Youth Mental Health

For the purpose of this funding opportunity, "youth" is defined between the ages of 12 and 25. It is expected for the National Evidence Platform to allow appropriate flexibility to projects which may be built around interventions for youth at different stages of adolescence and early adulthood, recognizing that teams may use varying age parameters based on different needs or challenges.

Yes. For the purpose of this funding opportunity, youth mental health interventions are defined as interventions, programs and practices that aim to prevent, and/or reduce the symptoms of mental health, substance use, and/or neurodevelopmental conditions, including clinic-, school- or community-based, psychological, pharmacological, e-mental health interventions and strategies to increase access and adherence to these interventions.

All information intended for public consumption, including for the purposes of informing and engaging partners (e.g., website content, information pamphlets, guidelines, promotional and event-related material, etc.), must be provided in both official languages (English and French).

All information intended for public consumption, including for the purposes of informing and engaging partners (e.g., website content, information pamphlets, guidelines, promotional and event-related material, etc.), must be provided in both official languages (English and French). As per the allowable costs, costs related to the translation and preparation of information/material intended for public consumption are appropriate uses of grant fund.

This language requirement refers to the features and design of the National Evidence Platform itself, and not to the individual interventions or the primary sources that are reviewed and graded, which may only be available in one language.

Although the Platform is initially focused on youth mental health, it should be intentionally designed with a long-term, sustainable, future-oriented vision to support expansion and adaptation to the needs of other populations, brain health conditions, and contexts, which may include adaptable architecture and modular components. The Platform also needs to be adaptable to the changing evidence synthesis environment within Canada. Similarly, the evidence review process must be designed to be transparent, adaptive to emerging knowledge, and sustainable

As per the evaluation criteria, applicants must submit a sustainability plan (see How to Apply, Attach Other Material) that addresses long-term sustainability of the Platform beyond the funding period, potential expansion and adaptation to meet the needs of additional populations and contexts, including adaptability of architecture, maintenance, updating, data governance and interoperability.

CIHR does not have existing teams in mind. New teams are expected to come together for this funding opportunity.

Please refer to the Eligibility Criteria of the Funding Opportunity to review the minimum requirements.

It is expected that the Team establishes a clearly defined minimum requirement set of criteria for including and reviewing the interventions (see the Platform Structure and Key Design Elements of the Funding Opportunity). Please also note that the Platform will not generate evidence but, instead, will review and rate evidence.

In addition, the Platform is expected to build capacity in community-based organizations (who may not have affiliations with research communities) to support the interpretation and use of evidence, or to inform generation of high-quality evidence. Please refer to the Capacity Building section of the Platform Structure and Key Design Elements section of the funding opportunity.

A Partner Linkage Tool for the Governance Structure of the Team Grant is now available:  

Partner Linkage Tool for the Team Grant - National Platform for Evidence-Based Programs and Practices: Youth Mental Health

Input from interest holders is to ensure uptake and use of the platform and the evidence grading sytem. Please review the Evaluation Criteria section of the Funding Opportunity for the expected requirements of the proposal, particularly in relation to the Quality of the Approach and the Feasibility and Impact. For example, the proposals will be evaluated according to the feasibility of the project within the proposed timeframe, given the resources described, as well as the feasibility of the proposed sustainability plan.

The Platform must develop a transparent and sustainable process for reviewing and rating evidence. It should conduct multiple rounds of evidence reviews examining a range of youth mental health interventions, which must include evidence generated through the YMHF when available, as well as existing and new evidence from international, national and community-based research. It is expected that the majority of relevant evidence on youth mental health interventions in Canada will have been examined by the end of the grant, based on a clearly defined minimum requirement for inclusion (e.g. at least one randomized controlled trial for the scientific evidence dimension). It is required that the results of the rounds of reviews will be published on the Knowledge Mobilization web-platform, supported by a strategy to ensure they are accessible to a broad audience of knowledge users.

Please refer to the Platform Structure and Key Design Elements section of the funding opportunity for further details on the Standards of Evidence Framework.

Teams are expected to develop a Standards of Evidence Framework including standards of different types and levels of scientific evidence, co-developed in consultation with research experts, federal, provincial and territorial partners, youth and PWLLE, Indigenous leaders or partners, policy and decision-makers and the governance structure. The Framework must address two types of evidence: Scientific Evidence and Indigenous ways of knowing and doing.

The teams are expected to propose a feasible development process of the two types of evidence of the Standards of Evidence Framework, that could either remain parallel or be integrated, as deemed appropriate. Please refer to the Evaluation Criteria section of the funding opportunity for further details.  

Applicants are free to consider, explore, and develop rigorous methodology around the integration of artificial intelligence in the National Evidence Platform, and provide the appropriate justification as part of their application material. Applicants must include appropriate considerations of the potential benefits and harms and ethical use in relation to the use of artificial intelligence in the National Evidence Platform.

Youth mental health interventions that use artificial intelligence (e-MH interventions) are eligible interventions for evidence review through the Platform.

As for the use of Artificial intelligence in a grant proposal, in accordance with existing agency policies, applicants are responsible for ensuring that information included in their grant applications is true, accurate and complete and that all sources are appropriately acknowledged and referenced. Applicants should be aware that using generative AI may lead to the presentation of information without proper recognition of authorship or acknowledgement.  

As stated in the How to Apply section of the Funding Opportunity, conflicts of interest with industry or with applicant partners can be addressed in the 'attach other application materials' task of the application process. Applicants can submit a 'Relationship with private industry' document and a 'Applicant Partner COI' document to address any potential COIs. Both documents will be reviewed by peer reviewers as part of the full application package.

Yes. For the purpose of this Funding Opportunity, Principal Applicants are automatically considered key participants. The core team must be comprised of no more than ten (10) Principal Applicants (PAs) and/or Principal Knowledge Users (PKUs) including the NPA. Any other participants (non-key participants) must hold the role of Co-applicant, Knowledge User or collaborator.

The core team must be comprised of no more than ten (10) Principal Applicants (PAs) and/or Principal Knowledge Users (PKUs) including the NPA, identified as Key Participants. Any other participants, other than the 10 key participants may be added to the application, however, they must hold either the role of co-applicant, knowledge user or collaborator. Key participants must either be a PA, PKU or NPA.  

Active agreements in place under the Youth Mental Health Fund can be found here: Youth mental health: About the Youth Mental Health Fund - Canada.ca

CIHR is providing a Partner Linkage Tool intended to facilitate connections between a) organizations implementing youth mental health interventions with b) evaluation and implementation science research teams.

The Youth Mental Health Fund-supported intervention pool is intended for applications relevant to the evaluation and/or implementation science for youth mental health interventions that are currently supported by the Youth Mental Health Fund.

The general pool is intended for applications relevant to the evaluation and/or implementation science for youth mental health interventions, which would include interventions currently not supported by the Youth Mental Health Fund.

Applicants can select up to three pools when appropriate (YMHF-supported intervention pool, Indigenous-led pool, and general pool).

All levels of development are eligible (local, provincial, national).

For the purpose of this funding opportunity, eligible studies may span the evaluation and implementation science research continuum. This includes pilot and feasibility studies of evidence-informed or adapted interventions in understudied contexts or with understudied populations, efficacy or effectiveness trials, implementation facilitation and research assessing scalability or effectiveness of a scaling strategy.

The funding opportunity is not intended to support the development or creation of new interventions than those described above, and that wouldn't have documented preliminary evidence of either evaluation or implementation.

Please refer to the Research Approaches section of the funding opportunity for further details.

Both types of partner organizations are eligible. Please refer to the definition of youth mental health interventions as described in the funding opportunity for further details. For the purposes of this funding opportunity, the NPA must include at least one Canadian organization that is implementing a youth mental health intervention specifically designed to address youth mental health, which will be the subject of study, Youth mental health interventions include interventions, programs and practices that aim to prevent, and/or reduce the symptoms of mental health, substance use, and/or neurodevelopmental, conditions, including clinic-, school- or community-based, psychological, pharmacological, e-Mental-Health (e-MH) interventions and strategies to increase access and adherence to these interventions.

Interventions that have already been supported, funded or evaluated within the IYS-Net initiative are not eligible for this funding opportunity. Other interventions currently funded by existing research grants, other than the IYS-Net initiative, or by other types of funds, are eligible. Please note, however, that efforts should be made to avoid duplication.

Please refer to the definition of Youth Mental Health interventions as described in the Funding Opportunity for further details.

For the purpose of this funding opportunity, youth mental health interventions include interventions, programs and practices that aim to prevent, and/or reduce the symptoms of mental health, substance use, and/or neurodevelopmental, conditions, including clinic-, school- or community-based, psychological, pharmacological, e-mental health interventions and strategies to increase access and adherence to these interventions. While the main focus of the eligible interventions must be on mental health interventions as previously described, interventions can also relate to other types of health outcomes or issues simultaneously.

Yes, an organization can partner with more than one NPA if the organization manages more than one distinct intervention. In other words, an organization that would have multiple interventions could partner with different NPA as long as one intervention is not studied twice by a different NPA. The intent of this requirement is to avoid having multiple NPAs evaluate the same intervention, avoid duplication and optimize use of resources.

Yes, however, independence between the evaluation and/or implementation science research and the organization delivering the interventions is encouraged. Any consideration of risk of bias and/or conflict of interest (COI) as appropriate must be disclosed and addressed (see the How to Apply section of the Funding Opportunity)

Please refer to the IYS-Net: Funding Web Page of the CIHR Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addictions for the full list of funded IYS-Net teams and projects.

CIHR's guideline on Identical or Essentially Identical Applications states:

• Once an application has been submitted to CIHR, it is considered under review. As such, the nominated principal applicant and/or members of the applicant team must wait for the notification on the funding decision before submitting the identical or essentially identical application to CIHR, NSERC or SSHRC.
• Once an application is funded by CIHR, the nominated principal applicant and/or members of the applicant team must not subsequently submit the identical or essentially identical application to CIHR, NSERC or SSHRC, if the start date of funding, as stated in the funding opportunity, is prior to the end date of the active grant.

However, applicants can submit an application to the Project Grant competition, as well as this funding opportunity, on a similar topic and/or with similar aims. It simply cannot be the same application submitted to both competitions. In the event that there is an overlap with some part of the application to the Project Grant competition, these should be declared as funds received and the allocated budget as part of the Project Grant Competition would be adjusted to take this overlap into consideration.

The Nominated Principal Applicant must be an independent researcher affiliated with a Canadian postsecondary institution and/or is affiliated institutions (including hospitals, research institutes and other non-profit organizations with a mandate for health research and/or knowledge mobilization).

Graduate students and trainees are therefore not eligible to apply as Nominated Principal Applicants to this funding opportunity but could apply in other roles.

As stated in the CIHR Glossary of Funding Related Terms:

Nominated Principal Applicant (NPA): The role on a CIHR funding application responsible for coordinating the financial and administrative aspects of the grant/award, as well as leading the intellectual direction of the proposed activities. CIHR funding opportunities and application forms may use other terms to refer to this applicant role.

Principal Applicant (PA): The role on a grant application for individuals who are responsible for leading the intellectual direction of the proposed activities. CIHR funding opportunities and application forms may use other terms to refer to this applicant role.

As stated in the funding opportunity "Although multiple participants can be added to the application for each of the roles (other than the NPA), only one (1) individual per criteria should be identified as a Key Participant in the Participant Table. Any additional individuals should be added in the second section of the Participant Table".

Therefore, additional PAs can be added as non-key participants.

Every application must include at least one measure of youth mental health outcomes. Additionally, each application must include at least one of the following core set of outcome indicators to study: a) Capacity (training, knowledge, skills and abilities) of organizations to provide more care, or more effective, more timely, and more culturally appropriate mental health care and support to youth and families; b) Quality of delivery of evidence-based youth mental health services; c) access and wait times for mental health services, d) acceptability and person satisfaction with care.

Please refer to the Research Approaches and Relevance Review section of the funding opportunity for further details and requirements.

The funding opportunity does not prescribe specific youth mental health outcome measures, nor does it require that these be clinical or diagnostic measures. Each application must include at least one measure of youth mental health outcomes, but it does not limit applicants to a particular instrument, methodology, or data source.

Applicants are expected to propose outcome measures that are appropriate and justified in relation to their intervention, study objectives, evaluation and/or implementation science framework, and research design. The funding opportunity also emphasizes the use of rigorous methodologies and well-defined, relevant, and valid outcome measures.

As such, there is flexibility in how youth mental health outcomes may be measured. Depending on the intervention and research approach, applicants could propose quantitative, qualitative, mixed-methods, clinical, administrative, self-reported or other appropriate indicators of youth mental health outcomes, provided that the rationale and methodological approach are clearly described and justified within the application.