Guidelines for the Evaluation of Subject Matter Eligibility of Applications Related to the Health Sciences

General Guidelines

Applications to NSERC as the primary source of research or research training support must meet the following criteria:

1. The program of research must be, primarily, in the natural sciences or engineering (NSE);
2. The intended objectives of the research must be, primarily, to advance knowledge in one of the natural sciences or in engineering.

Principles

• The primary objective of any research supported by NSERC must be to advance knowledge and training in the natural sciences or engineering. The question to be asked is: does the research challenge lie within the NSE?
• Proposals that include the use of methodologies, tools, techniques and knowledge from the NSE are not automatically considered eligible by NSERC.
• For Discovery Grant (DG) applications, the proposal must be in support of a long-term program of research in the NSE. If the overall program is in the health sciences and the DG application represents only a subset of projects and activities within that broader, health-related program, it is not eligible for DG support.
• DG renewal applications that are a continuation of research previously funded by NSERC, but whose research foci and challenges have become more health related, may be allowed a phase-out period to minimize any impact on personnel.
• Applications that could be supported by either agency would continue in the DG peer review process.

Eligibility of Subject Matter

The following are considerations when preparing or assessing the eligibility of the subject matter of applications related to health:

Eligible for NSERC support:

• Research in animal health and veterinary medicine.
• Research in nutrition related to food components, nutraceuticals,¹ or functional foods.¹
• Research seeking to further our understanding of fundamental processes in humans.
• Research whose primary purpose is the development of monitoring and diagnostic technologies (such as health IT, in-vitro diagnostics, diagnostic imaging, patient monitoring and endoscopic devices) unless it is at the clinical trial² stage. The research challenge must lie within the NSE.
• Research whose major challenges lie in the NSE (materials science, engineering, computer science, chemistry, etc.) and which could eventually lead, among other applications, to the treatment or prevention of human disease.

Not eligible for NSERC support:

• Research involving the refinement of already existing technology for facilitating clinical therapies or health delivery systems.
• Research whose primary purpose is the investigation or development of vaccines, active pharmaceutical ingredients (API), or other therapeutic agents for human applications.
• Research whose primary purpose is the investigation or treatment of injuries or human performance.
• Research seeking to develop animal models of human diseases in order to study, primarily, the disease state, or treatments for injuries or diseases represented by the model.
• Applied research for disease treatment, diagnosis or prevention.
• Research involving clinical trials.²

Applicants whose research is in the field of psychology should also refer to Support of Research in Psychology.