In this Innovation Research Grant competition, the grants awarded will be $40,000 for one year. The research can include all areas of HIV prevention, treatment, testing, care, and cure.

The specific objectives of this funding opportunity are to:

• support planning activities, partnership development and to increase understanding of the health research landscape that will contribute to the advancement of research consistent with the mandate of CIHR; and
• support dissemination events and activities that focus on the communication of health research evidence to the appropriate researcher or knowledge-user audiences, tailoring the message and medium as appropriate.

The overall aim of this funding opportunity is to support robust research to analyze, monitor, contextualize and/or evaluate how structural or “system-level” drivers (e.g. legislation and policies) can create, maintain or exacerbate health (in)equity across populations, regions, contexts and settings.

The specific objectives of this funding opportunity are:

• To increase the evidence base on the structural determinants of health inequities in Canada.
• To support a range of identifiable and/or novel interdisciplinary research designs, theories, methods, and approaches to understand the structural determinants of health and their impacts on health (in)equities.
• To foster connections and collaboration between researchers and stakeholders across a broad range of disciplines, including (but not limited to) population and public health researchers, public health professionals, people with lived experience, communities, knowledge keepers, knowledge-users, and decision-makers to translate knowledge into policy and practice. This form of knowledge synthesis will be supported through a convening event that all funded applicants will attend during the funding period.

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

These grants provide support over one to three years to teams/partnerships, led by a project director, to:

• develop research and/or related activities in the social sciences and humanities—these can include knowledge mobilization and the meaningful involvement of students and emerging scholars—by fostering new partnerships with existing and/or potential partners; or
• design and test new partnership approaches for research and/or related activities that can result in best practices or models—these can either be adapted by others or have the potential to be scaled up to a regional, national or international level.

Partnership funding is intended for formal partnerships between postsecondary institutions and/or organizations of various types. For more information, see the definitions for formal partnership and partner organization.

The quality of training, mentoring and employability plans for students and emerging scholars will be evaluated as an important part of the proposed initiative. SSHRC’s Guidelines for Effective Research Training explain how students and emerging scholars can meaningfully participate in proposed initiatives.

The intellectual leadership and governance for the creation of a formal partnership can come from the research community and/or from partner organizations from the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. However, only an institution that meets the institutional eligibility requirements can administer the grant funding, once awarded. For more information related to Partnership Development Grants, see the Eligibility section.

SSHRC invites applicants and their partner organizations who wish to propose formal disciplinary, interdisciplinary, interinstitutional, international and/or cross-sector partnership arrangements to apply for support through this funding opportunity. Funds are available to support a variety of formal partnership development initiatives in all the disciplines and themes that meet SSHRC’s subject matter eligibility guidelines.

SSHRC’s Partnerships Tool-Kit offers tools and resources to assist with the planning and implementation of your partnership.

Please contact Dr. Nicole Westlund Stewart,  Research and Knowledge Mobilization Facilitator (Social Sciences and Humanities), at sshrc.research@lakeheadu.ca far in advance of the SSHRC deadline if this opportunity is of interest.