Research

The Centre for Burn Research conducts research focusing on developing treatments and therapies to improve improve outcomes for burn patients. Our leadership has over 25 years of experience in burn care and research and has helped to develop other leading burn centres around Canada. Our goal is to improve survival and quality of life through high-quality, evidence-based care.

Learn more about the Centre for Burn Research.

A world leader in large clinical trials and population studies, Population Health Research Institute (PHRI) is Canada’s premier cardiovascular research institute. World-class researchers conduct some of the largest studies in the world, spanning all frontiers of the globe and covering a broad spectrum of health-related issues. PHRI’s population science focus examines biological and genetic determinants, as well as social, environmental and policy factors, with an emphasis on risk factors and the prevention of heart attacks, stroke, diabetes, kidney disease and cognitive decline. PHRI has conducted more than 80 global trials and epidemiological studies in more than 1,500 centres, in 86 countries, in all inhabited continents.

Visit the PHRI website to learn more.

The Escarpment Cancer Research Institute (ECRI) is focused on improving care for cancer patients by focusing on three thematic areas: clinical trials, quality health care and knowledge translation research, and transitional (bench-to-bedside) research. ECRI brings together successful, well-established teams with newly formed cancer research groups in order to embrace and create new opportunities for synergies in research.

Visit the ECRI website to learn more.

The primary focus of the Thrombosis & Atherosclerosis Research Institute (TaARI) is research excellence in thrombosis and atherosclerosis. TaARI’s core research programs include the Experimental Thrombosis and Atherosclerosis Program, the Clinical Thromboembolism Program, the Biometrics Group, and the Comparative Medicine Program which focuses on the translation of basic research findings into clinically relevant models prior to evaluation in humans.

Visit the TaARI website to learn more.

Research conducted at the Offord Centre has had an important impact in Ontario, in Canada, and internationally. It is commonly stated that one in five children in Canada have a mental health challenge. That statistic comes from the Offord Centre’s 1983 landmark study, The Ontario Child Health Study, one of the most important population-based studies on children’s mental health conducted anywhere in the last 30 years.

Visit the Offord Centre website to learn more.

The GERAS Centre is committed to educating and empowering seniors to regain and retain independence and to manage their health through active participation in their care. These new models of care engage family members and build capacity for support within the community. The experts at St. Peter’s Hospital are also dedicated to advancing healthcare education for the present and next generation of healthcare professionals. Through innovative research the GERAS Centre aims to close the gap between knowing and doing to contribute to improved quality of life for seniors.

Visit the GERAS Centre website to learn more.

The Clinical Research Laboratory and Biobank (CRLB) is a state-of-the-art research facility which provides comprehensive Central Laboratory services to support global clinical studies and innovative research. The facility has the capacity to accommodate 100 large storage tanks, each holding approximately 80,000 vials. Samples in the Biobank are linked to relevant clinical information relating to diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, stroke, kidney disease, fractures and cancer. It is the largest research biobank in Canada, with several million samples from around the world which support on-going research at Hamilton Health Sciences.

Visit the CRLB website to learn more.

Hamilton Health Sciences has two highly sought-after Youth Outreach Programs designed to mentor the next generation.

Discovery Days In Health Sciences: A one-day symposium for Ontario high school students in grades 10-12 who are considering a career in Health Sciences.

High School Research Bursary: Designed for senior high school students interested in pursuing, or accepted into, university or college level post-secondary studies in Health or Life Sciences.

Hamilton Health Sciences has multiple clinical sites and a rich, collaborative research network. This has helped to accelerate the knowledge transfer process and ensure best proven practices for healthcare delivery.

Covering a broad spectrum of health research, HHS investigators explore basic laboratory, clinical and epidemiological research. Strict guidelines and policies combined with a sophisticated infrastructure support system ensure the highest level of data integrity, adherence to national and international regulations, and timely reports. Our teams provide start to completion expertise, including:

• Conceptual development & protocol
• Study design and set-up, data management, statistical analysis
• Study initiation, site selection, recruitment, regulatory approval
• Study maintenance: ongoing monitoring, study close-out, data analysis, central laboratory analysis, presentation of final results
• Publication and dissemination of study results
• Regulatory submissions, clinical trial reports

Hamilton Health Sciences protects you and your patients with the following:

Legally-binding agreements

Confidentiality agreements, clinical trial agreements, site agreements, amendments, grant agreements, memorandum of understanding, data sharing agreements, material transfer agreements.

Internal Policies

The research contracts team ensures our internal policies on research, publication, intellectual property, insurance, etc. are followed.

CAHO – The Council of Academic Hospitals of Ontario

We base our clinical trial agreements on the CAHO Statement of Principles. In fact, we were on the CAHO Steering Committee that developed these principles.

CAHO Harmonization of Clinical Study Agreements Initiative

In an effort to reduce timelines and promote transparency in contract negotiation, HHS has adopted the document developed through an initiative of Council of Academic Hospitals of Ontario (CAHO) and entitled “Statement of Principles to be Considered when Negotiating a Clinical Studies Agreement” which can be accessed on the CAHO website, or is available for download here. HHS encourages companies to review and incorporate these principles into its clinical study agreement templates prior to entering into negotiations with us. If any of the items in the principles document are issues of concern, please do not hesitate to contact the Research Contracts Team to discuss them.

To learn more about collaborative opportunities with Hamilton Health Sciences Research, contact us:

293 Wellington St. N., Suite 120
Hamilton, ON

HHS DRIVE is proud to offer the SPARK Funding grant for operationalizing innovation and commercialization. The award is intended to support any Hamilton Health Science employee with costs towards advancing the conceptualization, development and/or commercialization of their innovative healthcare-related idea or solution. Two awardees will be funded up to $50,000 per year to demonstrate tangible advancements towards their solutions.

Learn more about DRIVE here.

Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) commitment to exemplify diversity and support the development, growth and sustainability of research work undertaken by HHS investigators has led to establishing a new Bridge or Match Funding Program with specific intention to:

1. Assist investigators whose grant applications have not been successful, having a close score to fundable level, on a recent peer-review grant to any national granting agency and who demonstrate a need for Bridge funding.
2. Assist investigators who require an Institutional Match Commitment for external granting agency funding.

Funding Allocation

Subject to availability of funding, HHS Research will allocate at total of $300,000 annually – $150,000 for each competition round.  Each project may be awarded a maximum of $50,000.  The number of applications funded will depend on the quality and number of applications received, as well as amount requested by each applicant.

For more information and details, please reference the Guidelines for Application and Application Form provided below as hyperlinks. Only one application submission per Principal Investigator for each competition will be considered.

Important Dates – Submit applications to: researchnetwork@hhsc.ca

Spring Competition Deadline:  May 15^th

Fall Competition Deadline:  November 15^th

Important Forms

Guidelines for Application

Application Form

As part of its COVID-19 Economic Response Plan, the Government of Canada recently introduced the Canada Research Continuity Emergency Fund (CRCEF) program.

The objectives of the program are to:

• provide wage support to universities and health research institutions (including Hamilton Health Sciences) to help them to retain research-related personnel during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic; and
• support extraordinary incremental costs associated with maintaining essential research-related commitments during the COVID-19 pandemic, and then ramping-up to full research activities as physical distancing measures are eased and research activities can resume.

The CRCEF program includes three funding stages.

Stages 1, 2, and 4 provide wage support for research personnel (i.e. undergraduate or graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and other personnel associated with research projects) who are, or were:

• employed by universities or health research institutions (including Hamilton Health Sciences) for some period of time between March 15th and August 29th, 2020;
• working for faculty members conducting research, or in scientific and engineering facilities/laboratories supporting broad research objectives;
• unable to do all or some of the work for which they were hired as a consequence COVID-19;
• paid in part or in whole from eligible non-governmental sources, or were supposed to be paid from eligible non-governmental sources but were paid less than planned or laid off as a result of COVID-19; and
• not claiming other wage support (e.g. Canada Emergency Response Benefit [CERB]).

Stage 3 of the CRCEF program provides support for direct costs incurred between March 15^th and November 15^th, 2020, associated with maintenance and ramp-up of research activities, such as:

• animal and specimen care through the crisis period;
• maintenance of equipment, software, cohorts, datasets, including warranties, licenses and service contracts;
• technological equipment for remote access to maintain assets;
• safety equipment for personnel dedicated to maintenance;
• re-organizing the research environment and activities;
• additional costs to bring the research back to its pre-pandemic level, including experiments or related to the restart of collections and datasets (e.g., population-based, environmental);
• re-scheduling and restarting human and clinical trials;
• exceptional costs to access special facilities, platforms and resources, knowledge transfer meetings and workshops;
• restarting, reassembling and safety checks of equipment and facilities;
• reacquiring lost and donated laboratory and field supplies and equipment, reagents, perishable materials, laboratory animal and other living specimens; and
• personal protective equipment and related items for research personnel.

To access CRCEF funding McMaster must submit an application to each stage of the program demonstrating need for the requested funding. The applications are submitted by McMaster University on behalf of the University and its affiliated health research institutions – Hamilton Health Sciences Corporation (HHSC) and St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton (SJHH).

The CRCEF program awarded Stage 1 funding to universities and their affiliated health research institutions (including us at Hamilton Health Sciences) on the basis of a formula that was applied to each institution’s annual average over three years (2015-16 to 2017-18) of the total of research income from all non-governmental sources as indicated in the Canadian Association of University Business Officers (CAUBO) research income reports.

The Stage 1 funds awarded to McMaster University, and their affiliated health research institutions, HHSC and SJHH, were allocated among the three institutions in accordance with the share of the awarded funds earned by each institution. The share of allocation earned was determined by each institution’s share of the average over three years (2015-16 to 2017-18) of the total of research income from all non-governmental sources outlined in the CAUBO research income report.

Eligible Expenses:

• eligible expenses for wage support incurred between March 15, 2020 and August 29, 2020;
• up to 75% of the portion of research personnel’s salaries/wages normally supported by non-governmental sources, to a maximum of $847 per week for up to 12 weeks of salary support (consecutive or broken up over the eligibility period) per individual;
• personnel who have been laid off or furloughed as a result of COVID-19 within the eligibility period, as long as they are rehired and their retroactive pay and status meet the eligibility criteria for the claim period. Should the funds be used to retroactively pay personnel who were laid off, those personnel will be required to attest in writing that they did not receive wage support from other sources (e.g. the Canada Emergency Response Benefit [CERB]) during the lay off period

Based on an assessment of the data available from our respective institutional systems and information obtained directly from Researchers, HHSC and SJHH have determined that their shares of the awarded CRCEF Stage 1 funds are sufficient to address the need for eligible wage support at their institutions.

A similar assessment of institutional systems data and information obtained from researchers regarding eligible costs was conducted by McMaster University. Based on that assessment the University has determined that they will not apply for additional funding for wage from Stage 2 of the CRCEF program.

Stage 3 of the Canada Research Continuity Emergency Fund (CRCEF) provides support for direct costs of research that have been incurred to:

• maintain essential research-related commitments during the COVID-19 pandemic; and/or
• support ramping-up to full research activities as physical distancing measures are eased and research activities can resume.

Stage 3 funds can be used to reimburse up to 75% direct costs of research that are:

• specific to a research project;
• extraordinary and incremental to those already covered by existing sources of funds (governmental or non-governmental). Extraordinary incremental costs are defined as unanticipated additional costs that would not normally have been incurred in the absence of the COVID-19 pandemic and cannot be funded by existing sources of funds; and
• incurred between March 15 and November 15, 2020 (with the exception of personnel costs associated with research maintenance and/or ramp-up activities which must be incurred between August 30 and November 15, 2020).

Application Process

To access the Stage 3 funds HHS must demonstrate that:

• researchers have incurred, or will incur, research maintenance and/or ramp-up costs that align with the program eligibility criteria noted above; and
• researchers are in need of support to cover those costs.

Completion of the application form does not guarantee that funds to reimburse all eligible costs will be available. The availability of funding will depend on the amount of Stage 3 CRCEF funding the University is able to access and the level of need identified by McMaster researchers.

As with previous stages and convenience for investigators, HHS Research Finance has reviewed all the details and analyzed the data for eligibility for all stages. In addition, we continue to work very closely with administrative and financial leads at our joint university/hospital research institutes and centres to determine eligibility in those areas for stage 3 funding.

In particular, as with previous stages, the practical administration of the program:

1. For research being conducted in a Joint Hospital/University Research Institute (PHRI, TaARI, ECRI (incl. JCC CTD and OCOG)), Research Finance will work with the administrative/financial leads in those areas.
2. For independent researchers, or researchers who are part of joint institutes but also conduct research outside of the joint institutes please reach out directly to Research Finance.

However, regardless of your membership within a formal joint university/hospital research institute/centre, if you would like to specifically discuss your expenses or apply for specific expenses please complete this application form for stage 3 funding and return as per the instructions no later than December 11, 2020.

Should the eligible incurred costs identified by researchers exceed the amount of Stage 3 funding awarded to HHS, the following priorities will guide allocation of the available funds:

• researchers who self-identify as a member of an historically underserved, marginalized or excluded group
• researchers who are engaged in research projects that involve marginalized and/or equity-seeking participants, communities, or partners
• early career researchers who have held an independent academic position for five years or less as of July 1, 2020
• researchers whose grant or contract funding has been decreased or cancelled by the sponsor as a consequence of COVID-19
• costs incurred by shared research platforms, facilities, centres or institutes
• research projects that have incurred eligible costs in excess of $1,500
• we give priority to local HHS hospital based expenses (i.e.: expenses incurred at HHS sites) over HHS sites based outside of HHS (i.e.: at other Canadian based institutions or international sites).

Applications that fall outside of these priority areas will receive an equal proportion of any remaining funds.

Information on how McMaster, HHS and SJHH received funding from the Program:

For Stage 3, an initial maximum payable allocation per applicant will be established based on the applicant’s proportionate share of total sponsored research income (including governmental research income).

This allocation will be based on the publicly available FIUC data from CAUBO and the supplemental data provided by universities and non-affiliated health research institutions not included in the CAUBO dataset. Applicants must justify need for the funds based on actual costs incurred. If some applicants do not establish need or do not request Stage 3 funding up to their maximum allocation, funds will be reallocated on a prorated basis to those applicants demonstrating need in excess of their maximum Stage 3 allocation. For Stage 3, the maximum payable allocation will be calculated according to the following formula. For each applicant, the distribution will be prorated and based on:

• the CAUBO total research income data, or data on total research income provided by universities and non-affiliated health research institutions not included in the CAUBO dataset; and
• the annual average over three years (2015-16 to 2017-18) for the total research income from all sources.”

Unlike stage 1, there was not an awarded amount of funding on the basis of a formula such as the institution’s annual average over three years (2015-16 to 2017-18) of the total of research income from all non-governmental sources as indicated in the Canadian Association of University Business Officers (CAUBO) research income reports. Stage 4 was done on an application/need basis. As such, there is no guarantee that funds to reimburse all eligible costs will be available.

Eligible expenses:

• eligible expenses for wage support incurred between March 15, 2020 and August 29, 2020;
• up to 75% of the portion of research personnel’s salaries/wages normally supported by non-governmental sources, to a maximum of $847 per week for up to 24 weeks of salary support (consecutive or broken up over the eligibility period) per individual. Researchers who receive Stage 1 support for research personnel costs are eligible for an additional 12 weeks of salary support from Stage 4;
• personnel who have been laid off or furloughed as a result of COVID-19 within the eligibility period, as long as they are rehired and their retroactive pay and status meet the eligibility criteria for the claim period. Should the funds be used to retroactively pay personnel who were laid off, those personnel will be required to attest in writing that they did not receive wage support from other sources (e.g. the Canada Emergency Response Benefit [CERB]) during the lay off period.

Decisions regarding the allocation of CRCEF funds within Hamilton Health Sciences will be made by the Executive Committee on Research (ECOR).  ECOR is chaired by the Vice-President Research, and includes individuals who represent historically under-represented groups.  All ECOR members have received training in unconscious bias.

Current representation of voting members include:

Chair: VP, Research & Chief Innovation Officer
Executive VP , Academic & Chief Medical Executive
Executive VP, Corporate Affairs & Chief Financial Officer
Executive Director, Population Health Research Institute
Deputy Director, Population Health Research Institute
Executive Director, Thrombosis & Atherosclerosis Research Institute
Director, Escarpment Cancer Research Institute
Director, Offord Centre for Child Studies
Director, Geriatrics Education Research Aging Sciences
Director, Clinical Health Professionals Research
Associate Dean of Research, Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University

Ad Hoc Member/HHS CRCEF Representative:  Anthony Scandinavo, Director of Research Finance

HHS’ Executive Committee on Research is committed to managing the CRCEF funds in a manner that aligns with the principles of equity, diversity and inclusion. The decisions made by ECOR regarding allocation of CRCEF funds awarded to Hamilton Health Sciences are consistent with HHS’ commitment to value and respect the richness of diversity of the communities we serve, and dedicated to cultivating a welcoming, inclusive and safe environment free from discrimination and oppression for everyone who enters through our doors.

At HHS, we actively strive to create an equitable environment where people’s diverse identities and perspectives are valued and included. We strive to create an environment where all staff feel dignified, engaged, and empowered to deliver on HHS’ mission of Best Care for All. HHS recognizes its people are best positioned to do this by increasing their skills, confidence, and capabilities through a range of human rights and inclusion training and programs, events, and projects.

Specifically, our Human Rights and Inclusion initiatives include various training and programs that are specifically designed to educate our workforce on equitable and social engagement with the diverse communities we work with and provide care for at HHS:

• Two-Spirit & LGBTQIA+ Positive Space Training
• Ally in Action Training
• Compassionate Cross Cultural Communication Training
• Intersectional Anti-Racism: Anti-Oppression Analysis Training
• Ethics and Diversity Grand Rounds
• On-demand training related to harassment, workplace violence, and other human rights-related issues.

For more details on Human Rights and Inclusion initiatives, please visit the Office of Human Rights and Inclusion section on this page (click).

To minimize the impact of implicit biases and systemic barriers, while acknowledging inequities that contribute to differing experiences of COVID-19, the following commitments will guide ECOR’s management of the CRCEF funds:

• All HHS Researchers, regardless of discipline or area of focus, have the opportunity and have been encouraged to identify costs that are eligible for CRCEF support;
• All eligible requests for CRCEF support will receive the same consideration; and
• The process whereby costs eligible for CRCEF funding are identified will be simple, flexible, and account for the fact that the circumstances of some HHS Researchers (such as other demands and/or commitments, health issues or technological limitations) may impact their ability to participate in the process.

In accordance with these directives, upon release of the CRCEF program guidelines, to ensure that all researchers were aware of the CRCEF program and had the opportunity to request support, an announcement was issued to all HHS Researchers, as well as the larger research community, advising them of the CRCEF funding opportunity, and encouraging them to identify and request support for eligible costs.

A process was created to provide HHS Researchers an opportunity to identify their need for CRCEF funding and assign delegates to provide information on their behalf, should they choose to do so. Information about who to contact for assistance was shared on a number of occasions with all researchers, over email, and at regular HHS Research Townhalls. Moreover, HHS researchers were directed on a number of occasions to the Canada Research Continuity Emergency Fund (CRCEF) website to gain an understanding of the details of the funding program.  Our Research Finance team also did a full HHS Research Enterprise scan to assess the eligible wage support needs for stages 1, 2 and 4 and a full expense review for stage 3 on behalf of HHS’ research community.

The following Hamilton Health Sciences representative is responsible for ensuring the CRCEF program’s requirements are satisfied, and can be contacted should there be any questions or concerns regarding management of CRCEF funds at Hamilton Health Sciences:

Anthony Scandinavo, Director, Research Finance
Hamilton Health Sciences Corporation
Email: scandinavo@hhsc.ca