Although the Canadian Federal government has made cuts to research funding in a number of areas, the latest annual budget has again increased the dollars spent on clinical research.  According to a letter from Alain Beaudet, President of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the CIHR’s budget for 2009-10 will increase by $12.5M, bringing our total budget to $978.8M.  Over the last three years, the annual budget for CIHR has increased by over $142 million. 

“This year,” states Dr. Beaudet, ”CIHR plans to spend approximately $917 million on peer-reviewed health research projects conducted at universities, hospitals and research centres across Canada.”

They do note that a couple of programs, the Intellectual Property Mobilization (IPM), and the Open Team Grant, are being discontinued.