Privacy notices for researchers | Canada Foundation for Innovation

You are responsible for the accuracy of the personal information you provide to the CFI.

All personal information provided to us will be safeguarded. It will be used and disclosed in accordance with the Privacy Act , the Access to Information Act , and other related laws and policies to which the CFI is subject.

Personal information means information about an identifiable individual that is recorded in any form. A detailed definition of personal information is found within the Privacy Act .

Personal information provided to us through our online award management system is used primarily to review proposals and to administer and monitor awards. Consistent with this, reviewers, project/team leaders and other participating researchers should also expect that their personal information may be used and disclosed by the CFI in the following ways:

The CFI routinely shares information related to proposals and awards with relevant officials in the applicant institution(s);
As part of the review process, proposals are shared in confidence with individual reviewers and with the CFI's review committees who are recruited from the academic, private and public sectors. To the best of our ability, we ensure that this information is stored, handled and distributed in a secure manner at all times;
CFI staff, management and Board of Directors have access to proposals;
Proposals may be shared with various organizations within the research community that participate in the funding process or collection of data (e.g. the Digital Research Alliance of Canada, the Tri-agency Institutional Programs Secretariat, MITACS, Statistics Canada);
Proposals and related documentation submitted for support offered by the CFI jointly with another provincial or federal government organization(s) may be disclosed to appropriate officials in the other organization(s). The uses and disclosures of such information will typically be set out in the relevant program literature and governed by a data-sharing agreement;
Anonymized individual reviews and committee assessments, including comments about the researchers associated with a proposal, are accessible to officials of the applicant institution(s) and to the project/team leader listed in the proposal;
The CFI uses personal information about participating researchers and reviewers in its files and databases to identify prospective committee members and reviewers for proposals for up to 7 years. Reviewers are recruited on a voluntary, consent basis;
The CFI routinely publishes and disseminates certain details about successful proposals, including the names and affiliations of project/team leaders and team members. Before disclosing more detailed personal information for publicity purposes, we will seek the consent of affected researchers;
Personal information may also be used by the CFI for program planning, evaluation and reviews, audits, and for generating statistics for these activities. Generally, the information is used to produce aggregate data only;
Personal information obtained in the project progress reports will be aggregated and de-identified when used to inform CFI activities such as annual reporting, evaluations, and outcome studies;
Personal information provided to contractors and consultants in the context of CFI activities is subject to confidentiality/nondisclosure provisions;
The CFI may share all information submitted in a proposal, including a Risk Assessment Form and personal information found in the researcher CV and elsewhere in a proposal (this does not include self-identification data in your CFI profile) with the Government of Canada’s departments of agencies, for the purpose on assessing risk to Canada’s national security in agreement with the National Security Guidelines for Research Partnerships .