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Composed of 13 virtual institutes headed by leading Canadian researchers in their respective disciplines, CIHR provides leadership and support to more than 11,000 health researchers and trainees across Canada.
CIHR was designed to address research challenges across the spectrum of health research. In addition, our unique Institute model enables CIHR to be "nimble and quick" to respond to emerging health research priorities.
For example, when the SARS outbreak occurred five years ago, CIHR moved very quickly in mobilizing a team of Canada's top health researchers at the University Health Network in Toronto to develop a treatment for SARS patients.
The outcomes of the CIHR model have been first to develop and attract the best minds. CIHR understands that a highly skilled research community is essential to Canada's ability to become a world leader in science and technology. We support the best and brightest trainees to ensure Canada has the best-educated and most-skilled human health workforce.
With our academic and public and private sector partners, we currently support 92 large post-graduate training centres and have invested $98 million in these centres between 2000 and 2007. Over the same period, we also invested more than $292 million in training awards to individual students, supporting, just for 2006-07 alone, 2,000 students. It is a priority for CIHR to promote Canada as being at the forefront of health research and training and to make Canada a destination of choice for top international researchers and students.
Budget 2008 provided a $20 million endowment to the Gairdner Foundation. This foundation has an international award program for outstanding biomedical research by an individual. This award is recognized as one of the most prestigious in this field in the world, and 70 out of the 288 Gairdner recipients have gone on to win the Nobel Prize in either medicine or chemistry. Just this week, the Gairdner Foundation announced the recipients of the awards for 2008. Two of the awardees are CIHR funder-researchers: Dr. Samuel Weiss from the University of Calgary, and Dr. Nahum Sonenberg from McGill University.
In terms of research results, if there is one message I would leave with you today, it is that health research is certainly one of Canada's strengths, and we are also leading in this area internationally. We have built over the years a system of health research and institutional excellence in our country that we need to grow and protect.
Let me mention recent leading-edge outcomes from CIHR-funded research. An example of health research successfully translating into application is the work of Dr. Tim Bryant's research team at Queen's University, which was supported through CIHR's proof of principle program. They contributed to the design of a new affordable, high-energy, and durable artificial limb, which is currently manufactured in St. Catherines, Ontario. This product is now available in Canada as well as in several countries, including El Salvador and Thailand, for landmine victims.
CIHR is aligned with the Government of Canada's Science and Technology Strategy. The strategy sets very important directions for CIHR and for our health research partners. The strategy sets out four principles to guide science and technology investments: in short form, they are excellence, partnerships, priorities, and accountability.
Let me emphasize the principle of excellence in health research. CIHR only funds research proposals that meet the highest international standards of excellence. This is achieved through a very rigorous process of evaluation done by peers, who volunteer their time and expertise to ensure the quality of the research that is supported by CIHR. Unfortunately, we can only fund about a third of the proposals that pass this rigorous process of peer review.
I would also like to say a few words about partnerships and knowledge translation. These concepts have always been central to how CIHR does its business, and I have placed personal emphasis on these as acting president. Our partners--provincial and territorial governments, the not-for-profit sector, and the private sector--not only provide additional resources, but even more importantly, they ensure the translation of knowledge to real-world applications.
In 2007-08, CIHR secured approximately $105 million in additional resources through partnerships and has entered into agreements with partners to ensure that the research results are used to the benefit of Canadians. For example, recently CIHR, in partnership with AstraZeneca, provided $5 million in funding to Dr. Manon Choinière at the Montreal Heart Institute, and James Henry at McMaster University, through the community alliances for health research and knowledge exchange on pain initiative, to engage active partnerships between research teams, public and private sectors, and community organizations in excellence research on pain, with an emphasis on its translation in health benefits.
As part of the science technology strategy, the Government of Canada has entrusted CIHR, SSHRC, NSERC, and CFI to manage Canada's envelope of support for higher education R and D in a comprehensive way. With our colleagues from these agencies, we have vigorously set out to do just that by implementing an extensive action plan.