April
19,1999
Mr.
Joe Volpe, M.P.
Chair, Standing Committee on Health
House of Commons
Room 349, Confederation Building
Ottawa, Ontario Kl A OA6
Dear
Mr. Volpe:
I have
received a copy of the letter which you sent to Minister Allan
Rock concerning the establishment of a grant review commiftee
at the Medical Research Council , dedicated solely to vision
research.
As you
point out in your lefter, MRC is transforming itself into
the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), which
wiII receive substantially greater funding allocations.
This vall hopefully improve the success rates for applications
in all areas of health research, including vision.
As we
begin to work through possible models for the operation
of the new CIHR, it is becoming obvious that there are a
number of ways of supporting vision research which might
turn out to be much more effective than establishing a peer
review commiffee. Let me give you a couple of examples.
We anticipate that a significant proportion of the CIHR
budget will flow to what are called "challenge" programs.
These are research programs directed to specific health
problems which have been identified as priorities by the
member Institutes of the CIHR, as a result of a consensus-sefting
process which involves all stakeholders in the work of the
Institutes. It is easy to imagine the vision health research
community, allied with its strong advocates in the voluntary
health sector making a convincing case for a challenge program
in vision health research. This would allow for the development
of vision health research in Canada to the point where it
can compete fully and equally w/ith other areas of health
research for additional CIHR resources.
Secondly,
we can imagine the existence of research "consortia," which
consist of netvmrks of researchers across the country linked
by common interests in specific health research problems.
Consortium funding would allow these investigators to interact
through workshops, video conferences, exchange of investigators
and trainees between laboratories, etc., vath the expectation
that the scientific interactions facilitated through the
consortium would lead to the generation of novel, collaborative,
and multidisciplinary proposals for funding through the
regular programs of CIHR. The excellent work which the VHRC
has already undertaken in uniting a large number of investigators
across the country would give vision researchers a real
advantage in competing for funding for one or several consortia
directed to specific problems in vision research.
In the
past couple of weeks I have had the opportunity to meet
with some members of the vision research community, and
to outline these and other possibilities for furthering
the vision research agenda in the context of CIHR. These
meetings have been very helpful in making MRC aware of the
goals and needs of vision research in Canada, and thus in
our planning for a CIHR environment in which vision research
will flourish.
Please
do contact me if you have any further questions. I vvould
be very happy to explain to you in greater detail some of
our thoughts on how CIHR might operate.
Yours
sincerely,
Mark
A. Bisby, M.A., D. Phil.
Director
Programs Branch
cc:
President, Vision Health Research Council
Hon. Allan Rock
Dr. M. A.
Linseman
