Canadian Blood Services / CIHR Operating Grants

Canadian Blood Services partners with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health to provide operating grant funding to highly rated applications that are relevant to Canadian Blood Services research priorities in transfusion science.

Due to program reform at CIHR, applicants can no longer indicate on a Project Grant application that they wish it to be considered for partnered support from Canadian Blood Services, as they did in previous years under the Major Operating Grant program and the CBS-CIHR Partnership in Transfusion Science. In the interest of preserving a mutually beneficial partnership, Canadian Blood Services has entered into an agreement with CIHR to consider highly competitive applications that are not funded as part of the Project Grant competition for potential operating grant funding. Only proposals deemed relevant to the research priorities of Canadian Blood Services in transfusion science (listed below) will be considered for potential funding. This pilot agreement currently applies to the Project Grant: Fall 2016 funding competition alone. CIHR will share submitted Project Grant application material with Canadian Blood Services, as well as final CIHR peer review ranking information, for all relevant applications for which applicant consent has been received. Funding decisions will then be made solely at the discretion of Canadian Blood Services and funding for selected applications will be administered solely by Canadian Blood Services. Funded project start dates will be as early as possible in 2017 after CIHR notifies applicants of Project Grant application outcomes on or about 2017-05-15.

Canadian Blood Services will consider Project Grant applications for funding if they relate to the following areas in Transfusion Science:

  • Blood Supply Risk: Examples of relevant areas include research on blood donor deferral strategies to mitigate known complications of transfusion and the risk of transmission of blood borne diseases including emerging pathogens; policy development and social aspects of blood system safety and risk tolerance.
  • Blood Utilization and Conservation: Blood products and their derivatives include cellular blood components (red blood cells and platelets), plasma products, therapeutic proteins fractioned from plasma, and replacement products for any of these including recombinant proteins, ex vivo culture and synthetic materials. Conservation refers to strategies to reduce the use of donor-derived blood products. 


Current competition:

Previous competition:


Return to Funding Programs