Writing the CIHR Project Grant Proposal

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Project Grant is Canada’s core investigator-initiated health research funding mechanism, open to applicants at any career stage working in any area of health research. Winning an award depends less on eligibility than on how well the application itself is written. This guide covers the writing craft: how to structure the 10-page free-text Research Proposal, how to draft the mandatory Knowledge Translation (KT) plan, and how to complete the mandatory Sex- and Gender-Based Analysis Plus (SGBA+) section, including its required training certificate.

For eligibility rules, budget ranges, competition cycles, and the peer-review/funding-decision process, see the companion guide CIHR Project Grant: Eligibility and Funding Mechanics. This page assumes you already know you’re eligible and are ready to write.

What You’re Actually Submitting: The Application Stack

A CIHR Project Grant application is not a single document. It is a stack of distinct components, each reviewed and each with its own rules:

A structured Application module (project title, keywords, research area classification, budget table, participant list)
The free-text Research Proposal — a PDF attachment, 10 pages maximum in English (12 pages in French), including any text, tables, charts, figures, or photographs within that page count
A separate, page-unrestricted Appendix for references, tables, charts, figures, and photographs that support the Research Proposal
A mandatory Knowledge Translation (KT) plan
A mandatory Sex- and Gender-Based Analysis Plus (SGBA+) section, plus an uploaded SGBA+ training certificate for the Nominated Principal Applicant (NPA)
A Lay Summary (plain-language abstract), limited to 2,000 characters
Ethics attestations
The Common CV (CCV) for the NPA and every co-applicant

Reviewers typically read all of these in sequence, so consistency matters: the objectives stated in the Research Proposal, the audiences named in the KT plan, and the design choices described in the SGBA+ section should all visibly connect to the same study, not read as four documents drafted independently.

Structuring the 10-Page Research Proposal

Unlike NIH’s Specific Aims Page (see how to write an NIH Specific Aims page), CIHR does not mandate a fixed section structure or a required set of headings for the Research Proposal. That flexibility is also the main risk: without a template forcing discipline, it is easy to let one section (usually background) crowd out the sections reviewers are actually scoring against — significance, approach, and feasibility.

Most successful CIHR Research Proposals still converge on a similar shape, because it mirrors the criteria CIHR’s peer-review committees actually apply:

Background and rationale — the gap in current knowledge or practice, stated specifically enough that a reviewer outside your immediate subfield can follow it
Objectives and hypotheses — stated as concretely as your research proposal abstract should be, not as open-ended aspirations
Approach and methods — design, sample/population, data collection, analysis plan, and how potential problems will be handled; this is usually where the most page budget goes
Significance and innovation — why this specific project, now, changes something for the field, for practice, or for patients

Because photographs, charts, and figures count against the same 10-page limit as your text, budget for them deliberately rather than treating them as free real estate — a dense methods diagram can cost you a paragraph of narrative space. Move supporting reference material, secondary tables, and supplementary figures to the unrestricted Appendix wherever the rules allow it, but don’t rely on the Appendix as a workaround: reviewers are not obligated to read it as carefully as the 10-page core proposal, so nothing load-bearing to your argument should live there. See the general principles in how to write a grant proposal and components of a grant proposal for structure guidance that applies across funders, then adapt it to CIHR’s specific 10-page free-text format.

Writing the Knowledge Translation (KT) Plan

CIHR requires an explicit Knowledge Translation (KT) plan in every Project Grant application — a requirement that is more central to CIHR’s application than the equivalent dissemination-plan language is for most other national funders. Treat it as a scored component, not boilerplate appended at the end.

CIHR’s own KT framework distinguishes two approaches, and a strong plan is explicit about which one (or which mix) applies to a given project:

Integrated KT (iKT) — knowledge users (clinicians, patients, policy-makers, community partners) are engaged as partners throughout the research process, not just informed of results afterward. If your project involves patient partners, health-system decision-makers, or community co-investigators in study design, say so here specifically.
End-of-grant KT — dissemination activities that happen once findings exist: peer-reviewed publication, conference presentation, plain-language summaries, clinical practice guideline input, policy briefs, or targeted communication to specific decision-makers.

A KT plan reviewers can actually evaluate names the intended audiences specifically (which researchers, which clinicians, which policy body, which patient population), states a distinct dissemination strategy for each audience rather than one generic list applied to all of them, and identifies measurable outputs — a submitted manuscript, a plain-language summary distributed through a named channel, a guideline submission — rather than only “we will disseminate our findings.” The Knowledge-to-Action (KTA) Framework is the most widely cited academic model underlying this distinction and is worth citing directly if your project’s KT approach maps onto its Action Cycle phases. For the writing mechanics of the audience-facing outputs themselves, see knowledge dissemination: funder requirements and dissemination plans and writing plain-language summaries.

Completing the SGBA+ Section

Sex- and Gender-Based Analysis Plus (SGBA+) is CIHR’s application of the Government of Canada’s broader GBA+ analytical framework, adapted to health research through CIHR’s Institute of Gender and Health. Two requirements apply to every Project Grant application:

A written SGBA+ statement, limited to 2,000 characters, describing how sex and/or gender will be considered in the research design — or, if genuinely not applicable to the project, explaining why not. A bare “not applicable” without justification is a common weakness reviewers flag.
An uploaded SGBA+ Training certificate of completion, for the Nominated Principal Applicant only, for the training module that most closely applies to the research project.

The distinction that matters for the writing itself: sex refers to biological attributes (chromosomes, hormones, anatomy) and gender refers to socially constructed roles, identities, and relations. A rigorous SGBA+ statement is specific about which of the two (or both) is relevant to the study design — for example, whether sex is a biological variable in the analysis plan (disaggregating outcomes by sex), whether gender-related social factors shape recruitment or the phenomenon under study, or both — rather than treating “sex and gender” as one interchangeable term. If sex/gender genuinely does not apply (for example, some laboratory-only or non-human-subjects work), the justification should say specifically why the study design makes it inapplicable, not simply assert that it does.

Lay Summary and Common CV: The Parts Reviewers See First and Last

The Lay Summary (2,000 characters) is often the first thing a reviewer or committee member outside your immediate subfield reads, and it can shape how the rest of your application is received before the Research Proposal is even opened. Write it as a genuine plain-language summary for a non-specialist, not as a compressed version of your abstract’s technical language.

The Common CV (CCV), required for the NPA and every co-applicant, is CIHR’s shared academic-CV platform across several Canadian funders. Its “most significant contributions” section is limited to one page — treat that limit the same way you’d treat any other space-constrained section: prioritize contributions that are directly relevant to the proposed project’s approach and track record, not a chronological list of everything you’ve published.

Common Weaknesses Reviewers Report

A KT plan that lists activities (“we will publish and present”) without naming specific audiences or measurable outputs
An SGBA+ statement that asserts relevance or irrelevance without design-level specifics
A Research Proposal where figures and appendix material carry load-bearing argument that the 10-page core narrative should carry instead
Inconsistency between the objectives stated in the Research Proposal and the audiences/outputs named in the KT plan — reviewers notice when these don’t visibly connect
A Lay Summary that is simply a shortened technical abstract rather than genuinely written for a non-specialist reader

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the CIHR Project Grant’s page limit the same for French-language applications?

No — the Research Proposal page limit is 10 pages in English and 12 pages in French.

Does the Appendix count toward the 10-page Research Proposal limit?

No. The Appendix (references, tables, charts, figures, photographs supporting the Research Proposal) has no page restriction, but it is a separate attachment from the 10-page core proposal, which does include any tables, charts, figures, or photographs placed within it.

Who needs to complete SGBA+ training — every co-applicant, or just one person?

The SGBA+ Training certificate of completion is required only for the Nominated Principal Applicant (NPA), for the training module most applicable to the proposed research.

Is a Knowledge Translation plan unique to CIHR, or do other Tri-Agency funders require one?

CIHR’s requirement for an explicit, scored KT plan in every Project Grant application is a distinguishing feature of CIHR specifically, reflecting health research’s emphasis on translating findings into clinical practice and policy. See Canada’s Tri-Agency Research Funding System for how CIHR’s requirements compare to NSERC’s and SSHRC’s.

What if my project is genuinely too early-stage for a full Project Grant?

CIHR offers smaller, earlier-stage mechanisms for pilot and planning work, including the CIHR Catalyst Grant and the CIHR Planning and Dissemination Grant, both of which can generate the preliminary data or partnerships a strong Project Grant application draws on.

This guide reflects CIHR’s published Project Grant application instructions and general grant-writing practice. Application requirements and character/page limits are set and updated by CIHR per competition — always confirm current specifics directly on ResearchNet and cihr-irsc.gc.ca before finalizing a submission.