Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research – Management Action Plan (MAP)

2. CIHR needs to do the following to improve the bprogram design and delivery of SPOR:

a) Increase awareness of the benefits of patient-oriented research among the Canadian public, the research community, decision-makers.

2a) CIHR will embed a focus on patientoriented research as part of the agency's brand, core communications messages and planning.

2a) CIHR will develop an enhanced outreach and communications strategy for SPOR, based on updated strategic objectives as determined through the SPOR Refresh.

4. CIHR needs to improve patient and community engagement both in SPOR and in research in the following manner:

a) Embed equity, diversity and inclusion considerations into the recruitment of patient partners in order to address the underrepresentation of important patient partner groups in research.

5i) Based on the SPOR Refresh CIHR to develop a new SPOR logic model, performance measurement framework, indicators and reporting tools to enhance data collection – including data related to patient health care experiences, health outcomes and health system performance, in consultation with partners.

5ii) CIHR will consider past performance data in all proposals for funding extensions and renewals.

6. CIHR needs to further improve the following aspects of its financial monitoring and coding for SPOR:

• Grants and awards expenditures, especially coding of core elements and tracking of partner contributions.
• Operating and maintenance expenditures, specifically direct salary costs.

6i) Grants and Awards (Vote 5) Program lead (SPOR) to identify the specific program elements that are required to be tracked. Once identified, the Finance unit will support the Program sector by creating specific financial coding elements within the Grants Management System.

Note that such changes cannot be applied retroactively to a closed fiscal year.

VP-LHS, POR
CFO,
Finance, SPIR

for item 6iv: Lead will be Operations Support, Supporting teams are SPIR, PDD, POR, Finance, IMIS

6ii) Salary Expenditures (Vote 1): Effective in 2018-19, Finance established a revised business process which identifies positions funded through Treasury Board Submissions. Note that this has been applied to new Treasury Board Submissions and was not done retroactively. As a result, SPOR positions were not tracked this way in the past.

Moving forward, SPOR is to identify which positions are meant to support the program and at what percentage, which will allow Finance to track the proper positions for future reporting.

6iii) Non-Salary Expenditures (Vote 1): Finance to continue to track the nonsalary expenditures within the SPOR Fund center (ie: travel and other related expenses for SPOR meetings, SPOR Summit, as well as staff expenditures such as equipment, training and conference fees).

For expenditures in other Fund centres, SPOR to identify which activities directly relate to the SPOR function. Once identified, Finance to support in tracking these costs within the Financial System.

6iii) 2023-24 – September 2023

Future years: Annually

6iv) Partner Contributions:

• Competition Partner: No enhancements needed, as competition partner details are systematically tracked already.

• Applicant Partner: CIHR as a whole does not track actual applicant partner contributions.

  In response to this recommendation, options regarding collecting applicant partner contribution information will be explored (ie: through formal reporting requests, manual tracking), and a recommendation developed for CIHR with representatives from Partnerships, PDD, LHS and Finance, IMIS, Operations Support

6iv) June 2024