SHRF Solutions Program will be offering three calls this year, SHRF Focus Areas, Partnered Focus Areas and Collective Impact Focus Area.
Under each call, there are multiple focus areas and partners for funding to mobilize the research community and its partners around specific health challenges facing the people of Saskatchewan.
SHRF Focus Areas
In the previous two years, SHRF invested an initial $1,062,369 in Virtual Care and $988,367 in Addictions. This year, both focus areas will be offered to further support interdisciplinary research teams to develop, implement and evaluate strategies addressing either of these areas.
Virtual Care
Virtual care (i.e. remote medicine, digital care, tele-health) has the potential to connect patients to the care they need, when and where they need it. It may also serve to enhance coordination and quality of care. In Saskatchewan, this is especially crucial for those who face transportation, mobility, location or other challenges in accessing care. The ethical, innovative, and effective use of virtual care has many potential impacts such as: improving patient/client’s experiences and outcomes; ensuring safe and equitable access to high-quality care; enhancing efficiency and appropriateness of care and reducing costs; enhancing team-based care; and improving communication and coordination between care providers and sectors - from public health promotion, to community care, acute care, and long-term care. This focus area is open to all areas of virtual care.
SHRF is also partnering with Mental Health Research Canada and the Centre for Aging + Brain Health Innovation under the Virtual Care focus area to further support mental health research with the potential for bettering the lives of Saskatchewan, and research into brain health and improving quality of life for Saskatchewan's population to age safely in the setting of their choice while maintaining their cognitive, emotional, and physical well-being.
Addictions
Addictions is understood as compulsive behavior and/or substance use, despite negative or harmful consequences. Addictions is a pressing health concern for all of Saskatchewan. Driven by a combination of complex health, social and systemic factors, the impact of addictions reaches far and wide into our personal and social lives. Working together, including those with lived/living experiences is a way to ensure that: services provide the necessary supports; resources are accessible to those who need them, including marginalized populations; and the continuum care is supported within the healthcare system and within other related systems like policing, corrections and social services. This focus area is open to all areas of research throughout the entire addictions trajectory, from education, prevention, screening, harm reduction, treatment and/or recovery strategies.
Under the umbrella of the Addictions Focus Area, SHRF is also partnering with the Saskatchewan Centre for Patient-Oriented Research (SCPOR) to provide additional opportunities for Patient-Oriented Research for teams committed to meaningful inclusion of diverse voices and culturally safe practices in research and training.
Patient-oriented research (POR) occurs when multi-disciplinary research teams engage patients, as well as their caregivers and families, as partners in the research process. POR focuses on patient-identified priorities that lead to improved patient outcomes in health care.
Partnered Focus Areas
Increasing investment in quality research is important for health research and healthier communities. By engaging local and national partners to align research with the needs of the province, SHRF is proud to offer the additional focus areas with our funding partners,
Lung Health
In partnership with Lung Sask
The mission of Lung Sask is to improve lung health, one breath at a time. Lung Sask plays a role in improving the overall quality of life for those with a lived experience of lung disease through funding innovation and research for programs, education, training, treatment, and prevention of lung disease.
Areas of research under this focus area include:
Lung health of Indigenous peoples
Areas where knowledge gaps exist in lung health
Lung disease prevention, diagnosis, and management
Patient and caregiver education
Social determinants of lung health
Tobacco, cannabis, or vaping
Radon exposure home, school, or workplace
Rural and remote lung health services
Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementia
In partnership with Alzheimer Society of Saskatchewan
Alzheimer Society of Saskatchewan (ASOS) is the province’s leading dementia and research charity with a mission to empower people to live well with dementia while funding research into prevention, cures and quality of life. The focus of ASOS is finding treatments, causes and cures, and improving the quality of life for people living with dementia in the Province of Saskatchewan.
Areas of research for this focus area include:
Diagnosis
Prevention/Risk Reduction
Culturally Sensitive Care
Long Term Care
Palliative Care
Social Inclusion
Collective Impact Focus Area
Rural and Remote Healthcare
Every Saskatchewan resident deserves the healthcare they need no matter where they live. Saskatchewan’s unique geography has long presented a challenge to provide access to health care to patients in their community. Furthermore, recruitment and retention of health care providers to rural and remote communities remains an ongoing challenge. Better health outcomes and quality of life for Saskatchewan families and communities depends on access to safe, integrated, quality health care as close to home as possible.
SHRF and partners will support translational research projects focused on improving access to health care for Saskatchewan’s rural and remote residents under this special call.
The Solutions Program offers two types of grants:
Innovation Grant: Provides up to $50,000 for one year to catalyze innovative new ideas and approaches, promoting creative problem solving to address one of the focus areas named in this year’s opportunity.
Impact Grant: Provides up to $150,000 over two years to advance the translation of research into real world settings and practical applications to address one of the focus areas named in this year’s opportunity.
Principal Applicants can submit one application to the Solutions Program, including all Focus Areas, each year. Full details will be available when the Solutions Program launches later this month.
Expected Program Launch: Late June 2022
Expected Eligibility Deadline: Late September 2022
About SHRF - Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation (SHRF) is the provincial funding agency that funds, supports and promotes the impact of health research that matters to Saskatchewan. SHRF collaborates with stakeholders to contribute to the growth of a high-performing health system, culture of innovation and the improved health of citizens by strengthening research capacity and competitiveness, increasing the investment in health research in Saskatchewan and aligning research with the needs of our stakeholders.
For more information, please contact:
Karen Tilsley, SHRF Director of Programs and Partnerships