Description and Objectives

The first ACT call for proposals is designed to support ongoing and active, Canadian-led, high-impact
randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that need additional funding for successful completion and will publicly
report their results by January 15, 2025.

• Ongoing and active refers to trials that are currently recruiting patients or completing follow-up visits, data collection and cleaning, or the main trial analyses.
• Canadian-led refers to trials in which the trial principal investigator, as listed in the protocol, is a Canadian citizen/spermanent resident, and where the main data coordinating centre for the trial is in Canada.
• A need for additional funding refers to trials that have inadequate funding to successfully complete and
  report the trial because of unforeseen events such as the covid-19 pandemic.
• High-impact trials use high-quality methods, so that the trial findings are reliable. For example, publishing the trial protocol and pre-specifying the statistical analytic plan, before any outcome results are analyzed, improves the rigor of a trial. High-impact trials utilize high-quality design features (e.g., concealed allocation, complete follow-up, appropriate statistical power), are usually large, multi-centre and commonly have greater impact when they are international.
• High-impact trials refer to trials that test interventions designed to improve patient/citizen important
  health outcomes. In other words, the trial has a high probability it will lead to meaningful changes in
  health or how it is delivered. According to the World Health Organization framework for quality care, this means the trial has a good chance of showing the intervention improves effectiveness, safety, people-centeredness, timeliness, equitability, efficiency, or integration of care.
  All types of randomizations are eligible (e.g., parallel group, cluster/stepped wedge/cluster cross-over,
  factorial, platform).

Funds Available

A total of $2 million dollars is available for this RFA. The maximum funding per application is $200,000.

Application Instructions

Please combine the following application components into a single PDF:

• Written proposal: Maximum of 3 pages if written in English or 4 pages if written in French
  (see formatting requirements in section titled, Proposal Sections and Adjudication
  Criteria below); includes 1 page trial summary
• References, figures, or tables (optional, up to 1 page)
• Letter of support from an ACT Network (up to 1 page)
• Most recent version of the protocol, and preferably the most recent version of the
  statistical analytic plan
• Submit the full application PDF to by noon EST on April 3rd, 2023
• Once submitted, written confirmation of receipt will be provided within 24 hours of
  submission. If you do not hear back within 24 hours, please follow up to ensure
  successful delivery.

Eligibility

For a trial to be eligible it must fulfill each of the following points:

• Be registered with an organization such as clinicaltrials.gov
• Be led by a Canadian researcher who is a member(s) of an ACT Network (the principal investigator(s) of any trial can only submit 1 application to this competition)
• Have a letter of support from an ACT network (each Network can provide a maximum of 3 support letters to this competition)
• Agree funds will be transferred to an organization eligible to hold CIHR funds; this organization will ensure and report that funds were used for CIHR eligible expenses, and the researchers will acknowledge ACT Consortium partnership and funding in all related presentations and publications