The issues
In many ways, the Canadian renal researcher lives in privileged times. Never before has she or he enjoyed such remarkable access to the tools of the trade. Unprecedented advances in biotechnology, genomics, molecular biology, regenerative medicine, tissue banking, and computer databases along with the implementation of numerous infrastructure projects on a scale unparalleled in our history have together luxuriously equipped our scientific community. We stand poised for breakthroughs that will significantly impact the renal health of Canadians both tomorrow and well into the future. Thanks to initiatives such as the federally funded Canada Foundation for Innovation along with its provincial and local partners, it is not uncommon for both basic and clinician scientists specializing in nephrology to be employing state-of-the-art equipment, housed in dozens of newly minted laboratories and research buildings across our country. Moreover, training programs such as the Kidney Foundation of Canada (KFoC)/Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) supported Kidney Research Scientist Core Education and National Training Program (KRESCENT) initiative have fostered the development of the next generation of investigators, each eager to contribute to the advancement of knowledge.
However, the times wherein the Canadian renal researcher lives are also defined by enormous challenges. Despite the wealth of research infrastructure and an abundance of well-trained investigators, as in the USA, our national research endeavor seems to have been designed however, inadvertently, in anticipation of unlimited growth. Over the past 15 years, universities, hospitals, and research institutes have continued to hire into new positions in order to fill expanding wet and dry lab space to capacity. Despite this increase in the hiring of principal investigators, our system continues to train far more graduate students and postdoctoral fellows than there are positions in academia, industry, and government. Competition for new investigator spots is fierce, forcing many individuals to remain in training positions during their most creative years until either obtaining their first independent position or leaving research for other career options. These issues have imposed stress upon the system and together with an unchanging pool of funds available to investigators, have driven down funding success for many individual research operations.
Not long ago, CIHR funding levels hovered at the 20–27 % range; on some peer-review committees, this was as high as 40 %, allowing for most applications ranked in the excellent range (i.e., ≥4.0 on the CIHR scale) to be approved. Recent open operating grant competitions have seen application pressure steadily increase, placing greater burdens on both reviewers and their committees. This has created a vicious cycle where highly ranked proposals line up in the queue, often requiring several resubmissions before being funded, if at all. With the declining success rates for CIHR applications, more applicants have sought funding from other agencies, similarly driving up application pressures and decreasing success rates. The net effect has been that funding rates with most sources are now at historic lows.
Predictable, long-term funding for research projects has proved increasingly difficult to sustain as these success rates drop, often forcing labs to lose key staff in order to endure down cycles. Moreover, the recent devaluation of the Canadian versus American dollar has further destabilized matters since many consumables are sourced from the USA. Meanwhile, the capacity for extramural funding agencies such as the Kidney Foundation of Canada, a longtime supporter of renal research, has remained limited over the past 15 years. Today’s CAD$50,000 per annum, KFoC biomedical research grant has the purchasing power equivalent to CAD$36,000 in the year 2000. The KFoC is not the lone example however; fundraising efforts, endowments and industry-based “no-strings-attached” money have all suffered since the “Great Recession” of 2008. Despite widespread cuts to most departments, the federal government has not reduced the level of funding to the CIHR. Unfortunately, the relatively stagnant pool of research dollars has struggled to keep pace with inflation in biomedical research. The net result of these economic realities, coupled with an expanding pool of investigators is that today’s renal scientist is spending more of their time writing a greater number of grant applications in a far more competitive environment than their peers a generation ago—all at the expense of carrying out actual research.