Annual funding of health services research by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research has increased spectacularly from $1.9 million in 1999/2000, its inaugural year, to $39.6 million in 2005/06 (personal communication, Ellen Melis, Assistant Director, Institute of Health Services and Policy Research, April 4, 2007).1 Even after the contributions of other important federal funders of health services research are accounted for, the increase remains impressive – from a baseline of about $8 million pre-CIHR to $44.1 million in 2005/06.2
This massive growth in federal support should warm the hearts of health services researchers and all those who believe that a vastly expanded pool of relevant research evidence is needed to inform health policy development and health system management in the public interest. However, viewed in the context of the distribution of CIHR funding across its four research themes – biomedical; clinical; health systems and services; and population and public health – the picture is less comforting.
In 2005/06, biomedical research accounted for 70% of CIHR research expenditures, while 13.6% flowed to clinical research, 6% to health services research and 10% to population health research (personal communication, Ellen Melis, Assistant Director, Institute of Health Services and Policy Research, April 4, 2007). The health services’ share of research funding has fluctuated between 5.6% and 6.4% since 2002/2003. Between 1999/2000 and 2005/2006, CIHR’s research funding expenditures more than doubled from $275.2 million to $657.8 million. Of this increase, 60% went to biomedical research, 14.3% to clinical research, 9.9% to health services research and 15.4% to population health research.
Beneath these figures lies a series of questions. How are allocation decisions made? What is the “right” distribution of research funding among the theme areas? Who should decide? On what grounds?
The mandate of CIHR is “to excel, according to international standards of scientific excellence, in the creation of new knowledge and its translation into improved health for Canadians, more effective health services and products and a strengthened Canadian heath care system” (Bill C-13, April 13, 2000). The CIHR’s Governing Council is charged with overseeing “the direction and management of the property, business and affairs of the CIHR” (CIHR 2005). Among its responsibilities are the development of “strategic directions, goals and policy” and budget approval, “including funding for research.” The current Council consists of 18 members, all but two of whom are researchers, research administrators or both. The Deputy Minister of Health is an ex-officio member. CIHR is accountable to Parliament through the Minister of Health.
CIHR has consistently adhered to an informal policy of allocating 70% of its research funding to investigator-initiated research and personnel awards (open competition) and 30% to strategic initiatives. As a result, the allocation of funding to research themes is largely passive, driven by the supply and distribution of capable applicants across the theme areas. These, in turn, reflect historical (pre-CIHR) investments in research and research capacity, and in the development of new research capacity since CIHR’s inception.
Because of the processes through which they are identified, strategic initiatives offer only limited scope for altering the distribution of funding across thematic areas. Strategic initiatives are developed primarily by CIHR’s 13 Institutes (one of which is the Institute of Health Services and Policy Research), and funds for strategic initiatives are allocated equally among them. All Institutes are expected to allocate some proportion of their strategic funds to each of the four thematic areas, although the proportion flowing to each theme is discretionary. In addition, CIHR supports a small number of cross-cutting strategic initiatives identified by a committee that consists mainly of the Scientific Directors of the Institutes. The horse trading that is likely to be involved in this process, and the modest resources available, militate against any significant realignment of funding to thematic areas through cross-cutting initiatives.
The CIHR Governing Council (GC) has clearly struggled with the issue of resource allocation over the years:
“GC was asked to consider the following strategic questions in its discussion:
How should CIHR’s resources be allocated?
Does CIHR have the correct array and balance of expenditures across initiatives to achieve its legislated mandate? …
Balance in terms of funding research excellence across CIHR’s four thematic areas of research … was debated at length. Points made included the relative merits of Institute strategic initiatives over open competitions; the need to accommodate research areas of health policy and services and population health without destabilizing the current support given in the research areas of biomedical and clinical research; the conflicting demands of disciplinary excellence and capacity building; the need for academic freedom; and the pressure from partners, governments, lobbyists and the public to direct and control the research agenda.”
(Meeting minutes, Governing Council Retreat, August 22–23, 2002)
“Council agreed that the 70:30 ratio was arbitrary … The 70:30 ratio was a surrogate for a number of broader issues which concern council: Are the investments strategic? ... Do these investments represent good value to Canadians and is there a positive impact on the health of Canadians and the health care system? Should (and if so how) Council prioritize the areas of health research that CIHR should focus on?”
(Minutes, Governing Council Retreat, August 25–27, 2004)
“Council noted [in response to mid-term evaluations of the Institutes] that …a number of questions will need to be considered in the future. For example: does CIHR have the balance right between Operating Grants and Strategic Initiatives…?”
(Meeting minutes, Governing Council, March 22–23, 2005)
Despite this recurrent soul searching, CIHR’s Governing Council has invariably fallen back on the 70:30 split and has failed to establish targets for the distribution of research and capacity-building resources to the four thematic areas.
CIHR’s difficulty in addressing this issue is understandable. The organization has highlighted the need to demonstrate to Canadians and the federal government its “overall return on investment” (ROI) and has committed itself to establishing funding priorities based on the “best available evidence” (CIHR 2004). However, as CIHR acknowledges, determining return on research investments is “a particularly vexing challenge” because “demonstrating direct and objective links between particular research investments and immediate short-term or long-term, identifiable and measurable outcomes is difficult” (CIHR 2004). If measurement is “difficult,” what does that say about prediction – which forms the basis for resource allocation decisions guided by ROI considerations? Despite CIHR’s determination to develop an ROI framework (CIHR 2004), credible and coherent evidence is unlikely to be available in the foreseeable future (or perhaps ever) to allow CIHR to make confident resource allocation decisions based solely on ROI criteria.
Fundamentally, CIHR is an organization of health researchers, by health researchers, for health researchers, despite occasional rhetoric to the contrary. Accordingly, it is bound to shy away from actions that threaten the cohesion of the research community. Any decision to strategically realign the distribution of research funding across CIHR’s thematic areas (especially in the absence of persuasive evidence about the effects of doing so) is certain to inflame existing tensions between occupants of the four themes. Researchers associated with a losing theme are likely to protest that academic freedom and support for scientific excellence are being savaged and that Canada’s “best and brightest” in that thematic area will depart in droves for greener pastures. And any reallocation to health services research would almost certainly be from basic research in a zero sum world. Basic researchers, for historical reasons, are by far the largest, and therefore potentially noisiest and most influential, lobby group within the CIHR family. Given this context, in the absence of strong external pressure, CIHR as currently constituted is likely to alter the current distribution of research funding slowly, in small increments, and mainly passively (i.e., through the open competition process) rather than strategically.
CIHR has declared that “the public interest is of paramount importance in the creation and use of health knowledge through all research and related activities supported by CIHR” (CIHR 2004). If this is true, how should CIHR’s research funding priorities be established? Should they be left, as is currently the case, in the hands of the research community or, given researchers’ concentrated interest, should CIHR seek systematic input from those who can more legitimately claim to represent the public interest? Subjecting CIHR resource allocation decisions to potentially capricious micro-management by Parliament or the federal Minister of Health seems clearly inappropriate. However, public input could be strengthened by such measures as increasing public representation on the Governing Council and Institute Advisory Boards, adding public representatives to all peer review panels or establishing deliberative processes to engage members of the public in informed discussions of the outcomes and impacts of various types of health research, strategic research funding options and their implications. Such actions would be consistent with CIHR’s declared intention to “involve the Canadian public and other stakeholders in priority-setting and appropriate research activities (e.g., peer review panels, forums of various Institutes)” (CIHR 2004).
If a decision were taken to revise the distribution of CIHR’s research funding among its themes of biomedical, clinical, health services, and population health research, could the change be accomplished without severely compromising research excellence or fracturing the health research community? Probably yes. Despite CIHR budget increases of 45% between 2001/2002 and 2004/2005, the number of grant applications rated as very good (scores of 3.5 or higher) that were not funded rose from 38% to 50% (CIHR 2006b). This increase in high quality but unfunded research suggests that shifts could be made without sacrificing research quality. If realignment of funding shares were done incrementally – drawing on increases over time in CIHR’s budget rather than reallocating funds from one theme to another – researchers working in theme areas with a reduced share might not feel seriously deprived.
What share for health services and policy research? There is not now, and is unlikely ever to be, a “right” answer. But processes to tackle this and related questions need to be developed.
Brian Hutchison, MD, MSC, FCFP
Editor-in-chief
These figures include both research grants and personnel awards but exclude partner funding and funding for the Canada Research Chairs and National Centres of Excellence programs, which flow through CIHR. Funding allocations to the CRC and NCE programs are established by Parliament. CIHR defines health services research as “research with the goal of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of health professionals and the health care system, through changes in practice and policy” (CIHR 2006a).
The Canadian Health Services Research Foundation invested $3.6 million in research and research capacity development in 1999 and $4.5 million in 2005 (CHSRF 2000, 2006). The National Health Research and Development Program provided between $3 million and $4 million annually to support health services research before its dissolution with the advent of CIHR (personal communication, Ellen Melis, Assistant Director, Institute of Health Services and Policy Research, April 18, 2007). The ongoing funding commitments of NHRDP were transferred to CIHR.
References
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