Health minister orders emergency meeting with furious scientists

With hundreds of scientists furious about changes to theway their research is funded,Health Minister Jane Philpott has ordered the federal funding agency to hold an emergencymeeting.

"I have noted with growing concern the views that have been expressed within the health research community about changes being implemented at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)," Philpott said in a message to Canada's health research community.

Peer reviewersrevolt

The health minister called for the meeting after what amounted to a peer revolt among Canada's health researchers.

Last week, more than 1,200 scientists, including some of the country's most prominent researchers, signed an open letterexpressing alarm at the chaos that had erupted during the latest round of science funding.

Philpott had strong words for the CIHR, which is an agency of Health Canada.

"I expect CIHR to ensure that the very best health research across all pillars is funded according to the highest international standards of research excellence," she said in the statement posted on the ministry's website.

So next week, CIHRofficialswill meet with an invited group of scientists to talk about what went wrong with the new online system.

"It's very welcome and indicates the minister recognizes there is a significant problem. Twelve-hundred and fifty scientists aren't usually wrong," saidJimWoodgett, director of research at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute andauthor of theopen letter.

Scientists tweeted about the chaos as it unfolded over the last two weeks.Reviews were not submitted, reviewers didn't participate in the online discussion, and some scientists said theydidn't have the expertise to properly evaluate the proposed experiments.

Reviews still missing after deadline

Also, the newcomputer system that was supposed to match reviewers with grants in their areas of expertise wasn't working properly.

• Scientists protest in frustration over federal research funding chaos

The process was especially chaotic because this was the largestgrant competition in theCIHR'shistory. More than 3,800 applications were submitted from 3,000 scientists,a pent-up demand for research funding created because two previous grant competitions werecancelled, as part of the reforms.

Lisa Porter, a cancer researcherfrom the University of Windsor in Ontario,chaired one of the virtual committees. She was still missing reviews when the deadline closed. She would like the CIHRto resume theface-to-face peer review process, and slowly implement changes.

"To me that would be the most reasonable way to restore balance to the system," she said.

"Urgency is important," said Woodgett. "It'scritical that changes in response to themess we're in right now are made before the next competition. Otherwise, that wouldreally twist the blade. But I don't know how much they're willingto change."

Meanwhile, scientists are anxiously waiting for the results of the current competition,expected on July 15.Most will be disappointed.

"We only fund the top 10 to15 per centof research," said Woodgett."Alot of really good research is not going to get funded."

TheCIHRhadreceived aseries of warningsfrom scientists, and university presidents, about its plans to reformthe peer review system. The original systeminvolvedface-to-face panels of reviewers, meeting inmore than 50 different peerreview committees, aprocess used by most of the world's scientificfunding agencies.