CIHR Guidelines on Identical or Essentially Identical Applications
Scope
The following interpretation guidelines aim to facilitate understanding of CIHR's general practices for managing and monitoring identical or essentially identical applications. These guidelines are intended to be read in conjunction with the Policy on Identical or Essentially Identical Applications (Section 5.2 of the CIHR Application Administration Guide).
Principles and General Requirements
The policy requirements are based on the principles that CIHR must manage public funds effectively, such that funding is not duplicated for the same research objectives, and that fairness is achieved towards those applicants who submit unique proposals in funding competitions.
- Once an application has been submitted to CIHR, it is considered under review. As such, the nominated principal applicant and/or members of the applicant team must wait for the notification on the funding decision before submitting the identical or essentially identical application to CIHR, NSERC or SSHRC.
- Once an application is funded by CIHR, the nominated principal applicant and/or members of the applicant team must not subsequently submit the identical or essentially identical application to CIHR, NSERC or SSHRC, if the start date of funding, as stated in the funding opportunity, is prior to the end date of the active grant.
CIHR endeavours to promptly identify and action cases of non-compliance. If a case is being investigated during the peer review stage, it must not influence the rating of the application(s).
Considerations
- Identical / Essentially Identical: Applications are considered identical or essentially identical when the hypotheses, research objectives, and/or methodologies are the same or very similar.
- Distinct: Applications are distinct when there are significant and considerable differences in content and scope. For example, the same general research area, but significantly different research objectives, methodological approaches, models, target populations.
- Program Exemptions: Applications are exempt from the policy when the funding support types or objectives of the programs are distinct. Research grant programs are not assessed under the policy with the following:
- Award programs (e.g., Salary, Chair)
- Priority Announcements/Bridge Funding
- Prizes
Consequences of Non-compliance
The determination of non-compliance is at the discretion of CIHR.
Consequences will be determined on a case-by-case basis. This may involve the withdrawal of all applications determined to be identical or essentially identical to the first submission. If funding has already been awarded, any identical or essentially identical applications may undergo a cancellation of duplicate funding.
Confirmed cases of non-compliance may be reported to the Secretariat on the Responsible Conduct of Research, as a breach of the Tri-agency Framework: Responsible Conduct of Research, under article 3.1 Breaches of Agency Policies.
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