assessment and customized treatment plan informed by the areas of brain that were damaged and severity 
  • Goal: Create a comprehensive assessment tool and treatment planning template for trained frontline workers to inventory and rate all patient symptoms to inform a realistic treatment plan (with or without diagnosis). 
• Less emphasis on structural characteristics and more on functional ability during assessments 
  • Goal: Ensure functional deficits are identified for concussion/mTBI so they can be treated; make fMRI more widely available by ensuring quality testing occurs in less time. 
• Reduced waiting lists/immediate access to outpatient brain injury services and treatment facilities 
  • Goal: Prove the cost effectiveness of balancing the proportion of funding allocated to outpatient community services (as opposed to acute care) as evidence for provincial decision-makers to change funding model. 
• Transfer of information from emergency departments to family physicians so brain injury is not missed 
  • Goals: More effective communication between emergency departments and family physicians for items to follow up on relating to the patient; prove the importance and cost-effectiveness of ensuring all patients have a family physician for follow up. 
• Ongoing education (CMEs) for doctors about new research and therapies for brain injury 
  • Goal: To increase physician awareness and motivation a) about their need to take this training, and b) that it is available and how to access it. 
• Accurate prognostication (to know expected outcomes) to inform decision-making by doctors, families, and insurance payees 
  • Goal: Make the assessment of existing prognostic factors systematic and standardized by consolidating what we already know. 
• Reduced bureaucracy, paperwork, unnecessary delays, and barriers across systems (health, financial, insurance, legal, etc.) 
  • Goal: Create transparency of the paperwork needed for the patient’s recovery; seeking, gathering, completing, organizing and submitting and communicating about documentation. 
• Minimize occurrence of incorrect assumptions that can prevent detection of brain injury, especially for Indigenous Peoples 
  • Goal:  Understand the patient journey (process) from beginning to end to determine where and how brain injury in Indigenous patients is missed. 
• Increased detection, treatment, and prevention for special populations (e.g., people in situations of abuse, people experiencing homelessness) 
  • Goal: Collect data using a simple screening tool for flagging possible brain injury in hospitals and other relevant contexts, as well as socio-economic data. 

An overall funding envelope of $1.4M will be available for this program to support three to four grants over two years. This funding opportunity is open to interdisciplinary research teams of two or more members and must include a minimum of two independent investigators. 

Evidence clearly shows that increasing equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in research environments enhances excellence, innovation, and creativity. Brain Canada and Brain Changes Initiative are committed to excellence through equity, and we encourage applicants of diverse backgrounds to apply to our funding opportunities, which will promote the expression of diverse perspectives, approaches, and experiences, including those of underrepresented groups.  

Click here to view the Request for Applications. 

Registration Form Deadline: 17:00 ET on September 27, 2023 

Deadline for Receipt of Full Applications: 17:00 ET on January 25, 2024

The specific objectives of this funding opportunity are to:

• Generate high quality evidence required to optimize the RD diagnosis pathway in Canada;
• Evaluate the health outcomes associated with RDs via the ‘genomics first’ diagnosis pathway compared to the current approach (i.e., genomic testing performed later);
• Determine the economic impact to the health care system for the ‘genomics first’ diagnosis pathway and compare to current diagnostic pathways for RDs;
• Evaluate the socioeconomic and psychological impacts of delays in the diagnosis on patients/families with RDs from a diversity of population groups and communities in Canada using the ‘genomics first’ diagnostic paradigm as a comparator; and
• Mobilize knowledge to facilitate the implementation, scale and spread of best practices for diagnosing RDs in Canada.

The Petroleum Research Fund is an endowed fund, managed by the American Chemical Society that supports fundamental research directly related to petroleum or fossil fuels at nonprofit institutions (generally colleges and universities) in the United States and other countries.

ACS Petroleum Research Fund (ACS PRF) grants are intended as seed money, to enable an investigator to initiate a new research direction. The investigator should not have published or received financial support from another funding agency for the proposed research. Also, proposals that the ACS PRF Committee feels are a logical extension of an investigator’s previous research may be denied as “not a new direction.”

Since the first ACS PRF grants were approved in 1953, several grant programs have evolved to serve segments of the scientific community, including “new investigator” grants and grants to support researchers in departments that do not award doctoral degrees.

Scope of the Fund

Proposals must be for fundamental research in “the petroleum field,” which is defined in our founding document as “petroleum, natural gas, coal, shale, tar sands and like materials.” Fundamental research encompasses the properties of these materials, whereas the petroleum industry undertakes “applied research,” which is outside the scope of ACS PRF.  However, please note that while the PRF Trust imposes certain restrictions, PRF currently funds many topics of current interest in sustainability and  green chemistry.   These include, for example, new catalysts and upgrading/utilization of methane and carbon dioxide.  Interested individuals are encouraged to contact a PRF program officer or prfinfo@acs.org for more information regarding areas.

For more information, please contact Jill Sherman at intl.research@lakeheadu.ca.

Two Canada Council for the Arts Molson Prizes, in the amount of $50,000 each, are awarded annually to distinguished individuals (one in the arts and one in the social sciences and humanities). The prizes are intended to encourage continuing contributions to the cultural and intellectual heritage of Canada.

The prizes are funded by an endowment from the Molson Foundation and are administered by the Canada Council in collaboration with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). The winners are chosen by a peer assessment committee, which is appointed jointly by the Canada Council and SSHRC.

If you are interested in being nominated for one of these prizes, please contact Dr. Batia Stolar
Associate VP, Research & Graduate Studies at bstolar@lakeheadu.ca.

As part of the commitment to transform women’s heart and brain health, Heart & Stroke is launching the 2024/25 Heart & Stroke Postdoctoral Personnel Awards for Women’s Heart and/or Brain Health. The objective of the competition is to increase the number of researchers and clinician-scientists in Canadian universities and research institutions devoted specifically to women’s heart and/or brain health and, in so doing, expand research initiatives in this field. In the context of this award, heart and/or brain health research refers to research addressing heart conditions, stroke, and vascular cognitive impairment. The stipends awarded will enable Postdoctoral Fellows to pursue their program of research and engage with mentors as part of their training.