Concerns regarding a decline in clinical research have been raised internationally. In this study, research initiatives and competitiveness of investigators seeking funding for clinical research were compared with those for three other health research themes in Canada, namely, biomedical, population-based, and health services research.
A retrospective, multi-level descriptive study was conducted using administrative data from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) research grants program. Annual growth rates in numbers of proposals submitted since year 2000 (level I of comparison), success rates of submissions (level II), and growth rates in funding received since fiscal-year 1999-00 (level III) were compared across themes.
Proposal submission (Level I): The average annual rate of growth in proposal submissions for biomedical, clinical, population-based and health services research was 11.8%, 6.3%, 105.0% and 43.2%, respectively. Success rate (Level II) was lower in clinical research (24%; P-value