Ottawa commits $880M to health research and trainees

The federal government is putting $880 million into health research projects and research training, Health Minister Marjorie Michel announced in Toronto on Oct. 22, 2026.

More than $400 million will support 439 health research projects through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s Project Grant program, and more than $480 million will fund 6,485 master’s and doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers, CIHR said in a news release.

The training money flows through the Canada Research Training Awards Suite, which CIHR runs with the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. It includes the Canada Graduate Research Scholarship for master’s and doctoral students and the Canada Postdoctoral Research Award.

Among the funded projects, a team at the Université de Montréal will work on expanding access to breast cancer screening in Quebec to reduce late-stage diagnoses, according to CIHR. A Vancouver-based team will look at improving services for young people affected by the overdose crisis.

Researchers at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto will study how mutations in the PTEN gene affect brain development, with the goal of finding new treatments for autism, epilepsy and other neurodevelopmental disorders, the agency said. A list of funded projects is posted in CIHR’s spring 2026 Project Grant results.

The government said it has invested nearly $4.5 billion in health research through the Project Grant program since 2016.

In the release, Michel said better health care depends on better research and that the investments strengthen the health system and the economy. CIHR president Dr. Paul Hébert said the money supports researchers from their first steps through to established teams.

The announcement follows a meeting of federal, provincial and territorial health ministers in Winnipeg that ended without a long-term funding deal, after Ottawa extended $1.2 billion in health funding by one year. Ottawa’s $20,000 IVF pledge also remains unfulfilled.

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