CRAJ Winter 2019

Winter 2019 (Volume 29, Number 4)

CIORA: A Call for Grants

By Janet Pope, MD, MPH, FRCPC

The Canadian Initiative for Outcomes in Rheumatology cAre (CIORA) is a unique granting division of the Canadian Rheumatology Association. CIORA is committed to being a catalyst to improve the care of Canadians living with all rheumatic diseases, and supports research initiatives related to three pillars: multidisciplinary care teams, early access for all rheumatic disease patients, and awareness/advocacy/education.

Diversity of research directions relevant to the field of clinical rheumatology supported expansion of the original three pillars established for CIORA funding.

For the 2020 grant competition, there has been a subcategory added within the awareness/advocacy/education pillar to include grant proposals for research on health economics, sustainability of health care and quality improvement. Proposals within this area can include determination of cost effectiveness, identification and utilization of quality indicators in monitoring patient care, and assessment of systems to sustain health care.

Details of proposal requirements towards the education domain within the awareness/advocacy/education pillar have been updated for this upcoming grant competition, as have the proposal requirements for the multidisciplinary care team pillar.

A member (in good standing) of the Canadian Rheumatology Association (CRA) must be either a principal investigator or co-investigator on all grant proposals submitted for CIORA grant competitions. A call for one- or two-year grant applications is upcoming for 2020, opening on January 27, 2020. Letters of intent must be submitted by February 21, 2020. More information on required components of the grant proposals, possible outcome measures for proposal categories, and review scoring systems can be found within the CIORA terms of reference at rheum.ca/ciora/.

Janet Pope, MD, MPH, FRCPC
Professor of Medicine,
Division Head,
Division of Rheumatology,
Department of Medicine,
St. Joseph’s Health Care,
Western University
London, Ontario