The Collaborative Health Research Projects

The Collaborative Health Research Projects is a research funding program jointly managed by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC).

The goal of CHRP is to bring together specialists from the natural sciences and engineering fields with health scientists. The interdisciplinary nature of the program is the key to its success. The researchers collaborate on cutting-edge projects designed to develop new devices, therapies, and procedures to tackle a range of health conditions facing Canadians – from cancer and concussions to dementia and vision loss. Part of what makes CHRP unique is the mandatory requirement that researchers engage end-users in the planning and design of their research projects to ensure their meaningful translation into real-world solutions.

The total investment in the latest CHRP competition was $19.8M, which includes $9.9M each from CIHR and NSERC.

This investment supports 32 research projects, with an average grant size of $618,750 over three years.

The next CHRP competition will be launched in spring 2018, and CIHR and NSERC encourage all eligible researchers to apply.

Examples of funded projects from this competition include the development of new imaging techniques to see inside the inner ear to investigate hearing loss, the development of synthetic corneas for patients waiting for transplants, the creation of a synthetic material that can be used to replace missing bones, and the refinement of a therapy that uses a light-activated drug to destroy cancer cells in patients being treated for skin cancer.

The full list of projects can be viewed on the CIHR website.