Reviewer Manual: 2019 Exploration

Purpose of the Manual

This manual is designed as a guide for reviewers for the NFRF 2019 Exploration competition. It describes activities to be undertaken by external reviewers, members and co-chairs and delineates the policies, guidelines, and deliverables relevant to these activities. Applicants who refer to this manual posted on the website should note that the content is intended to guide reviewers and outline principles rather than provide them with a set of rules.

A Word of Thanks

On behalf of the Canada Research Coordinating Committee (CRCC), we would like to thank you for agreeing to participate in the review process for the New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF) – 2019 Exploration  competition. The success of the review process is made possible by dedicated people like you who generously give of your time and expertise, and your efforts are greatly appreciated by the CRCC and the research community.

Members and external reviewers are asked to read the relevant sections of this document in their entirety before commencing the review of applications assigned to them. Clarification on any subject may be obtained from NFRF program staff at any time.

Overview of the 2019 Exploration Competition

The NFRF Exploration stream supports high-risk, high-reward and interdisciplinary research that pushes the boundaries of what is currently supported through funding opportunities offered by the three federal research funding agencies. The program seeks to inspire projects that bring disciplines together beyond traditional disciplinary or common interdisciplinary approaches and are led by research teams with the capacity to explore something new that might fail, but has the potential for significant impact. Exploration grants aim to have an impact. While not an exhaustive list, impacts, for example, could be social, economic, environmental, scientific, artistic or cultural.

For further details on the 2019 competition, including eligibility requirements, you may refer to the funding opportunity. The instructions for the notice of intent to apply (NOI), letter of intent to apply (LOI) and application provide further details on the information required at each stage of the competition.

Principles of Merit Review

Fairness

Success of the NFRF merit review system depends on the willingness and ability of all members of the review process to be fair and reasonable; to exercise rigorous judgment; and to understand—and take into account in a balanced way—the particular context of each application.

Bias

Members are asked to consistently guard against the possibility of unconscious bias influencing the decision-making process, whether this bias is based on a school of thought, fundamental versus applied research, certain sub-disciplines, areas of research or approaches (including emerging ones), size or reputation of an institution, or the age, personal factors, sex or gender of the applicants. Members are cautioned against judging an application based on these factors. Before members are able to view any applications, they must first complete the required Unconscious Bias Training Module.

Confidentiality and Conflict of Interest

The Conflict of Interest and Confidentiality Policy of the Federal Research Funding Organizations ensures the effective management of conflict of interest of any participant in the review process and, during the review process, ensures the confidentiality of personal information and commercial information submitted to the program.

Conflict of Interest

Members are responsible for evaluating the merits of applications assigned to them for review, with the exception of those for which they have a conflict of interest.

A conflict of interest is a conflict between a person’s duties and responsibilities as a participant in the review process, and that person’s private, professional, business or public interests. There may be a real, perceived or potential conflict of interest when the panel member, external reviewer, referee or observer:

• would benefit professionally or personally as a result of the application being reviewed;
• has a professional or personal relationship with any of the applicants (this includes principal investigators, co-principal investigators, co-applicants and collaborators) or the applicants’ institutions; or
• has a direct or indirect financial interest in the application being reviewed.

A conflict of interest may be deemed or perceived to exist when a panel member, external reviewer or observer:

• is a relative or close friend, or has a personal relationship with any of the applicants;
• is in a position to gain or lose financially/materially from the funding of the application;
• has had longstanding scientific or personal differences with any of the applicants;
• is currently affiliated with any of the applicants’ institutions, organizations or companies—including research hospitals and research institutes;
• is professionally affiliated with any of the applicants as a result of having in the last six years:
• had frequent and regular interactions with any of the applicants in the course of their duties at their department, institution, organization or company;
• been a supervisor or a trainee of any of the applicants;
• collaborated, published or shared funding with any of the applicants, or made plans to do so in the immediate future; or
• been employed by any of the applicants’ institutions; and/or
• feels for any reason unable to provide an impartial review of the application.

All members are subject to the same conflict of interest guidelines. If any of these situations apply, the member must declare a conflict of interest and leave the room when the application is being discussed. NFRF staff and the co-chairs are responsible for resolving areas of uncertainty.

Confidentiality

The information included by applicants in their applications is protected by the Privacy Act and is provided for the purposes of review only. Details of the application, scoring, panel discussions and recommendation for a specific application are confidential and must never be divulged. Only NFRF staff can release information. Under no circumstances should members disclose to anyone the recommendations from the merit review meetings; this also applies to when the competition is over and the award recipients are announced.

Funding recommendations made by the review panel are subject to approval by the Canada Research Coordinating Committee and may be changed for reasons of budget, administrative error, or lack of full adherence to policies.

Panel members are asked not to communicate any information relating to the review of a specific application, or offer opinions on the applicants’ chances of success or failure to applicants or anyone outside of the panel. In turn, applicants are not to contact panel members regarding the status of their applications (ratings, rank, etc.). By law, applicants have access to their own application files. Therefore, all written materials used in evaluating an application are made available to the applicants when they are notified of the funding decision for a competition. This includes written feedback provided by the external reviewers, but does not include any notes or feedback a review panel member has provided that were not shared in written form with the other members.

Roles and Responsibilities

Steering Committee

For all NFRF competitions, the Steering Committee is the Canada Research Coordinating Committee. The Committee ensures that the evaluation process is rigorous, objective and transparent, in keeping with the standards of excellence expected by the research funding agencies and consistent with the program’s objectives. The Committee also makes decisions regarding which applications to fund based on the review panel’s recommendations.

Multidisciplinary Review Panel

Membership

The multidisciplinary review panel is composed of experts who represent the various research disciplines of the three research funding agencies (the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). To achieve a balance among panel members, factors such as area of expertise, language, inclusion in the four designated groups (women, Indigenous peoples, visible minorities and persons with disabilities), region, institution size, career stage, knowledge of best practices for equity, diversity and inclusion, and experience with research with Indigenous peoples are taken into account, as well as the inclusion of non-academics. Members are selected to ensure that the panel has the capacity to review proposals in both Canada’s official languages.

The members review the applications assigned to them and, collectively,  make recommendations to the Steering Committee on those that should be funded.

Co-Chairs

At the application stage the multidisciplinary review panel includes co-chairs. Co-chairs are responsible for ensuring that the panel functions smoothly, effectively and objectively, and according to the program’s policies. The co-chairs establish a positive, constructive, and fair-minded environment in which the applications are evaluated. The co-chairs fulfill an oversight role and also participate in the review of applications.

The co-chairs’ responsibilities include:

• ensuring that the Conflict of Interest and Confidentiality Policy of the Federal Research Funding Organizations is followed prior to, during and after the meeting;
• ensuring the integrity and quality of the merit review process and that each application receives a fair assessment (free of bias and  equitable to all applicants) based on the evaluation of all criteria;
• ensuring that applications involving Indigenous research are reviewed in accordance with SSHRC’s Guidelines for the Merit Review of Indigenous Research;
• completing the online training module for unconscious bias in peer review;
• participating in preparatory meetings/discussions and information sessions prior to the merit review meeting;
• including all members in the review of applications;
• ensuring that all documents are considered in the panel’s assessments;
• guiding the panel to a consensus recommendation, where applicable;
• assisting with the preparation of feedback to applicants, where applicable;
• contributing to discussions on NFRF policy issues;
• participating in discussions on review panel membership for future competitions; and
• ensuring that all confidential review materials provided to them are handled safely and disposed of according to program policy.

Multidisciplinary Review Panel Members

Members evaluate applications and make recommendations to the Steering Committee based on their assessments. Specific responsibilities of members include:

• ensuring that they follow the program’s Conflict of Interest and Confidentiality Policy of the Federal Research Funding Organizations prior to, during and after the evaluations and/or meeting;
• ensuring the integrity and quality of the merit review process and that each application gets a fair assessment (free of bias and  equitable to all applicants) based on the evaluation of all criteria;
• ensuring that applications involving Indigenous research are reviewed in accordance with SSHRC’s Guidelines for the Merit Review of Indigenous Research;
• completing an online unconscious bias training module for peer review;
• participating in preparatory meetings/discussions and information sessions prior to evaluations and/or the merit review, meeting when applicable;
• reviewing applications assigned to them in depth;
• providing ratings for applications assigned to them by the deadline, prior to the merit review meeting, when applicable;
• ensuring that all documents are considered in their assessments;
• participating in the review of applications assigned to them by providing a verbal assessment to the entire committee during the meeting, when applicable;
• assisting with the preparation of feedback to applicants, when applicable;
• participating in the discussion and review of all relevant applications, according to their role, when applicable; and
• ensuring that all review materials provided are handled safely and disposed of according to program policy.

NFRF Staff

NFRF staff is typically represented at the merit review meetings by the director, the deputy director and/or the manager and the program officers. Their responsibilities include:

• ensuring that the panel follows the program’s Conflict of Interest and Confidentiality Policy of the Federal Research Funding Organizations prior to, during and after the review meeting;
• ensuring the integrity and quality of the merit review process and that each application gets a fair assessment (free of bias and equitable to all applicants) based on the evaluation of all criteria;
• assigning applications to panel members;
• providing advice and guidance to the panel on the program’s policies;
• ensuring that all documents are considered in the panel’s assessments;
• keeping notes on procedural aspects of the panel’s functions;
• recording comments made by the panel for each application, where applicable;
• working with the co-chairs to manage conflicts of interest, when applicable;
• recording concerns raised by the panel on issues requiring subsequent attention by staff;
• ensuring that all review materials provided are handled safely and disposed of according to program policy; and
• facilitating the final approval of recommended applications by the Steering Committee.

Applications and Review Material

Incomplete or Non-Adherent Applications

The onus is on the applicants to provide complete and sufficient information adhering to the Convergence Portal instructions for attachments and instructions for completing the notice of intent to apply (NOI), letter of intent to apply (LOI) and application. Problems related to the application content should be brought to the attention of staff. In order to maintain fairness in the competition, applicants must adhere to the guidelines in the preparation of application materials. In the event that staff determines that the information provided is incomplete or non-adherent to guidelines or instructions, the application may be rejected.

Eligibility of Applicants

Eligibility decisions are the responsibility of the NFRF program staff. Members who have doubts as to a researcher’s eligibility should review the application on the same basis as all others, and alert the NFRF staff to the potential problem(s) as soon as possible. The eligibility criteria for applicants can be found in the eligibility section of the funding opportunity description.

Indigenous Research

If a review panel member or external reviewer receives a proposal in which the applicants have answered “Yes” to the question “Does your proposal involve Indigenous research as defined by SSHRC?”, SSHRC’s Indigenous Research Statement of Principles and Guidelines for the Merit Review of Indigenous Research must be used as reference in assessing applications related to or involving Indigenous research. These guidelines are provided to help reviewers build understanding of Indigenous research and research-related activities, and to assist them in interpreting the specific evaluation criteria in the context of Indigenous research.

Merit Indicators

The merit indicators is a scale of qualifiers, including statements with reference to major points of consideration to guide members towards arriving at a rating for each selection criterion. Although only four ratings are described for the selection criteria (with the exception of interdisciplinarity/fit to program and equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI)), members may select a rating between each of the described ones, providing a 7-point scale:

All applications are evaluated using the same merit indicators. Members are encouraged to use the full range of ratings, as appropriate, to achieve a distribution of ratings that reflects the quality of the applications being evaluated. Members are expected to discuss and justify their ratings (or adjust them) during the Letter of Intent and Application stages.

Types of Risk

Reviewers are asked to collect information for analytical purposes identifying the types of risk present in the proposed research projects from the following list:

• challenging current research perspectives or paradigms;
• using equipment, techniques, or approaches proven or assumed to be extraordinarily difficult;
• bringing an unprecedented combination of disciplines together with different perspectives;
• viewing the project from an unfamiliar interdisciplinary perspective to use novel approaches to solve existing problems;
• other risks (indicate each one in a text box); and
• no risks

Areas of Concern

Reviewers are asked to identify the areas of concern (“other considerations” for external reviewers) that they believe exist in the proposed research project from a list which, depending on the stage and review types, could include one or more of the following:

• budget
• equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI)
• interdisciplinarity/fit to program
• GBA+ / SGBA (Gender-based analysis plus / sex and gender-based analysis)
• other concerns
• no concerns
• details for the area(s) of concern indicated

Budget

The proposed budget is not one of the selection criteria and is not typically discussed except when it may affect the assessment of feasibility in accomplishing the research with the proposed resources. However, if a member notices an expense that is not eligible under the New Frontiers in Research Fund Exploration Grants Guide or one that has been greatly overestimated, please bring it to the attention of NFRF program staff.

How to Access Applications for Review

All members and external reviewers will access applications through the Convergence Portal for review. Members and reviewers will only have access to applications they have been assigned.

Multidisciplinary Review Panel Members

Members will receive an email with detailed instructions asking them to log in to the Convergence Portal and complete biographical information, including their fields of research, in their personal profile. Following this step, members will receive an email requesting that they accept the Terms and Conditions of the Convergence Portal. Members must accept the Terms and Conditions before they can continue with the review process. Once accepted, two new tabs will appear on the home screen when logged into the Convergence Portal: Committee Conflicts and Committee Assignments. If the Terms and Conditions were accepted prior to applications having been assigned, both these tabs will be blank.

External Reviewers

External reviewers will receive an email with detailed instructions asking them to log in to the Convergence Portal and complete biographical information, including their fields of research, in their personal profiles. Following this step, they will receive an email requesting that they accept the Terms and Conditions of the Convergence Portal. Reviewers must accept the Terms and Conditions before they can continue with the review process. Once accepted, a new tab will appear on the home screen when logged into the Convergence Portal: Reviewer Assignments. If the Terms and Conditions were accepted prior to applications being ready for review, this tab will initially be blank.

Shortly after the deadline, external reviewers will receive an email informing them that the application(s) assigned to them are ready in the Reviewer Assignments tab. Any problem with the assignment of applications should be brought to the NFRF program staff ‘s attention as soon as possible or at any point in the process.

Review Process

Letter of Intent (LOI) Stage

The purpose of the LOI stage is to identify the most meritorious applications to be invited to submit applications to the application stage.

 Review Timeline

Evaluation by Multidisciplinary Review Panel (LOI)

Assignment

Each LOI application will be assigned to three members for review. Two of the three members will be assigned based on commonality between their fields of research and the subject matter of the proposal, according to the Canadian Research and Development codes. The third member will not have disciplinary expertise and therefore will provide an assessment from an interdisciplinary/non-expert perspective. Language abilities and institutional conflicts of interest will be taken into account when assigning LOIs to members.

Check for Conflicts of Interest

Shortly after the LOI deadline, members will receive an email informing them that their list of assignments is ready. Members are asked to log into Convergence, review a summary of each of their assigned LOIs and indicate if there is a conflict of interest. Once a member has checked all assigned LOIs for conflicts, they will immediately gain access to the LOIs for which they are not in conflict. Minor changes to assignments may occur when conflicts of interest are identified by members. Any problems should be brought to the NFRF staff’s attention as soon as possible or at any point in the process.

Assessment

All eligible LOIs are to be reviewed and scored according to the merit indicator matrices for three selection criteria:

• high risk: 50% of overall score
• high reward: 50% of overall score
• interdisciplinarity/fit to program (pass/fail)

Members may assign one of seven ratings for the high risk and high reward criteria (see Merit Indicators).

Members also provide comments on:

• types of risk (see Types of Risk)
• interdisciplinarity/fit to program (if the score is a fail)
• any areas of concern or comments related to the proposal (see Areas of Concern)
• any information contained in the attachments that identifies the applicants. The external review at the application stage will be double-blind so it is important that no self-identifying information be included in the sections to which the external reviewers will have access.

Results

Once all scores have been compiled by NFRF staff, the median score for high risk and high reward will be determined for each LOI and an overall score calculated. This will be used to identify the top-rated LOIs to be invited to submit an application, with the cutoff score to be determined based on the distribution of scores and the number of LOIs received.

• All LOIs with an overall score above the cutoff and three pass ratings for the interdisciplinarity/fit to program will be invited to submit an application.
• All LOIs with an overall score above the cutoff and one or more fail ratings for the interdisciplinarity/fit to program will be discussed to finalize the scores. If the LOI is deemed to pass this criterion after discussion, it will be invited to submit an application.
• Any LOIs with an overall score below the cutoff but for which one member provided ratings that would place it within the cutoff will be discussed. If the final ratings after discussion place it above the cutoff mark (and it passes the interdisciplinarity/fit to program criterion), it will be invited to submit an application.
• All remaining LOIs will not be invited to submit an application.

The proportion of early career researcher (ECR)-led LOIs will also be monitored during the LOI triage stage. The CRCC has committed to ensuring that a proportion of the awards will be reserved for ECR-led applications, equal to the proportion of ECR-led LOIs received. It is possible that the cutoff score for ECR-led projects may differ in order to meet this commitment.

Finalization of Scores

The three members who reviewed a particular LOI will participate in a teleconference moderated by NFRF staff. Fifteen minutes will be allotted for the discussion of each LOI (as defined above).

LOIs with mixed scores for interdisciplinarity/fit to program will be discussed first to arrive at a consensus pass/fail rating, if possible. Those receiving a fail score will not be discussed further and feedback will be provided to the applicant.

LOIs whose overall score was below the cutoff will be discussed regarding the high risk and high reward criteria. The member who rated the LOI highly will be asked to present the rationale for their assessment first; the other members will then have a chance to respond and provide their rationale(s). Members will have the opportunity to revise their scores following the discussion by submitting them in confidence to NFRF staff. The final, revised scores will be used to determine if the LOI is invited to submit an application.

Application Stage

The application review process identifies the strongest applications for discussion at the multidisciplinary review panel meeting.

Review Timeline

Evaluation by External Reviewers (Application)

The focus of external reviews will be on the proposal, with reviewers asked to comment on the high risk and high reward criteria, as well as the feasibility criterion as it relates to the research plan. The external review process will be double-blind, with the applicants not knowing the identity of the external reviewers and the external reviewers not being provided information identifying the applicant/research team. Therefore, external reviewers will have access to all the sections related to the research project submitted as part of the LOI and application, but will not have access to the list of participants, the list of collaborators and the biographical information about the research team. As external reviewers will not be assessing the interdisciplinarity/fit to program or the equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) criteria, they will not have access to those attachments either.

Assignment

Each application will be assigned to three external reviewers with expertise in the field(s) of the application. External reviewers will typically review only one or two applications, but may be invited to review up to five.

Review Process: External Review

External reviewers will comment on the high risk, high reward and feasibility components of the proposed project, according to the following:

• Is the project high risk? (yes/no)
  • Description of the strengths and weaknesses
• Is the project high reward? (yes/no)
  • Description of the strengths and weaknesses
• Is the project feasible? (yes/no)
  • Description of the strengths and weaknesses
• Types of risk (see Types of Risk)
• Any areas of concern or comments related to the proposal (see Areas of Concern)

Evaluation by Multidisciplinary Review Panel (Application)

Assignment

Each application will be assigned to five members for review. Two to three members will be assigned based on the commonality between the members’ expertise and the primary areas of research of the proposal. The remaining members will not have disciplinary expertise and will provide assessments from an interdisciplinary/ non-expert perspective. Language abilities and institutional conflicts of interest will be taken into account when assigning applications to members.

Check for Conflicts of Interest

Shortly after the deadline, members will receive an email informing them that their list of assignments is ready. Members are asked to log in to the Convergence Portal, review a summary of each of their assigned applications, and indicate if there is a conflict of interest. Once a member has checked all assigned applications for conflicts, they will immediately gain access to the applications for which they are not in conflict. Minor changes to assignments may occur when conflicts of interest are identified by members. Any problems should be brought to the staff’s attention as soon as possible or at any point in the process.

Assessment

Members of the multidisciplinary review panel will have access to all content from the NOI, LOI and application stages.

Members receive their assignments and are given access to the applications before they receive the external reviewer assessments. This allows members to begin reading through the applications and start scoring them—especially the sections where external reviewers will not be providing comments. Once they receive the assessments from the external reviewers, members can choose to revise some of their scores based on those assessments.

All eligible applications are to be reviewed and scored according to the merit indicator matrices for the following four selection criteria:

• high risk: 40% of overall score
• high reward: 40% of overall score
• feasibility: 20% of overall score
• equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) (pass/fail)

Members may assign one of seven ratings for the high risk, high reward and feasibility criteria (see Merit Indicators). In assessing feasibility, members must consider the approach to Indigenous research (if applicable) and GBA+/SGBA considerations in the research design.

Members are also asked to:

• provide comments for EDI (if the score is a fail)
• identify any areas of concern or comments related to the proposal (see Areas of Concern)
• identify their top-rated application

Multidisciplinary Review Panel Meeting

The multidisciplinary review panel will meet in Ottawa to discuss all the applications and identify those to be recommended for funding. The members will be divided into six groups. Each group will have its own meeting room and will be presided over by three co-chairs, with each co-chair representing one of the tri-agencies: CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC. NFRF staff will also be present to assist the co-chairs and answer program- and policy-related questions.

Discussion of Applications

Twenty minutes will be allocated to discuss each application (as defined above), moderated by one of the co-chairs. The discussion of the application will proceed according to the following steps:

1. The co-chair introduces the application and asks that any members in conflict leave the room.
2. The co-chair introduces the five reviewers.
3. Since it is a pass/fail assessment, the EDI criterion will be discussed first.
   1. The first reviewer will provide their rating (pass/fail) and a brief rationale. Other assigned reviewers will be invited to provide any additional information or differing viewpoints.
   2. Other members may participate in the discussion.
   3. The co-chair will assess if consensus has been reached or if a vote is required. If a vote is required, the five assigned reviewers will vote, with the majority result standing.
   4. If the final result is a "pass” rating, the application will continue to be discussed. If the final result is a "fail", the application will not be discussed further.
4. Applications will be discussed regarding the high risk, high reward and feasibility criteria.
   1. The first reviewer will briefly summarize the proposal, provide their ratings and a brief rationale. Other assigned readers will be invited in turn to provide their ratings and any additional information.
   2. Other members may participate in the discussion and ask for clarification, time permitting.

Final rankings

After all applications have been discussed, all members will provide a rating for each application they are not in conflict with and feel they are able to assess. Members will assign one of the following three ratings:

• Excellent – should fund
• Very strong – fundable
• Some concerns

Members may only choose the first rating for a maximum of 25% of the applications they have voted on.

Scores will be tallied to create a ranked list of applications for each group of panel members. Recommendations for funding will be granted in a top-down manner, based on the ranking and also taking into account the proportion of ECR-led applications. All co-chairs will meet to review the combined list of applications and finalize the multidisciplinary review panel’s recommendations.

Feedback to applicants

Concise feedback will be prepared for all applications that are not funded by the reviewers assigned to the application. One reviewer will be identified in advance to lead the process of preparing the feedback for each application.

Guide on Handling Documents Used in Peer Review

Merit review documents contain personal information as well as information whose unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause serious injury (such as prejudicial treatment or loss of reputation or competitive advantage) to an individual, organization or government. Therefore, these documents are subject to regulation under the Privacy Act, the Access to Information Act and the Policy on Government Security (PGS). Protocols must be followed to ensure that information contained in applications, internal and external reviews, and panel discussions remains strictly confidential. Improper or unauthorized collection, use, disclosure, retention and/or disposal of this information can result in a privacy breach. Please refer to the Guide on Handling Documents Used in Peer Review for further details.

Legal and Ethical Information

Responsible Conduct of Research

Canada’s federal research funding agencies—CIHR, NSERC, and SSHRC—are committed to fostering and maintaining an environment that supports and promotes the responsible conduct of research. The Tri-Agency Framework: Responsible Conduct of Research sets out the responsibilities and corresponding policies for researchers, institutions and the agencies that together help support and promote a positive research environment.

Confidentiality

Members appointed to the panel must read and agree to the Conflict of Interest and Confidentiality Agreement for Review Committee Members, External Reviewers, and Observers describing expectations and requirements.

Privacy Act

Personal information refers to any information about an identifiable individual. Based on the Privacy Act, personal information provided by applicants must be used only for assessing applications, making funding decisions, and for related uses describing applicants at the time that their personal information is collected. Members are reminded that the use or disclosure of this information for any other purpose is illegal. It is important for panel members to adhere strictly to the guidelines set out in the Conflict of Interest and Confidentiality Agreement for Review Committee Members, External Reviewers, and Observers.

Canadian Human Rights Act

The activities of CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC are subject to the Canadian Human Rights Act. The purpose of the Act is to extend the laws in Canada to give effect to the principle that all individuals should have opportunity equal with other individuals to make for themselves the lives that they are able and wish to have. They should also have their needs accommodated, consistent with their duties and obligations as members of society, without being hindered in or prevented from doing so by discriminatory practices based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family status, genetic characteristics, disability or conviction for an offence for which a pardon has been granted or in respect of which a record suspension has been ordered.

Official Languages Act

All review panel members and NFRF program staff must be aware of their obligations and rights as legislated in the Official Languages Act.