Responsible Research Assessment at CIHR

CIHR is committed to promoting excellence in health research to maximize health, societal, and economic impacts. As such, we are dedicated to ensuring our research assessment practices are responsible, from program design to peer review, decision making, and program evaluation and improvements.

This means we recognize and value a range of research contributions that can lead to impact, we understand that different research disciplines and methods have variation, and we support diversity among those who participate in and benefit from research.

The three federal granting agencies have implemented a suite of policies and strategies that foster excellence in research, including research data management practices; open access publishing; the responsible conduct of research; the ethical conduct of research; support for Indigenous research and research training in Canada; and equity, diversity and inclusion.

At CIHR, responsible research assessment is built into our programs and strategies in several ways:

• Application processes that encourage the inclusion of a broad range of contributions, from publications to societal outputs, in the Most Significant Contributions section of the application. The Tri-Agency narrative CV offers increased flexibility to demonstrate a research narrative, with detailed descriptions of career trajectories and mentorship roles.
• Peer review guidelines that ask reviewers to consider a greater variety of contributions, avoid relying on quantitative indicators, focus on quality over quantity, and consider the applicant's context (e.g., career stage, leave history). These practices support a more robust and holistic assessment of a researcher's work based on its own merits.
• Practical training and supports for applicants and peer reviewers to reduce bias and support a fair process. For example, Tri-agency Excellence in Peer and Merit Review learning modules include a section on the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), in recognition that journal-based metrics can introduce bias in the peer review process. (Module 1: Biases in the Research Ecosystem and Module 2: Mitigating Bias in the Peer and Merit Review Processes) These modules are mandatory learning for all CIHR reviewers.

Application processes that encourage the inclusion of a broad range of outputs and research narrative, including descriptions of career trajectories and mentorship roles

Peer review guidelines that promote the consideration of diverse contributions and a focus on quality over quantity

Practical training and supports for applicants and peer reviewers

These practices support a more robust and holistic assessment of researchers' work based on its own merits

CIHR will continue work to ensure strategies, policies, and guidance support responsible research assessment.

CIHR's Research Excellence Framework positions CIHR on a path to achieving its vision where Canadian health research is internationally recognized as inclusive, collaborative, transparent, culturally safe, and focused on real-world impact. Responsible research assessment is a key enabler for the implementation of the Framework.

Responsible Research Assessment International Partnerships

Research on Research Institute

Research on research, also known as metaresearch or metascience, is the application of rigorous methods and analysis to the practice of research itself—its methods, standards and evaluation. Founded in 2019, the Research on Research Institute (RoRI) is a consortium of research funders and institutes that undertakes projects that can support the work of funding organizations. RoRI gathers evidence and data; undertakes experiments; and develops tools to improve how research is funded, practiced, communicated, and evaluated.

CIHR first joined RoRI in 2019 and became a core partner in 2023. Through this partnership, CIHR helps to bring Canadian perspectives into international dialogue on improving research funding practices and to build national capacity for metaresearch.

CIHR contributes to the overall strategic direction of RoRI as a member of its Partnership Board, and staff participate in select RoRI projects aligned with CIHR's priorities.

The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA)

CIHR, alongside the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) (the tri-agencies); the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI); and Genome Canada—are signatories of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA).

DORA recognizes the need to improve the ways in which research is evaluated, beyond widely used journal-based metrics (e.g., Journal Impact Factor). The declaration is comprised of a set of recommendations developed by a group of journal editors and publishers at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology in San Francisco in 2012.

Watch this video describing six steps to a more holistic approach to research evaluation produced by DORA and the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR). French translation by NSERC.

More than 26,000 individuals and organizations in 171 countries have signed DORA to date. This includes research funders, research institutions, publishers, metrics providers, and researchers themselves.

As a signatory to DORA, CIHR is committed to excellence in research funding and to ensuring that a wide range of research results are valued as part of the review process. Considering other ways to meaningfully assess research quality, including assessing different types of research outputs, allows a researcher's work to be better assessed on its own merits.

Date modified:

2026-04-20