Equity at all cost-and any price-for research funding in Canada?

Abstract

This commentary is in response to the May 2018 announcement by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) of a new procedure to ensure fairer access to health research funding for participants. As such, all applicants to CIHR's funding programs will now be required to complete a five-question questionnaire covering the dimensions of gender, age, Indigenous origin, visible minorities, and disability. On this basis, CIHR intends to gain a better understanding of the performance of its funding programs in terms of equity. In this commentary, we wish to question the theoretical and conceptual assumptions of a vision of equity framed principally in terms of diversity upstream from the research process as a founding principle of more equitable health research in Canada. We draw attention to the fact that diversity policies do not necessarily challenge inequity in research funding or in research projects. Having established the urgent need for action on equity to improve the health of populations, we recall the ethical responsibility of research and researchers to better take the various facets of equity in research into account. We recommend expanding efforts to understand and reflexively address both equity and diversity when considering the performance of population health research programs.