Signature initiatives

Addressing health and health system research priorities

In 2009, CIHR laid out its vision for the next five years in Health Research Roadmap: Creating innovative research for better health and health care. The second Strategic Direction in Roadmap is to address Health and Health System Research Priorities.

Investment in health research requires careful consideration of where Canada can capitalize on areas of strength and excellence, energize identified priority areas, and build research capacity in new fields of health research to have the biggest impact. By concentrating our resources on priority areas, we help generate discoveries that translate into better health products, health services and health policies.

Strategic investment planning ensures that Canadians get the most benefits from investments in health research. As part of the implementation of Roadmap, CIHR launched a process to attain greater focus and impact from our strategic investments. This process involved environmental scanning and evaluation to identify needs and opportunities where additional research could make a difference and produce measurable results. Strategic Leads were then identified to develop business cases and plans which identify pan-CIHR Initiatives to address these needs. 2010-11 was the first year of this new strategic investments process.

The CIHR Signature Initiatives will help CIHR allocate its resources to make the strongest possible impact on health and health care – today, tomorrow and well into the future.