| EVENT |
DATE |
| Applications Open |
March 6th |
| Deadline to apply |
June 1st |
| Review of applications |
June 2nd – July 15th |
| Notice of funding results |
September |
| Award Start date |
January 1st |
| Award period |
January – December, 3 years |
Reviewer Assignment and Conflict of Interest:
1. Upon application deadline, the Platform Manager collates applications and ensures that each applicant meets all eligibility requirements.
2. An email is sent to all Selection Committee members with a list of applicants and their demographics, for conflicts of interest and declaration of expertise.
3. The Platform Manager sends the Selection Committee Chair, Co-Chair and Director the list of applicants with demographics, project title, abstract, and conflicts of interest. Individuals with a conflict of interest for certain applicants, and from the same institution will not be assigned to the applicant in question.
4. The Selection Committee Chair, Co-Chair, and platform manager assign 3-5 reviewers to each candidate: Emails are sent to the reviewers to accept or decline and declare any conflict of interest. A new reviewer will be assigned if a reviewer declines or has a conflict. Reviewers who accept a review may be required to join a Selection virtual meeting. The Platform Manager sends each reviewer the applications they will be reviewing with an evaluation form.
Reviews and Scoring:
5. Reviewers are given approximately 4-6 weeks to complete their reviews and return the evaluation form with scores.
6. Reviewers will score the candidates based on the following categories. Each category contributes the specific weight (described in points) to the application’s overall score out of 100. Reviewers carefully consider all the contexts detailed in applicants’ Personal Statement when assigning a score to each area. Reviewers are not required to provide detailed comments on each application.
| CATEGORY |
POINTS |
| RESEARCH, CLINICAL, AND/OR ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENTS |
20 POINTS |
Grades:
- Reviewers are looking for progress and an upward trajectory through your academic career, not a perfect GPA
- Reviewers will carefully consider any contexts noted in the personal statement section of the application that have impacted your academic record
|
4 points |
Research and/or clinical contributions or achievements: Reviewers will holistically assess the contributions noted in your CCV and your Research, Academic and/or Clinical Contributions statement. These include:
- scholarships, fellowships, and awards
- contributions as a health professional to patient care, policy, practice
- inventions or patents
- publications aimed at scholarly readers or the public
- presentations at academic conferences, to school or special interest groups
- other scientific outreach activities
|
16 points |
| COMMUNITY CONTRIBUTIONS |
20 POINTS |
| Social conscience: Your community contributions demonstrate a sense of citizenship and care for the community/communities to which you belong and suggest that you’ll be a caring and contributing member of the TRIANGLE and broader GI/liver communities |
10 points |
| Personal Characteristics: Your contributions demonstrate positive personal characteristics (e.g. leadership, service, determination, care for others, sense of justice, etc.) that indicate you will be a positive addition to the TRIANGLE community and the GI/liver field. You effectively articulate how your community contributions, as highlighted in the Community Contributions statement, connect to and have prepared you to move forward with your research and/or career plans. |
10 points |
| CAREER AND DEVELOPMENT PLANS |
20 POINTS |
Career and Development Plan: Your plan effectively articulates why and how membership in TRIANGLE and access to TRIANGLE supports will help you achieve your research and career goals
- You do not need to know what career or industry you’re aiming for
- Reviewers want to understand what you want to contribute or improve as someone trained in GI/liver research and/or practice, but you don’t need to know yet specifically where or how you’ll do that
- TRIANGLE programming and supports include many opportunities for career and personal exploration, so your career and development plan can and should involve exploring career options via:
- Career exploration workshops and activities (including the annual IDP creation and review with your mentor)
- Personal exploration workshops and activities (including the annual IDP creation and review with your mentor)
- Networking and mentorship with professionals in business, government, non-profit, or research
- Experiential learning placements in business, government, non-profit, or research
- Other activities that you’d like to propose and/or lead as a TRIANGLE member
|
10 points |
| Research and/or Clinical Contributions Statement: You effectively articulate how your research and/or clinical contributions, highlighted in the Research and/or Clinical Contributions statement, connect to and have prepared you to move forward with your research and/or career plans. |
10 points |
| RESEARCH PLAN |
30 POINTS |
Scientific quality of the plan: You effectively articulate, for a non-specialist audience that includes researchers, health practitioners, and patients:
- the relevance, significance, and potential impact of your project
- the novelty of your project, i.e. the gap in knowledge that you’re proposing to fill and the necessity of filling it, any novel methods/approaches/tools you’ll be using
- a compelling hypothesis
- clear aims
- the measures you’re taking to ensure a high-quality study (e.g. selection of methods, adequate population size to ensure statistical significance, controlling for confounding factors, carefully considering sex/gender, research ethics (including working with Indigenous patients and participants
- how you’re going to share your research findings
|
15 points |
Feasibility: You effectively articulate:
- how your research and/or clinical experience to date will help you be successful with this project
- any published or preliminary data you’ve already collected
- any training or collaborations you are currently, or are planning to, pursue to fill any skill or knowledge gaps
- why your PI is the right choice for this project in terms of their experience and expertise
|
10 points |
| Research environment: Why your institution and lab are the best choice for pursuing the proposed project (including monetary and non-monetary resources, equipment, core facilities, funding, training, professional development, etc.) |
5 points |
| SUPERVISOR LETTER |
10 POINTS |
| Research environment: The environment is clearly one that will allow the applicant to succeed with the proposed research. |
2 points |
| Support of the Project: The supervisor has a clear understanding of the project and their role in ensuring its success via training, support, funding, resources, training, etc. The supervisor has committed the support necessary for the project’s success |
4 points |
| Supervision plan: The supervisor clearly articulates a feasible and supportive plan for supervision, contact time etc. that will ensure the success of the candidate and their project |
2 points |
| Commitment to TRIANGLE: The supervisor supports the candidate’s full participation in the TRIANGLE program and in professional development activities offered at or outside their home institution, including experiential learning placements and attendance at the TRIANGLE annual summit at CDDW-CLM. Additionally, the supervisor commits to participating in TRIANGLE as a faculty mentor and contributor. Please note that this supervisory commitment is mandatory for all TRIANGLE applicants. Any applicants or supervisors who are concerned about this commitment should reach out to the TRIANGLE program for additional guidance. |
2 points |
Ranking:
7. All candidates are ranked based on their scores. The top 6 candidates are selected for funding. Ranks 1 to 3 will be offered an AMPLIFY award (salary support). Applicants ranked in positions 4-6 will be offered an ENRICH award (no salary support).
8. Should a candidate within ranks 1-3 have salary support at the national or provincial level, they will receive an ENRICH award, and the next ranked individual who is eligible for salary support will receive it.
9. Should a PI have more than 1 applicant in the top 6, only 1 candidate will be funded, and the next ranked individual under other supervisors will be awarded.
10. Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Prioritization Statement: We are committed to advancing equity, diversity, and inclusion within our training and funding programs. As part of this commitment, the review committee may prioritize applications from individuals who identify as members of equity‑deserving groups, including but not limited to Black and Indigenous trainees, as well as applicants from underrepresented geographical regions. These applicants must meet the CIHR academic eligibility cutoff, but they may not necessarily rank within the top scoring tier of applicants. Prioritization will be applied to ensure that our awards foster greater inclusivity, broaden participation, and support trainees who have historically faced systemic barriers within health research.
11. This process will continue until all 6 awards are assigned. Should an unclear ranking be determined, a virtual panel review will be conducted as described below.
Executive Committee Approval:
12. The rank order will be presented and discussed and approved by the Steering Committee. This decision will be based on funding availability and recommendations from the Director and Selection Committee Chair and Co-Chair.
Notice of Award:
13. Following the decision, notification letters will be sent to all candidates. These letters will be drafted by the Platform Manager, then vetted by the Selection Committee Chair, Co-Chair, and Director. Copies of the reviews will not be sent to the candidates. However, each letter will include up to 2 strengths and 2 weaknesses from each reviewer as feedback. Candidates are also welcome to follow up with the Program Manager should additional feedback be requested.
Grievances:
14. All grievances with the selection process can be brought to the Steering Committee via the Program Manager or anonymous feedback survey: https://surveys.sickkids.ca/surveys/?s=47TLPWH9MNJN9AHF
15. A follow-up telephone call with the Selection Committee Chair can be requested if a candidate has specific questions regarding feedback provided by the selection committee and the outcome of the competition.
Virtual panel review if required (Follows standard CIHR grant review process):
- The Platform Manager sends out a personal scorecard to each Selection Committee member one week before the meeting.
- The Platform Manager shares the reviewer scores and their averages with the Selection Committee Chair, Co-Chair and Director. If scores for a candidate are highly variable, the Selection Committee Chair, Co-Chair and Director may request to see the reviews.
- Based on (a) the compatibility of the scores among reviewers for each candidate and (b) conflicts of interest among Selection committee members, the Selection Committee Chair and Co-Chair will determine the order of discussion for each candidate. Reviewers with a conflict of interest will be asked to leave the meeting when reviewing the applicant in question and prompted to return when the discussion is complete. Should the Director have a conflict, the Director will leave the call and the Selection Chair will act as the Director and Selection Co-Chair as the Chair. Should the Selection Chair have a conflict, they will leave the call and the Selection Co-Chair will act as the Selection Chair.
- At the Selection Committee meeting, each candidate will be reviewed in the order determined by the Selection Committee Chair.
- For applicants who attained low scores, the Selection Committee Chair and Co-Chair may request to streamline the application. If approved by all reviewers, this application will not be discussed.
- Scientific review: Reviewers 1, 2, and 3, will each state their scores and then respectively outline their reviews of the proposed application.
- A discussion then follows with the rest of the selection committee who may have additional questions, concerns or insights.
- The 3 scientific reviewers agree on a consensus score based on the application discussion. All scientific review members of the selection committee are then asked to (a) record the consensus score on their scorecards; (b) score the candidate plus or minus (+/-) 0.5 of the consensus score.
- The above 3 items are repeated for each candidate until all candidates have been reviewed. Selection Committee members with conflicts are asked to leave before and return after (via text message) the conflicting application.
- Immediately following the virtual meeting, each reviewer emails the Platform Manager their completed personal scorecards.
- A tally and average of the personal scores is created by the Platform Manager. The Selection Committee Chair, and Director are sent the final average only of the tally for each candidate. Please see line item #7 “Ranking” for next steps.
