Evaluation of the Canada First Research Excellence Fund—Management Response and Action Plan

Context

The Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF) supports postsecondary institutions in their efforts to become global research leaders. The program helps Canadian institutions compete with the best in the world for talent and partnership opportunities, and to make breakthrough discoveries. With this funding, emerging opportunities can be seized and the greatest strengths of the institutions can be put forward with large scale, transformational and forward-thinking institutional strategies.

The Government of Canada’s CFREF program has thus far provided an investment of $1.25 billion to 17 leading Canadian institutions (18 grants total) through two inaugural competitions in 2015 and 2016. Together, these grants represent the largest investment by the federal government to support the implementation of scientific and institutional strategies that allow grantees to strengthen their world-class position in multidisciplinary fields of research.

The CFREF program is a tri-agency initiative of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (the agencies). It is administered by the Tri-agency Institutional Programs Secretariat (TIPS), which is housed within SSHRC. This is the first evaluation of the CFREF program since it was launched. The evaluation was conducted simultaneously with the midterm review of the grants from the first competition. The midterm review focused on the progress of individual grants, while the evaluation’s focus was on the program itself. The evaluation used multiple lines of evidence in order to examine the following questions:

1. To what extent does CFREF continue to address a unique need and align with government priorities?
2. How, and to what extent, have institutions implemented structures and processes for prioritizing funding towards research in CFREF priority research areas?
3. To what extent have funded institutions created or strengthened partnerships, collaborations and infrastructure to enhance research capacity?
4. To what extent has high-calibre, diverse and interdisciplinary research talent been attracted, retained and trained?
5. To what extent is the design and delivery of CFREF effective and efficient?

Comments from Management

The CFREF program provides the government with a tool that helps competitively selected Canadian postsecondary institutions turn their key strengths into world-leading capabilities to scale institutional research and science capacity to a global level. The CFREF program is unique as a vehicle to strategically invest in priority areas of research, as a support to train the next generation of scientific leaders and leverage funding beyond the award to continue to boost research-related outcomes. This report highlights the synergies made possible by the combination of broad-based research and infrastructure funding and strategic investments that solidify and expand the research capacity at Canadian institutions.

The evaluation report concludes that the program is performing well to date and is delivering on its objectives. Management notes that the funded grants have met the immediate outcomes (years 0 to 3) by creating and strengthening partnerships and collaborations; prioritizing funding to CFREF-related research activities; and attracting and retaining high-calibre, diverse and interdisciplinary research talent. Many initiatives have a promising head-start on the intermediate outcomes (years 3 to 7), such as producing discoveries and insights; sharing discoveries and insights with knowledge users; and creating enhanced research infrastructure as well as training environments and opportunities. Nonetheless, management acknowledges that it is still early in the program to draw conclusions regarding broader long-term differential impacts as compared to investments in the core funding opportunities of the agencies at an equivalent level. It is expected that the next program evaluation in five years will provide more insight on these impacts.

An equitable, diverse and inclusive (EDI) Canadian research enterprise is essential to create excellent, innovative and impactful research. Program management is strongly committed to ensure access to its programming and to ensure that the goals and benefits of EDI are achieved in the research ecosystem. Midterm reviews and the evaluation report show promising practices, but indicate that improvements could be made with regard to EDI in research design and in the research environment. While each CFREF institution is responsible for developing and implementing its EDI plan, management acknowledges that there remains significant work to be done to increase representation of individuals from the four designated groups (women, persons with disabilities, Indigenous Peoples and members of visible minorities) within the teams and their governance structures.

This evaluation report, as well as the ongoing midterm review for the CFREF grants, aligns with the recommendation from the Fundamental Science Review to undertake an evaluation of the program by providing the agencies and the federal government with the facts and evidence on which to inform their considerations for future competitions. These discussions will continue as we address the recommendations of this evaluation report through the management response and action plan.

The following list provides brief descriptions of the recommendations in the evaluation report:

1. Improve alignment of the CFREF program with government priorities on EDI, and support for early career researchers, by:
   1. Continuing to ensure that grantees have implemented plans related to the representation of individuals from the four designated groups and monitoring the participation of these groups;
   2. Clarifying the CFREF program’s role and expectations of grantees in supporting early career researchers, given that it is a current priority for the government.
2. Continue to track the rate at which grants are being expended and consider no-cost extensions as required, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic may cause additional delays.
3. Strengthen monitoring and reporting activities undertaken by grantees, in order to improve the ability to understand and assess longer term impacts, by:
   1. Reviewing the annual progress and midterm report templates to ensure that key definitions are clarified;
   2. Improving the utility of the Performance Measurement Plans for both TIPS and grantees; and
   3. Instituting an end-of-grant report, based on the current model for the mid-term report, in order to better understand and document outcomes and results achieved over the life of each grant.
4. Further enhance communications and support to applicants and grantees by:
   1. Ensuring that comprehensive guidance is provided by TIPS to funding applicants; and
   2. Maintaining sustained communication with grantees.

This report provides the research community and Canadians with information and analysis on the data collected thus far by the program through annual reporting and midterm reviews as well as through this evaluation exercise itself, which included key interviews with institutional personnel, researchers, administrators and others. Management is pleased to see that grantees are progressing well in many areas, such as engaging participants, leveraging funds from a variety of sources and developing world-leading research capacity. The recommendations made in the evaluation report will help guide how key elements of the program, including reporting, EDI, monitoring, compliance, are managed going forward. In addition, the feedback received through the evaluation report will guide future design enhancements to the CFREF program and new competitions.

At the time the evaluation was conducted, the COVID-19 pandemic had only started. In the last months, it has become apparent that the pandemic has impacted researchers, students and administrators and has caused delays to the research activities for many CFREF grants. Management acknowledges that these challenges have a variable impact, depending on the fields of research and size or geographical location of institutions.

We are pleased to present the attached action plan, which provides specific information on the management response to the recommendations contained in the evaluation report.

Valérie Laflamme, PhD
Associate vice-president
Tri-Agency Institutional Programs Secretariat
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

Dominique Bérubé, PhD
Vice-president
Research
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

Contact Information:

Programs: Dominique Lalonde, director, Institutional Programs, TIPS

Management response: Valérie Laflamme, associate vice-president, TIPS

Evaluation: Susan Morris, director, Evaluation, SSHRC

Evaluation of the Canada First Research Excellence Fund—Management Response and Action Plan

Date modified:

2021-07-13