A Q&A about how the Tri-agencies are “modernizing” the grant management process

The Tri-agencies are developing a new, centralized portal to manage grants and applications. Professor James Danckert attended a stakeholder workshop in December. We talked to him about the plans for the TGMS and how FAUW members can provide feedback.

What is the Tri-agency Grant Management Solution (TGMS) Initiative trying to achieve?

The TGMS Initiative is a project to build a central grant portal for all three agencies, replacing the existing systems, with the aim of creating something more user friendly and modern. Importantly, with this system, you won’t need to re-enter the same information multiple times: for example, publications entered for a CV won’t have to be re-entered for a grant report, and information can be ported over from one agency to another.

What’s the timeline for rolling this out?

The Tri-agencies are in the process of finding a vendor to build the system, and simultaneously engaging in ongoing consultation with stakeholders. They are looking to have demonstrations of the proof of concept by early 2021. Once they start building it, they plan to roll things out pieces at a time, which they acknowledge could pose a communication challenge.

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Canada’s Fundamental Science Review: Good News for Basic Research!

—Heidi Engelhardt, FAUW Board of Directors

A comprehensive look at research in Canada

The report “Strengthening the Foundations of Canadian Research”, released April 10, 2017, is the culmination of a thorough look at the federal research ‘ecosystem’ in Canada. There is a lot to like here for the entire research community. Although the report was submitted to the Minister of Science, it goes well beyond STEM disciplines. Indeed, research was defined to include both science and non-science (‘scholarly inquiry’).

For this undertaking, the more important distinction was between investigator-led research focused on knowledge generation, versus ‘priority-driven’ research. The latter was defined as research with a tightly defined area of focus, oriented primarily to partnerships (with government, industry, business), or promoting knowledge translation, innovation, and commercialization. The primary focus was on investigator-led research supported by the three granting councils plus CFI, referred to as the four funding agencies.

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Open Access

– Christine Jewell, University of Waterloo Library

Do you follow developments in the Open Access (OA) movement? If so, you’ll have heard the exciting news on the Canadian front. This past October, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) together launched a consultation on a harmonized open access policy.

The agencies are aiming for a policy that is in tune with global trends toward open access of scholarly literature, specifically, peer-reviewed journal publications arising from publicly funded research. The consultation document, entitled the Draft Tri-Agency Open Access Policy, is modeled after the CIHR Open Access Policy that has been in place since 2008. The CIHR policy states that peer-reviewed journal articles must be freely accessible within 12 months of publication. The CIHR policy remains in effect throughout the consultation process. The proposed policy would apply to CIHR grants as well as SSHRC and NSERC grants awarded after September 1, 2014. More information and answers to frequently asked questions are posted on the NSERC website.

The consultation stage of the proposal will end on December 13^th. NSERCC and SSHRC are calling for individual as well as collective responses to be sent to openaccess@nserc-crsng.gc.ca.

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