What we heard: Strengthening the long-term sustainability of the Project Grant program: Message from the Vice-President, Research Programs

August 5, 2026

Dear colleagues,

Since the start of the year, CIHR has been engaging the health research community on pressures facing the Project Grant program and ways to keep it strong, fair and sustainable. To date, we have heard from more than 2,000 individuals, through Ask Me Anything sessions, university visits, meetings with Project Grant peer review committee Chairs and Scientific Officers, discussions with CIHR advisory and governance bodies and through letters submitted directly to CIHR.

The purpose of this phase of our engagement has not been to make or announce decisions. It has been to build a shared understanding of the pressures facing the system and to hear from applicants, reviewers and institutions on possible interventions and their implications.

The starting point is clear: the Project Grant program is the central pillar of Canada's health research system and CIHR's largest open funding program. But the program is under strain. Application volumes and requested budgets have increased significantly, while the number of grants CIHR can fund has remained static. The numerator is the same (850 grants per year can be funded) but the denominator has increased dramatically over the past five years (by more than 50%).

The result is more time spent preparing, administering and reviewing applications with ever-lower likelihoods of funding success, more excellent science left unfunded, growing pressure on applicants as success rates fall, and on reviewers, institutions and CIHR staff as the number of applications continues to climb year over year.

Major themes we heard

1. The current trajectory is not sustainable. Participants described an environment marked by high application pressure, low odds of success, repeated resubmissions, reviewer fatigue and frustration with the system as currently set up. The issue is not a lack of strong ideas or capable researchers; it is that demand has outgrown the system's current capacity.

Participants also stressed that process changes alone cannot solve a funding shortfall and urged CIHR to keep making the case for the importance of curiosity-driven research while managing current resources responsibly.

2. Peer review is essential, but confidence in the process is strained. Participants affirmed that peer review is a core strength of the Project Grant program and must be protected. They also raised concerns about lack of reviewer expertise, continuity, scoring consistency, calibration across committees, reviewer accountability and instances of low-quality reviewer feedback. Suggestions offered by the community included better reviewer matching and training, stronger Chair and Scientific Officer roles, more actionable feedback, fuller use of the scoring range, selective in-person elements, and reciprocity from those who benefit from peer review.

3. There is interest in reducing application pressure, but strong concern about how this could be achieved equitably. Participants discussed application limits, restrictions or pauses on repeated resubmissions, Letters of Intent or other triage processes, shorter applications, feedback-and-response mechanisms, bridge funding, longer grant durations, modular budgets, and models that provide greater stability for research teams or programs.

While many participants supported reducing churn, there was no consensus on the right design. Participants cautioned that restrictions can be difficult to operationalize, may be circumvented and could create new barriers for some groups or fields. Early career researchers were frequently identified as a group that could be disproportionately affected by limiting resubmission options, delayed access to funding or models that place too much weight on track record.

4. A single annual competition is the most contentious option. Some participants saw possible advantages, including a predictable annual cycle, more time for meaningful revisions, greater reviewer continuity, stronger calibration and an opportunity for a more iterative feedback-and-response model.

However, support for this option was limited. Many participants worried that a single annual deadline could heighten pressure on applicants, worsen funding gaps, reduce flexibility, concentrate workload for researchers and research administrators, and disproportionately affect early career researchers and smaller labs. Others questioned whether one competition would reduce application volume if applicants respond by submitting more proposals at once or potentially just defer them to future competitions.

5. AI is contributing to application pressure. Participants noted that artificial intelligence may contribute to application pressure and will increasingly shape how science is conducted. This is supported by the recent Nature paper ("Could agentic AI topple grant-funding systems"), which included CIHR data, where agentic AI use for grant preparation predictive software analysis corresponded to a significant rise in grants submitted to the major federal funders across numerous countries. Some saw opportunities to use AI to support administration, triage, reviewer matching, templates, quality checks or review-pattern analysis. Others raised concerns about confidentiality, bias, transparency, accountability and the loss of human judgment. The common ground was that AI cannot be ignored but must be tested carefully and that humans must be in the loop-not just at the margins but centrally.

6. The community wants detailed data, clear framing and a neutral presentation of options. Participants asked for more information about what is driving application growth, how pressures vary by committee, pillar, discipline and career stage, and how interventions would affect volume, success rates, reviewer burden, equity and excellence. They also asked for transparency about modelling assumptions and benchmarking against other funders.

Trust will depend on how the problem and options are framed. Participants asked CIHR to separate the issues clearly-application pressure, funding constraints, reviewer capacity, peer review quality, feedback, timing and applicant behaviour-and to show how each potential intervention addresses a specific problem. They also asked that options be presented neutrally, with benefits, risks, trade-offs and implementation challenges clearly described.

7. How change is implemented will matter as much as what is changed. Participants urged CIHR to proceed carefully, transparently and incrementally. There was strong support for piloting, phased implementation, monitoring and adjustment as needed. There was also caution that too many major changes at once could create instability and make evaluation difficult. Above all, participants stressed that future changes must be co-developed with the community and communicated clearly.

What comes next

CIHR is grateful for the candour, expertise and constructive spirit participants have brought to these conversations. We also acknowledge that not everyone has been able to participate in the engagement to date and that participants may not have been a representative sample of the full Canadian health research population. The feedback confirms that there is no simple solution. Every option involves trade-offs. It also confirms that the status quo is not sustainable and that the community wants CIHR to address the challenge with care, transparency and urgency.

Based on the feedback received, CIHR will publish a position paper later this summer setting out the challenges facing the Project Grant program, summarizing the evidence and modelling and describing potential options for change. The paper will identify key risks and trade-offs and will be the basis for the next phase of our engagement. This comprehensive process will include different opportunities for individuals to participate, (e.g., institutional visits, Ask Me Anything sessions, a survey).

The feedback received from this process will inform any decisions we make. CIHR will also be standing up an external international advisory committee to guide this work, with more details about this group to be shared later this summer.

Our goal is to ensure that the Project Grant program continues to support the breadth of excellent and impactful investigator-initiated health research that is submitted. This is done through a peer review system that values curiosity-driven research, novel ideas, creativity and one that is fair, rigorous, trusted and sustainable. We will respect the time, expertise and commitment of the research community that makes the program possible.

Sincerely,

Adrian Mota
Vice-President, Research Programs