The Interdisciplinary Adjudication Committee (IAC) plays a key role in upholding the high level of excellence and prestige of the Canada Research Chairs (CRC) program, and in doing so, ensures accountability, not only to the Government of Canada and the Canadian taxpayer—the source of the program’s funding—but to the research community at large.
IAC is made up of experts from the College of Reviewers who represent the various research disciplines of the three granting agencies (CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC). Within the CRC peer-review process, the role of IAC is to review problem cases where the members of the College of Reviewers have not reached a consensus or where support for the nomination is tenuous. The committee makes final funding recommendations on these cases to the Chairs Steering Committee.
Recognition
The CRC program would like to thank each committee member for their invaluable service to the program and willingness to share their time and expertise in the peer-review process.
Lists of IAC members
Recruitment Principles
Given the very important role that IAC plays in ensuring accountability and upholding the high level of excellence and prestige of the program, the standards for committee membership are high. Committee members must have:
- stature or recognition within the research community as an excellent researcher;
- prior experience as a peer review committee member;
- excellent judgment; and
- the ability to recognize excellence.
IAC members must ensure that:
- the high level of excellence and prestige of the program are upheld;
- the integrity and quality of the peer-review process is upheld (free of conflict of interest, bias and is equitable to all nominees);
- the committees are diverse (expertise, gender, regional/international representation, designated groups, etc.);
- the requirements of the Official Languages Act are met; and
- standards of inclusiveness and transparency are upheld (i.e., ensuring that a broad range of individuals with various expertise and backgrounds have the opportunity to be involved in the funding recommendations of the program and that the recruitment process is conducted transparently ).
Membership Requirements
Committee members
Committee members are responsible for upholding the program’s high level of excellence by ensuring that they understand and impartially apply the program’s policies and evaluation criteria in the assessment of their assigned nominations. Members generally serve for a three-year term, and are expected to attend two peer review meetings per year in Ottawa.
Committee member requirements include:
- stature within the research community;
- research excellence (generally, the ability to obtain extramural peer-reviewed grant support for research programs/activities);
- quality as a referee (breadth of knowledge, maturity of judgment);
- experience (recent peer review experience with one of the three agencies (or their equivalent in case of international members) to ensure that the committee is aligned with current peer review practices);
- effectiveness as an interdisciplinary committee member (the ability to review nominations that are outside of their area of expertise and fully participate in the meeting deliberations); and
- reliability (proven reliability in terms of upholding conflict of interest and confidentiality, deadlines and attendance).
The Chairperson
The committee chairperson is directly responsible for upholding the program’s high level of excellence by ensuring that the committee functions smoothly, effectively,objectively, and according to the program’s policies. The chairperson establishes a positive, constructive, fair-minded environment in which the nominations are to be evaluated. The chairperson fulfills an oversight role and can also participate in the review of nominations.
In addition to meeting the membership requirements for committee members, the chairperson must:
- have served as a member of the committee and have demonstrated leadership/diligence and have a strong knowledge of the program’s objectives and policies;
- complement the committee in terms of expertise (in order to be able to review a small number of nominations);
- complement the committee in terms of institutional affiliation in order to minimize conflicts (in order to be able to chair the majority of the meeting);
- make the time commitment required to prepare for the committee meeting, including the review of all nominations submitted to the committee; and
- read and understand as well as be able to manage committee discussions in both official languages (where applicable)..
A high-quality committee
In order to be high quality, the committee must be diverse with consideration of the following:
- members cover the wide range of research areas that represent the various disciplines of each of the federal granting agencies and relevant methodologies;
- members represent the academic, government, business or not-for-profit sectors;
- members conduct multi-disciplinary research;
- members are emerging or established;
- members are from outside Canada (generally, two or three international researchers per committee)
- members represent the four designated groups: women, aboriginal peoples, minorities and people with disabilities;
- members represent all regions across Canada;
- members represent all three sizes of institutions that participate in the program (large, medium and small);
- members are able to effectively review nominations submitted in either official language; and
- members represent varying institutions (in order to minimize conflicts of interest).
Nominate an IAC member
The CRC program welcomes the nomination of individuals who meet the requirements for membership as listed above and who would be willing to serve as members. Please fill out the form and email it to zchairs@sshrc-crsh.gc.ca.
We would like to thank all individuals who take the time to submit a nomination. Individuals will be contacted directly by the Secretariat if their service to the committee is required.