CIHR seeks to double budget

Is the best defence a good offence?

Canadian Institutes of Health Research president Alan Bernstein seems to be banking on it.

Faced with the prospect of having to pull in the reins after a 3-year spending spree in which the budget of his infant agency more than doubled to roughly $621 million per year, Bernstein has unveiled an ambitious 4-year strategic plan. It includes more research into the efficacy of alternative therapies, “evidence-based changes and cost-effective analysis of our health care system” and “new approaches to long-term care, at least chronic conditions.”

The price tag? An eye-popping $379 million a year.

But that would merely raise annual biomedical research outlays to $1 billion, or about $30 per capita, which is on par with that of other Western nations and a mere pittance for the “profound effect” it would have on the health of Canadians, says Bernstein.

The plan, outlined in Investing in Canada's Future: CIHR's Blueprint for Health Research and Innovation, was released Jan. 20. Implementation would allow the agency to rescind its proposed 5% clawback on all existing grants (CMAJ 2003;169[6]:567-8).

Under the plan CIHR would increase outlays for commercialization of research by $39 million to $70 million by 2007/08. Spending on “knowledge transfer” to health care workers would increase by $19 million to $34 million, while outlays for administration would rise $24 million to $70 million. The bulk of new monies would go to research grants, which would be hiked $297 million to $826 million, including such initiatives as a longitudinal study that would “follow cohorts of newborns and seniors to identify genetic, psychosocial, cultural, economic and environmental determinants of health and healthy aging.”

McGill University's principal Heather Munro-Blum says funding the plan is imperative. “Our great, great professors are not greedy for compensation. They are greedy, rightly, to be able to use their full potential.” — Wayne Kondro, Ottawa