April 17, 2009 — Today, NSERC is transmitting the results of the 2009 Discovery Grants Competition to Canadian universities, who will in turn immediately inform 3,210 professors of NSERC’s decisions. Of these applicants, 2,039 will receive awards.

The Discovery Grants Program (DGP) is NSERC’s flagship and largest program.

As part of a commitment to excellence in all areas of its operations NSERC introduced this year major enhancements to the DGP peer review system. These enhancements have created a much more dynamic funding system, with more opportunity for researchers with superior accomplishments and contributions to receive substantial increases.

The peer review changes responded to recommendations from two rigorous external reviews that reported to NSERC in 2007. The reviews concluded that the DGP was an excellent, unique program (an opinion strongly supported by the international members of the review committees) and that the program met Canada’s needs. The reviews also strongly endorsed the three criteria that NSERC uses to evaluate applications: the excellence of the researcher, the merit of the proposal and the applicant’s contributions to the training of highly qualified people. As well, the reviews recommended enhancements to the peer review process. Following extensive consultation with the research community, the recommendations from these reviews were endorsed by Council and its major advisory bodies.

One set of recommendations addressed the assessment process within the grant selection committees. The intent was not to change the selection criteria but to add further consistency and clarity in the assessment of these criteria.

The 2009 Competition saw the introduction of a two-step process, whereby the scientific merit was assessed first. The funding level was then recommended in the second step of the process. As well, a new set of systematic and transparent evaluation measures were introduced and used.

All applications were assessed using a six-point scale in each of the three merit criteria (Evaluation Indicators). The six ratings used were: Exceptional, Outstanding, Very Strong, Strong, Moderate and Insufficient. Each application was independently rated on a “Relative cost of research” factor, with the options being “normal for the discipline” or higher or lower than the norm. Applicants with similar scores were aggregated into categories or “bins” of comparable overall quality. In the second step, the committees assigned a funding level to each bin, making the adjustments for the “Relative cost of research,” if needed.

The emphasis on quality assessment under the new common rating system has achieved the desired objectives. It preserves continuity of funding for the most productive researchers who maintain a strong record of contributions to research and training. It also permits a more rapid ramp up of funding for applicants with superior accomplishments and research plans, no matter their history in the system.

The total budget for the DGP in 2009 was at the same level as in 2008. Per applicant, the total amount of funding available in the 2009 competition was slightly higher than in 2008. The percentage of applicants receiving a grant declined from 71 per cent in 2008 to 63.5 per cent this year. The overall average grant for successful individuals in the 2009 competition increased by over $4,000 per year compared to the 2008 Competition.

To allow applicants and universities to review the results in detail, NSERC will make competition statistics available on the NSERC Web site beginning next week.

The year marks the lead up to NSERC’s second major enhancement of the NSERC peer system: the changeover from the current Grant Selection Committees to a new structure of Conference review, as recommended following the Grant Selection Committee Structure Review. This Model, variants of which have already been successfully used by some committees, builds on the existing strengths of the current peer committees, but will also allow NSERC, when required, to apply a much wider range of expertise to the review of any application.

For the 2010 Discovery Grants Competition, NSERC will begin to post changes to applicant literature and forms. All information, including the Peer Review Manual, will be updated on-line to correspond with the milestones in the competition.