Innovation Fund

June 18, 2024,

4:55PM
Well, welcome everyone. Welcome to the Innovation Fund 2025 information session for applicants. We did have over 700 registrants, so it's a very big group today. So I'm sure people will keep popping in as we as we start the presentation. My name is Natalee Rubec. I'm a senior programmes officer at the Canada Foundation for Innovation and I will be your your host for today. I am a white woman in her mid 40s. I have, you know, sort of longish light brown hair with glasses and I'm wearing a headset and I'm going to present the slides to you today.

00:39
I have a slide shared. You should be able to see them on your screen. Just a note is that we are gonna be recording the session today and we are going to be sharing the video after the session online on our website. So for those of you have colleagues who may have missed it or you know might want to come back and review it but that will be available for you as well as the slides and an FAQ document that we will be preparing after the meeting. Just so that if there are questions that are you know popular, we'll definitely be answering them for everybody.

01:08
(French)

01:19
So for my French colleagues, who would like to see this information in French, we will be having a webinar tomorrow in French at the same time. So if you need the link to send us a note. I'm joined today by my excellent colleagues in the Innovation Fund team. So shout out to them. They will be helping manage questions as we go through this presentation.

01:42
So I'm gonna be presenting 34 slides and that's a lot of information. So you'll notice that that we've disabled the chat. So if you have questions or you need a, you know something some more information use the question-and-answer feature which is a button at the top of your screen. And my colleagues will be trying to answer those as we go along. That said, if we do end up with time at the end of presentation, we'll definitely welcome questions verbally. So if you want to ask your question using the audio, please reserve these questions until after the end of the presentation. We’ll take them in the order that the hands are raised.

02:17 Agenda
So the agenda for today, I'm going to be going over some of these aspects of the Innovation Fund for some of you. You might be old hat at the Innovation Fund, others this might be your first one. We welcome everyone. I'll talk about the budget and objectives, the timeline, some key features of the current competition, the application process and the review process. So I hope we can get through all of that as we go.

02:40 Competition Objectives and budget
So the 2025 Innovation Fund has three objectives. These objectives are very similar to ones we've had in past competitions. Enabling internationally competitive research or technology development so the equitable participation of team members enhancing capacity in institutions and generating benefits for Canadians. Our budget is a little bit larger than the 2023 competition, so that is a 425 million in capital funding as well as the 30% IOF for operation and maintenance costs that's automatically added to our awards with the budget of $127.5 million dollars.

The way our funding works, the CFI is that we fund 40% of the award and our applicants then use that 40% to leverage the extra 60% of the project cost.

03:34 Important Dates
So the call for proposals went live a couple of weeks ago, on June 6th. If you haven't had an opportunity to read it, that would be an excellent starting point. The competition will be open for applications starting on June 25th is when our forms will be live in our online system. Notices of intent are due in October, with the proposal deadline happening the first week of February on February 4th. All of this will lead to a review process which will culminate in November 2025, with decisions by our Board of Directors.

04:13 Key features (1/3)
One of the most exciting features we have added to this competition is the introduction of a streamed approach. So we have 3 distinct streams, and you'll notice when you go to apply, you'll have to select the stream to which you're applying in CAMS. Stream one is the traditional innovation fund. It's open, it's opened all disciplines, all kinds of proposals. So again, any proposal that you're thinking of submitting is likely eligible for that stream. Anything that would have been allowed in the past would be allowed in there too.

Stream two is a specific stream for proposals in the social sciences, humanities and the arts. So that's to say a one thing we've noticed is that we have had low submission rates in the past in social sciences and we're very excited to offer this option for this particular stream in this competition. And we'll be talking about some special exemptions and features of that stream in a little bit.

Stream three is for the creation, renewal, and upgrade of core facilities. So in order to be eligible for the core facility stream, all of the requested infrastructure, so 100% has to be housed in and managed by a core facility. It could be multiple cores from one facility from one particular institution. It could be cores with nodes at multiple facilities. So we understand that you know kinds of core facilities and stages of development and kind of meta organisation and institutions varies so…
You know, this is fairly open and if you think your proposal might fall into that kind of particular category, I really encourage you to go and review the assessment criteria in the call for proposals and it'll give you a clear idea of kind of what the purpose of that stream is.

05:59 What is a core facility?
On the note of core facilities, we provided a definition here of a core facility. So the types of activities that they do and the type of role it has within the research ecosystem. So this is basically if you can check all of these points to determine whether or not your operation is a core facility. One thing we've kind of had questions about is what does it mean to be kind of recognised by an institution. So what we're looking for there is that it's, you know, it's a recognised core facility with shared services. Usually you'll have some kind of website indicating that you know how users can access it and and if you have questions about this, please don't hesitate to get in touch. We can we can give you some some guidance around that, but again recognising that not every university has a has a, you know, meta organisation of core facilities and we want to be make it open as much as possible.

06:55 Key features (2/3)
You'll probably have noticed and there was a CFI special update a few months ago that we've outlined the kind of term to complete and to finalise projects. So we expect that projects submitted to the 2025 Innovation Fund should be finalised within nine months of funding decisions. So that puts it somewhere into mid 2026 for finalisation and we have outlined in this table the deadline to submit the final financial report. And it's sort of commensurate with the size of the project in terms of total project costs. Or proposals to be eligible to the 2025 competition, they have to be greater than $1,000,000 in total costs and you'll see that, you know, under or equal to 2.5 million. The deadline would be 2029. And over 10 million extends all the way to 2032. So the idea here is we we don't want to leave projects open for a really long time and we have been having some trouble getting money out the door. So we want to make sure that we're able to meet our spending targets you know, institutions are getting the money to launch the project, so projects for the 2025 Innovation Fund competition should be at an appropriate level maturity to meet these targets. So that's to say if you have an idea, but it's not quite ready to kind of go within nine months that maybe you want to reserve that project until maybe another competition and look at the projects that are more kind of ready to kind of be implemented.

08:29 Key features (3/3)
We've also added some eligibility for special costs that we've heard hear from the community that these are, you know, gaps or things that are really kind of missing.
So for all streams, we're going to be providing ongoing personnel support for people who manage and operate databases. We know that a database is not a stagnant piece of infrastructure and requires kind of update and management. And often there's, you know, a specialist who was involved with the database and making it available to researchers supporting their requests. So this is the type of personnel that we had in mind when we were talking about database personnel.

Specific to stream three, we're going we've allowed eligible costs for operation maintenance for personnel, scientific and technical personnel for core facilities. So this is again something we heard and we've made available. Just make a note that if your project is coming through a major science initiatives fund project, it won't be possible for you to request this personnel because we already funded these types of costs through the CFI MSI fund.
That's not to say, that you can't be eligible for the IF you certainly can. Just that personnel might be a problem. And when it comes to timelines for these kinds of costs, they're eligible as long as they fall within the period that has happened before the deadline to submit the final financial reports. So the table I showed on the previous slide, as long as the personnel costs are incurred in time to meet these deadlines, and that is the window of eligibility for those costs.

10:08 Agenda
I'm gonna take a few minutes now to talk about the application process.

10:16 Two-stage application process
So, like previous funds, we have a two-stage application process done through our CFI awards management system CAMS.

The first stage is applying with a notice of intent, so you'll be able to get your project information and I'll give you a little bit more detail on what's expected there. These forms will be available to you after June 25th, so they're not up yet. What will happen is you will submit the notice of intent. The deadline, as I mentioned, is October 2nd.
We’ll receive those notice of intent and you will receive a decision from us on the notice of intent. This is new. Previously you'd submit the NOI and then the proposal module would be almost immediately accessible. There is a step this time where we're going to be validating the notice of intents to make sure that they're in the right stream, that the right projects are kind of listed to be outside of the envelope. So we'll have an internal administrative review process for those, and then we'll send back a decision, at which point you'll get access to the proposal module and you can submit the proposal, which is Step 2 and the proposals are due at the beginning of February 2025.

11:22 Institutional envelopes
Each institution has an institutional envelope. These are listed on the final page of the call for proposal that tells you the amount of which of projects in dollar value that you can submit.

At the NOI stage, all institutions are allowed to exceed their envelope by up to 10%, but at the proposal submission deadline, you have to adhere to the envelope.
We really encourage you to do as accurate as possible a cost estimate, so considering things such as inflation, cost increase due to supply chain problems.
Please put these into the budget and contingency plan as accurately as you can kind of assess at this point and that way you get a like a more accurate you know number for the submission dollars.

One thing we've done this year is we increased the minimum institutional envelope from $3 million to $4 million. So looking at our smaller institutions hoping that they can, you know, provide a 25% increase.

12:18 Envelope exemptions
Something we got a lot of questions out right now. So what we have this time around is we have an exemption. So every institution is allowed to submit one social sciences, humanities and arts proposal outside of their institutional envelope. So in previous competitions, everyone could submit one. If you're only submitting one project, you're not restricted by your envelope. If there's only one proposal in any domain, and that is not changing, it can be just, you know, in any stream, any proposal. If you're just submitting one, you're not restricted by the envelope.
However, when you get to two proposals, your one freebie is still allowed, and then if you have a second proposal that is from social sciences and humanities, then both of those proposals can be outside of your envelope. As soon as there's three or more proposals, you still have the social sciences proposal that is allowed outside of the envelope, and all of the other proposals that you submit are inside the institutional envelope. There's a flow chart here displayed, and a description of it in the text in the call for proposals.

A point of clarification that I'll just add to this is that if for the social sciences exemption, if you're an institution, you submit one as the lead institution. You can also collaborate on other social sciences proposals, so as soon as the proposal is marked it outside the institutional envelope, it remains outside of the envelope for the lead institution as well as any collaborators. So everybody gets one proposal as lead and however many you want to collaborate on, that's fine. And for social sciences they are exempted from the envelope calculations.

13:56 Step 1: Notice of intent
At the notice of intent, there are several sections in the module that you have to complete before you can submit it. Infrastructure that's located at international research facilities. If you're submitting that, make sure you're consulting with the host facility before submitting the proposal. And if your proposal contains advanced research computing infrastructure, please consult with the Digital Research Alliance of Canada. They'll be able to answer your questions and make sure that kind of coordinated approach.

These are the same kind of sections that we've had in previous competitions. The one difference is we are we've removed the other users module. So it's just the 10 team members that will be in this particular proposal. And we really do use your suggested reviewers, so as many of those as you can send us, it's it's very much appreciated and we are really looking to diversify our reviewer pool in all sorts of dimensions this year. So if you make an effort to include like a diverse type of reviewer in terms of geographic location, sector, expertise, membership in the one of the four under represented groups we are really looking for for those people this time around and as much as you can kind of indicate the expertise that they bring and how it relates to your proposal in the small notes section. We do appreciate that too.

15:20 Step 2: Proposal
When you get to the proposal module there are several sections, the project module. Some of this information will have been already kind of repopulated from the notice of intent. This is the place where we're going to have the assessment criteria which will make up kind of the bulk of the content of the application.

15:43 Objectives & assessment criteria
So I'll talk a little bit about how the proposals are assessed and the assessment criteria themselves.

All proposals from all funds have the same overarching objectives, so the three objectives that I stated earlier, they're listed here on this slide and they relate specifically to the five assessment criteria. So objective 1 is going to be kind of informed by the first two assessment criteria, which are researcher, technology development and team. Similarly, Objective 2 is related to infrastructure and sustainability, and Objective 3 is related to the benefits criteria. So there's five assessment criteria matched to the three fund objectives.

16:30 Important considerations
We included some information in the call because you'll have noticed that in our assessment criteria, we've added kind of a more robust approach to assessment of EDI. So we're not only just looking for, we had the team composition criterion in the last competition. We've replaced that by embedding EDI into the relevant criteria and sub-aspects of our criteria.

So in research and technology development, we know that EDI and research design and planning and how we do data collection and analysis are some examples of how that is done. You know, using an evidence-based approach. There's lots of literature on how to do this within research.

And the team assessment criteria we're looking for kind of a wide range of research outputs. Understanding that with within the implementation of the declaration of on research assessment, that it's more than more than a number. And we've included some information on on what our systemic barriers and how do we address the type of barriers to participation of people from underrepresented groups.

And in the benefits section of the of the notes before the assessment criteria
we listed some health, environmental, socio-cultural and economic kinds of benefits and some information about highly qualified personnel.

17:44 Assessment criteria and sub-criteria Research or tech dev’t and Team
So I'll dive a little bit deeper into the assessment criteria at this point. I won't read everything on the cell on the slide. I should say they're quite evidence. I mean, information heavy is what I mean.

I will, however, point out some of the few differences between the streams, because there are a little bit tailored to the specific kind of type of research, discipline, or type of proposal. So for research and technology development, the standard that we're looking for is that the researchers technology development program is innovative, feasible and internationally competitive. This is for both stream one and stream two.
And the team has all the experience expertise needed to conduct the proposed activities and will do so in an inclusive and equitable working environment.

So specifically what we've done is, is we expect a competency matrix in stream one, we put a specific instruction to include it in stream one, if you want to include one in a stream two proposal this is also great, but is not a requirement and we're looking again for those evidence based actions taken to enable full participation of people from underrepresented groups and early career researchers. And ways that you're providing actions that you're taking to provide an equitable, inclusive and accessible working environment.

19:02 Assessment criteria and sub-criteria Infrastructure and Sustainability
Infrastructure, we would like to know what you're requesting and provide an accurate justification of its need, preferably matching it to something that's happening in the research section and how it, you know, compliments or enhances the existing infrastructure at your institution or the partner institutions.
Sustainability, the the infrastructure will be well managed, accessible and optimally used over its useful life. So how is it going to be maintained and used? Who's going to be operating it? How? What is your plan for access? How are you managing data and what are the operation and maintenance costs and revenue sources? So this is the section where you probably will kind of talk to speak to the the use of the IOS funds and provide a budget for for that additional part of the award.

19:45 Assessment criteria and sub-criteria Benefits
Benefits the team and its partners have a well-defined plan to transfer to research or technology development results and mobilise knowledge, and these results are likely to lead to benefits for Canadians.

So we included different examples of knowledge, knowledge transfer, knowledge, mobilisation for the different streams. Just again acknowledging that there's like a wide variety of kinds of outputs, and you know that they all have kind of importance and value and we encourage our applicants, we require them to look at equity inclusion and how it may impact any people or communities that are kind of end users or will benefit from the research that that is being kind of conducted?

20:28 Assessment criteria and sub-criteria Research or tech dev’t and Team
For stream three, we do have some specific wording changes, so in the sense that we're in proposal in proposals for streams one and two, you really are focused on a sort of a singular research project or pathway where a core facility we recognise sort of a diverse kind of users and you know supports researchers and what can be kind of a wide variety of disciplines even from the same facility.

So we're looking for how the facility will enable its research to conduct research or technology development that is innovative, feasible and internationally competitive.
So for this what we you know, we were kind of looking for is a like a high-level description of the types of projects that the infrastructure will enable and then including certain aa representative sample in more detail.

So it's not necessary for the facility itself, although it can be is during you know world class research or technology development. But understanding that you may be supporting these kinds of projects in your facility as well. Another function of the core facility and we recognise that there's a high emphasis on collaboration and a network of users. So if you know, please include information about that as well.

21:36 Assessment criteria and sub-criteria Research or tech dev’t and Team
For the team, we're looking for, the team has the experience and expertise to enable multiple research and technology development activities, and we'll do so in an equitable and inclusive working environment. So this is where you can talk about the specialised skills and and the expertise that the team members bring. So we know that it's not always just like your pure researchers, but your your team may have scientific or technical expertise and maybe you know in operating a particular kind of instrument. So you know it would be important to kind of include someone in your team who's not just a researcher, but also might be kind of a scientific, you know, director or manager of a facility kind of thing that has that brings that kind of expertise to the facility.

22:20 Assessment criteria and sub-criteria – Infrastructure and Sustainability
Infrastructure. It's necessary appropriate and will enhance the facilities research services and how it integrates into the existing infrastructure. This is where you may also describe the kind of justification for the salary cost. So remembering that in stream three you do have this eligible cost of personnel that are operating, maintaining or managing the facility. So that's where you describe that activity.

And sustainability, we're looking at how the facilities operated and managed,
how it's gonna be used and and the similar kind of sub aspects and any other streams?

And then the benefits that the team and its partners have a well-defined plan to transfer research or technology development results and mobilise knowledge and that this will lead to benefits for Canadians.

So talk about the benefits of the activities that are enabled by the facilities and how it's kind of going to be kind of transferred to end users or in collaboration with communities, clinicians, private sector. We know that there's kind of a wide variety of sort of users and audiences for these kinds of activities.

23:42 Page limits
We do require that the proposal fits into a certain page limit, so for English, if your project is under or equal to $10 million, you have 25 pages in English and 30 in French. And for projects over $10 million. Thirty pages in English and 36 in French. And this is for language equity, because typically French has more words, and so we just allot the appropriate amount of space.

23:50 Use of generative AI
I'm sure we're not the only ones wrestling with the use of generative AI and all of these, you know, really interesting new tools. There is guidance on the Government of Canada website on the use of artificial intelligence and the development and review of research grant proposals. If it's not something you've come across, we will be providing the link in the slides. So we do require that you disclose use of any generative AI. So this is things like having ChatGPT, write sections of the proposal for you, not things like using Google Translate for instance. If you need to kind of get a specific word in another language. Keeping in mind that we you know we would like you to disclose this use and that anything in the proposal remains kind of
the person who who submits a proposal. This is the PI This is the the institution is accountable for the complete contest of the application. I'm sure you've also seen kind of various you know, AI generated images or documents where it says this chat was written by ChatGPT. So just make sure to check your stuff and if you are using it disclose it 'cause I think we're all trying to navigate this in a fair manner.

24:56 Step 2: Proposal – Finance
Going back to the proposal, we do have the finance module, so the project module, the finance module, so this is where you have the budget with the cost of individual items. If you're doing construction or renovation, I encourage you to look at our policy and programme guide for the specific requirements for those types of costs.
You'll have a table of contributions from eligible partners, the infrastructure utilisation and the overview of the infrastructure project funded, and so this is generated automatically. So when you're addressing the infrastructure criterion in the assessment criteria kind of PDF or or document. This is where you'll have to make sure to kind of point to this and make sure they're aligned so that you know all of your equipment is kind of or whatever you're asking for is well justified in the application module.

25:44 Step 2: Proposal – Research security
Research security. We've had a series of CFI and other research security webinars and and info sessions. You will notice that there will be a few research security related questions and depending on your answers in the notice of intent the documents that are required for research security will be generated and available in the research security module during proposal. So we have a website on all this information.
And if you need more information, we can give you that link as well.
Just wanted to, you know, make sure that every knows that this is coming. This is going to be in the Innovation Fund, 2025 so don't be surprised when you see it.

26:26 Tools and resources
So in CAMS we do have some additional resources to support you in the application. The contact information for liaisons. There's an automatic notification in the system if you have been named as a collaborator and you can validate your participation as a collaborator and the report repository as in previous years will be available. There's a tool there for envelope management as well as team member tracking, and we've made some changes to the envelope management tool so you can not only see kind of what project you've submitted as an institution but what stream they're in, and also which ones are inside versus outside the envelope, so that's available for you or will be when the forms are out towards the end of June.

And we encourage you to go back and read our policy and programme guide. We have a lot of information there on what's eligible what’s not eligible, kind of the rules and regulations. We published, the strength and weakness analysis for the 2023 competition. So if you want to see what the expert committees are, Multidisciplinary Assessment Committee said and DORA, I mean, DORA's website is fantastic for anyone who hasn't come across it before. It's got a lot of really great information on kind of responsible research assessment and kind of where, where the research assessment culture is going.

27:42 Rating scale
We've updated our rating scale, so I'll talk a little bit about the review process. For those of you who have been involved in other funds or previous competitions, we have removed the two that are acronyms and we have gone to a numeric scale. We're keeping the same scale essentially. The kind of description has not changed. We have added the numbers so that it is a little bit more clear. And you know, while you have a 5-point rating scale, why does it have four and four plus? Something we noticed is that previously when we had the EX as the top top rating, it's can be confusing. Does it mean excellent? Does it mean exceeds? So for us at the CFI, what we're really looking for is a Level 4. It means it satisfies, it hits every single sub aspect at a top-notch level, whereas the four plus means it's got a wow factor. It goes above and beyond. So hopefully that'll help with the interpretation of these kinds of ratings.

28:45 Proposal assessment stages
We have a multi-stage assessment process. So in the first stage for the expert committees list here is EC. You will have a rating for each of the five assessment criteria and as an aggregate we look at those ratings and for proposals with three or more level threes, which means satisfies with minor weaknesses. So if you have weaknesses and in three separate areas or one rating of partially satisfied or does not satisfy. These proposals do not meet the threshold for advancement, so it means that if you get kind of lower scores, it will not go to the next phase of the competition. So we're instituting that the threshold which is actually the same as our funding threshold for other programmes such as the JELF.

Otherwise, proposals will proceed to the Multidisciplinary Assessment Committee phase. At that phase, they're assessed against the competition objectives, whereas in the first stage it's against the assessment. Those five assessment criteria that I was talking about, then they're assessed against the objectives.

So in the first stage in the expert committees, proposals are grouped together. So ideally you know you would like to have all of the stream three in three proposals and committees, but there we will do our best to do that obviously. But otherwise they're also grouped by kind of field of research. For instance, we might have a microbiology group or, you know, a particle physics group, so.

Part of our assessment is ensuring that we have the appropriate expertise, so, for instance, for a particle physics project. We'd have experts in that domain. Some of the suggested viewers and others, but for a core facility project, we not only have the subject matter experts, but we, you know, basically we consider operation management experience with a core facility as a type of expertise and we would ensure that all proposals in core facilities from core facilities are reviewed for people with experience in core facilities.

At the multidisciplinary level, proposals are grouped together from a variety of domains, hence the multidisciplinary. We would ensure representation in all those committees from, you know, natural sciences, social sciences, health, engineering.
You know as well as a kind of core facility experts and experts in EDI. At that stage, the MAC will provide a funding recommendation. Either it meets all the objectives and is at a level where we would say yes, OK, like it should proceed or no. So the funding recommendation goes and then all of the proposals that the MAC deems to be fundable or meets the objectives will then go to the special Multidisciplinary Assessment Committee where they look at all of the proposals that are left that are all most excellent proposals and they sort of look at it in terms of more strategic and that represent the most beneficial portfolio of investments for the CFI. And then lastly, those recommendations would go to our Board of Directors for final decisions. So a little bit about the review process.

31:44 Review process stages
Here's a graphic just indicating like the timeline for the review. So we're looking to start the review process in March of 2025 so sort of probably a month or so after we get the proposals, multidisciplinary assessment committees in the fall, followed by the what we call the SMAC and then the board of directors will make those decisions in November 2025. So again, I know it's a lot of information. I know I went through it really fast.

32:14 Contact:
Here is the e-mail address for our team, if you do have questions or want to have kind of more information. This presentation as well as the slides and a document of FAQs will be provided through our website within the coming within two weeks. It just takes our team a little bit of time to kind of convert them and get them uploaded. Thank you.

At the Canada Foundation for Innovation, we invest in internationally competitive research and technology development.

This enhanced and optimized institutional research means ever increasing benefits for all Canadians in the social, environmental, economic and health sectors.

We provide funding to eligible Canadian institutions for equipment acquisition, technology development programs and the spaces needed to conduct world-class research, as well as support for their ongoing operations and maintenance.

For each of our various funding competitions, we invite institutions to submit project proposals that outline their research goals and the infrastructure they’ll need to reach them.

We then recruit experts from around the world to participate in our merit-review process.

Here’s how it works and what you – members of the expert committee – need to know…

First, we group proposals together, by research fields. Then we assign a committee of experts in those fields to provide assessments.

An expert committee is typically composed of a Chair and two to six members, depending on the number and breadth of proposals it will review.

The Chair ensures that the expert committee functions effectively and objectively in accordance with CFI policies.

As a member of the expert committee, your job is to review each proposal independently and submit individual assessments to the CFI before meeting with other committee members.

Using a five-point rating scale, you will need to judge how well each proposal meets the competition’s assessment criteria.

You will need to substantiate your ratings by listing the strengths and weaknesses you’ve identified for each criterion.

To help you properly assess the propositions according to the competition criteria, we encourage you to consult the guidelines for reviewers that can be found alongside the review material in CAMS and on our Innovation Fund website page.

We also ask that you comment on the appropriateness of the proposed budget.

This exercise allows you to identify key talking points that will help focus your committee’s discussion so you can reach a consensus.

If there are many proposals assigned to your committee, they may be divided up between members to ensure that every proposal gets thoroughly reviewed.
All materials necessary to make your assessments are available within two to three weeks of the submission deadline. They can be found in CAMS, our awards management portal.

You will need to activate the account we have created for you to gain access to these resources

Expert committees will meet virtually once or twice, depending on the number of proposals and a CFI representative will participate in every meeting.

With the members of your committee, you will be asked to reach a consensus on the strengths and weaknesses, and ultimately on ratings for each assessment criteria.

The CFI will then draft a report for each proposal outlining the expert committee’s conclusions and send them to the committee Chair for approval.

If a proposal meets the expert committee’s threshold of excellence, the proposal and the report will proceed to the Multidisciplinary Assessment Committee or MAC, for stage two of our merit review process.

At this stage, we regroup proposals based on the size of the applicant institution and the amount of infrastructure funding requested from the CFI.

Guided by the expert committee reports, MAC members are asked to evaluate proposals based on the competition’s objectives and recommend which projects to fund. Note that all funded projects will need to have received one of the top three marks from the MAC for the Team composition criteria.

If the number of proposals recommended by the MAC exceeds the competition’s available budget, a third committee, known as the Special Multidisciplinary Assessment Committee, or S-MAC, is responsible for narrowing down the choices.

The recommended proposals are then sent to the CFI Board of Directors

As you can see, the expert committees are the foundation of our valued merit review process.

Your expertise allows us to fund trailblazing projects with the greatest potential for impact — projects at the forefront of exploration and knowledge that address global challenges and make meaningful contributions to Canada’s social, health, environmental and economic development.