An unprecedented funding crunch is putting the future of Canadian health research in peril, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research warned Tuesday.

Dr. Alan Bernstein, the president of the federal agency that is Canada's biggest source of grants for medical research, blamed the CIHR's funding anxieties on "a double challenge" converging: declining amounts of in-year funds are coming from the government, he said, at the same time that the health research community is rapidly expanding.

"I am particularly concerned about the impact on new investigators who are at the beginning of their careers," Bernstein wrote in an open letter to the research community.

'Lasting detrimental effect'

"These new investigators represent the future of health research in Canada. Failure to secure grant support for their research in those critical first years can have a lasting detrimental effect on their subsequent careers."

The CIHR receives annual appropriations from Parliament, but since the CIHR typically works on projects extending over several years, most of its funds are committed in any given year.

"The amount of uncommitted funds available to fund new research projects is not the total budget [each year], but only those funds that are being 'freed up' by expiring grants made four to five years ago and new funds received from Parliament," Bernstein's letter states.

And as the budget growth has slowed, the uncommitted funds available to support new grants have shrunk.

'Factual statement' not condemnation

Bernstein urged "public engagement" to turn political attention toward the issue.

However, he was not purely critical, noting that governments over the past six years pushed a tremendous growth in funding. The budget of the CIHR jumped to $723 million in 2006-2007 from $289 million in 1999-2000.

He also told the Globe and Mail that his letter was not a condemnation of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government, but "a factual statement" that the institute's base budget is stagnating and failing to meet the needs of Canada's ambitious young scientists.

The CIHR has attempted to cut costs by transferring $1 million worth of administration fees to grants and awards, Bernstein said.

The CIHR funds 3,300 researchers, and reports to Parliament through the minister of health.