The CIHR Rural and Northern Health Research (RNHR) initiative was launched to provide an integrated and focused approach to research that contributes to health and health services in Canada's rural and northern communities. This Request for Applications will support multi-disciplinary research that will support research respecting health systems, health services including population health, biomedical research, clinical research, and research on the social and cultural dimensions of health, all of which touch on rural and northern health. In 2001 and in 2002, CIHR launched two RFAs to fund one year projects in rural and northern health. As a result, the research community is ready to move to longer term research projects that will provide in-depth scientific study in the area of rural and northern health.
We encourage the development of new multi-disciplinary teams to conduct research in rural and northern communities, and we also encourage research that involves strong community linkages with the research team. This strategic initiative announcement offers two specific CIHR program tools to support this goal:

• New Emerging Team (NET)Grants
• Operating Grants with Community Involvement

Rural and Northern Health Research (RNHR) is a CIHR strategic cross-cutting initiative led by the Institute of Aboriginal Peoples' Health with co-lead involvement from the Institute of Public and Population Health and the Institute of Health Services and Policy Research. RNHR is supported by all CIHR institutes.

New Emerging Team (NET) Grants
 
New Emerging Team grants are intended to support the creation or development of teams comprised of investigators undertaking collaborative, multidisciplinary research.  The program is intended to promote the formation of new and previously non-existent research teams or the growth of small existing teams of researchers in the area of rural and northern health.

Health researchers in rural and northern health are currently faced with the challenge of addressing a growing number of important research questions in the face of critical deficits in research capacity.  Therefore the purpose of this RFA is to address this challenge by building capacity among teams of investigators who are poised to conduct research and translate new knowledge in rural and northern health.  The funding associated with this RFA is intended to enhance the capacity of groups of researchers to address key research themes related to rural and northern health through the creation of strong intra- and inter-institution mentoring arrangements to add expertise to their core capabilities.  Important aspects of this capacity-building program are the objectives of forging multidisciplinary teams around rural/northern health themes and attracting researchers from relevant disciplines who have not been primarily (or at all) previously involved in this area of health research.

The essence of NET team grants is to provide support for new or existing groups who can demonstrate that they are committed to engendering a trans-disciplinary research culture and to attracting into, engaging and mentoring junior researchers (faculty and post-doctoral fellows not otherwise funded) or established researchers who have not worked extensively in Rural and northern health in the past, within teams or networks working on Rural and northern health research themes. The creation or enhancement of teams likely to develop new, or refine existing, research methods or tools, is encouraged.

The specific objectives of the New Emerging Teams grant program under the strategic initiative Rural and Northern Health Research are to:

• Foster cross-theme research in rural and northern health with an emphasis on a multidisciplinary approach
• Create a team environment that favours the development of excellent and innovative research projects that will advance our understanding of rural and northern health
• Train and establish new investigators capable of undertaking research relevant to understanding rural and northern health

To access a list of applications approved for funding through the Rural and Northern Health Research - New Emerging Team (NET) Grants competition, please refer to the table below.

Results of the Strategic Initiative	Applications Received	Applications Approved
New Emerging Team (NET) Grants [ HTML | PDF (8Kb) | Help ]	12	4

Operating Grants with Community Involvement
 
The purpose of this strategic initiative is to support community-based research that is multi-pillar (i.e. includes two or more of the following health research pillars: biomedical, clinical science, health systems and services, and the social, cultural, environmental and other aspects that affect the health of populations) and involves the research community in a multi-disciplinary, team-based approach to Rural and Northern health research.

Many of the health issues facing rural and northern communities are multi-factoral and are therefore best addressed through multi-pillar, multi-disciplinary collaborations. CIHR would like to encourage researchers to undertake community-based health research projects with rural and northern communities in the spirit of participatory action research principles (i.e. participation, collaboration, empowerment, knowledge and change in health status), because it is not enough for Canadians who live in rural and northern communities to be merely informants and respondents, but they should also be full partners in research. CIHR will support research programs that demonstrate partnerships between academic institutions and rural and northern communities, and that involve community representatives in all stages of the research process including the definition of the research question; in the carrying out of the research; in the analysis and interpretation of findings; and in the development and implementation of the dissemination strategy.

It is the objective of CIHR to promote original, innovative coordinated and feasible research and to facilitate the rapid uptake of research results through appropriate communication, dissemination and rapid transfer of knowledge for strategic action. CIHR would like to encourage scientific researchers to develop innovative research approaches for this initiative, and therefore does not want to be prescriptive. The CIHR will accept community-based research proposals that are multi-pillar and multi-disciplinary.

The specific objectives of this request are:

• To foster partnerships between rural and northern communities and health research organizations
• To begin to address health issues from a multi-pillar, multi-disciplinary and holistic perspective
• To promote participatory research

To access a list of applications approved for funding through the Rural and Northern Health Research - Operating Grants with Community Involvement competition, please refer to the table below.

Results of the Strategic Initiative	Applications Received	Applications Approved
Operating Grants with Community Involvement [ HTML | PDF (9Kb) | Help ]	15	2

For further information about this program, please contact:

Michelle Hume
Program Officer
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Room 97, 160 Elgin Street
Address locator: 4809A
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0W9
Tel.: 613-957-8842
Fax: 613-957-8782
Email: michelle.hume@cihr-irsc.gc.ca

For general questions about the strategic initiative Rural and Northern Health Research, please do not hesitate to contact:

Ginette Thomas B.A., M.A.
Project Director
Rural and Northern Health ResearcH
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Room 97, 160 Elgin Street
Address locator: 4809A
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0W9
Tel: 613-954-0616
Fax: 613-941-0568