Our mandate

Created in 2000 under the authority of the CIHR Act, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is the Government of Canada’s health research investment agency.

CIHR’s mandate is to “excel, according to internationally accepted standards of scientific excellence, in the creation of new knowledge and its translation into improved health for Canadians, more effective health services and products and a strengthened Canadian health care system.”

CIHR was designed to respond to the evolving needs for health research and seeks to transform health research in Canada by:

• funding both investigator-initiated research as well as research on targeted priority areas;
• building research capacity in under-developed areas and training the next generation of health researchers; and
• focusing on knowledge translation that facilitates the application of the results of research and their transformation into new policies, practices, procedures, products and services.