CIHR Operating Grant : Research and Coordination Hubs for Public Safety – Application
Well-being, Health and Biomedical Discovery
Deadlines
Academic Unit: Inquire within your unit
Memorial Deadline: Thursday 14th, October 2021
External Deadline: Tuesday 19th, October 2021
Description
The Post-Traumatic Stress Injuries in Public Safety Personnel (PTSI in PSP) initiative was announced in Budget 2018, with a commitment of $20 million over five years to support a new national research consortium between CIHR and the Canadian Institute for Public Safety Research and Treatment (CIPSRT). This National Research Consortium builds the evidence base related to PTSI among PSP, under the guidance of a Public Safety Steering Committee (PSSC). CIHR has completed two successful funding opportunities in this area; Catalyst Grants in Post-Traumatic Stress Injuries (PTSI) among Public Safety Personnel (2019), and Mental Wellness in Public Safety Team Grants (2020).
Working with the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) and the other groups above, CIHR has developed the third and final funding program under this initiative. The overarching design of this program is to build the evidence base around proper support models for PSP suffering from PTSI, using an implementation science lens. A series of three sequential funding opportunities is planned, with two streams of research that will be supported across all three funding opportunities (i.e., a three-stage approach with two parallel streams).
The first stream is to build the evidence base for a crisis/suicide prevention line, leveraging PHAC’s support for the development of a pan-Canadian Suicide Prevention Service (CSPS), as announced in Budget 2019 and housed at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). The second stream is app-based peer-to-peer (P2P) support, building on the work of one of the original PTSI in PSP Catalyst grants to create a pan-Canadian PSP support app (“OnCall”), in partnership with Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC). These streams were identified through extensive consultations with key stakeholders, and the two identified hubs represent the leading national activities in each of these areas.
This funding opportunity represents the first stage, to establish research and coordination hubs for each of the two streams using a hub-and-spoke design. These hubs will serve dual roles; 1) undertaking research activities to build the evidence base and address key underlying research questions around these support models for PSP, and 2) provide research supports for external independent research groups to address additional questions using the core technologies/methodologies available at the hub. This latter work will be supported by two subsequent funding opportunities open to the broader research community to work directly with the hubs. Principal Applicants (including the Nominated Principal Applicant) to this first stage funding opportunity will not be eligible to apply as Principal Applicants to the subsequent funding opportunities open to the broader research community.
Additional information can be found at ResearchNet.