Ethics Funding

The Canadian public is becoming increasingly concerned about research involving humans, particularly when that research concerns health and healthcare. The need for research in the ethics of health and healthcare services has, therefore, never been more apparent.

The CIHR Ethics Office offers funding opportunities for research in health ethics. A systematic analysis of ethics issues associated with health (health research, health promotion and maintenance, clinical care, population and public health, health systems and services, policy and governance) must be a significant focus of proposed studies. Scientific, social or legal issues, if addressed, should expand the discussion or understanding of ethical issues.

Funding opportunities lead by the Ethics Office include:

• Priority Announcements, which offer additional sources of funding for highly rated applications relevant to research in ethics related to health, health research and/or health policy. Priority Announcements are offered in the following competitions:
  • Operating Grant
  • Doctoral Research Award: The Douglas Kinsella Award for Research in Bioethics is offered annually to the highest ranking candidate who applies to the Doctoral Research Award competition, whose research focuses on ethical issues related to health and/or health research.
  • Planning Grants: to support relevant planning activities
  • Dissemination Events: to support relevant dissemination activities 
• Catalyst Grants in Ethics are meant to encourage new investigators in the field of health ethics or investigators new to the field of health ethics, as a first step towards the pursuit of more comprehensive funding opportunities (e.g., operating grants) and promote conceptual and/or empirical research from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives.

The Ethics Office is dedicated to identifying and developing collaborations with other CIHR institute(s), branch(es) or office(s), funding organizations and stakeholders to enhance the availability of funding for its own strategic initiatives or those of others.

Current and archived ethics funding opportunities, as well as funding decisions, are available within CIHR’s Funding Opportunity Database and Decisions databases.

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