Due to decisions made in Budget 2009, SSHRC has reduced its funding for health-related research that is eligible under the CIHR mandate.

Applicants should consider the following in their decision whether to apply to SSHRC if their research is related to health:

• Research that is primarily intended to improve health, produce more effective health services and products and/or strengthen the Canadian health care system (e.g., research concerning the treatment, prevention or diagnosis of a condition, the evaluation of the effectiveness of health programs, the development of health management systems, etc.) is not eligible for consideration at SSHRC.
• Research involving clinical trials, with a health research orientation, is not eligible for SSHRC support.
• Research that is eligible under the mandate of CIHR will not be considered by SSHRC. CIHR provides funding opportunities for four themes of health research: i) Biomedical; ii) Clinical; iii) Health systems services; and iv) Social, cultural, environmental and population health.

Investigators whose proposed research is health-related should contact CIHR first to explore eligibility. CIHR has procedures in place to adjudicate the full range of social science and humanities research proposals related to health research. The use of social science or humanities theories, methodologies and hypotheses are, in and of themselves, not sufficient to make the proposal eligible at SSHRC.