2021 Impact Report
The year from coast to coast.
Collective achievements in 2021
Message from the directors
Building value across our membership
Without a doubt, 2021 will go down as one of both promise and uncertainty as our nation continued its recovery from the global pandemic. Throughout it all, we are unwavering in our collaborative efforts to catalyze advances in maternal and child health by connecting minds and removing barriers to high-quality health research. MICYRN is increasingly recognized both nationally and internationally as the national network organization representing maternal, child and youth health research interests.
If this year had a theme for us, it would be that of building. Collectively, we achieved several milestones in MICYRN’s development, of which we are very proud. MICYRN was a significant active partner in several successful major national research funding applications, thereby further building the Network’s role as the national coordinating centre. We also made headway in government engagement activities—both through advocating with partners on behalf of maternal and child health and opportunities to provide feedback to key Health Canada consultations—thus shaping issues relevant to the maternal and child health research file. Finally, our growing efforts to facilitate multijurisdictional research was punctuated in the building of our pre- and post-award academic research organization service offerings. These provide direct clinical trial consultation and support services, and enable the development of local capacity through mentorship opportunities across our member organizations. We closed 2021 and entered the New Year by socializing the renewed concept and need to build a national maternal-child clinical trial infrastructure and drafting a full proposal and budget to leverage anticipated funding opportunities that lay ahead.
We hope you enjoy this year’s report and share in celebrating our accomplishments—both big and small. There remains a lot of work to do; our sleeves are rolled up and we are ready to continue delivering shared value as a national network. On behalf of the MICYRN Executive and Board of Directors, we look forward to building value across the membership, and initiating improvements to maternal, child and family health research in Canada.
Sincerely,
Thierry and Stephen
Snapshot of 2021 highlights
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Expansion of services total number conducting in Canada.
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A database of clinical and methodological experts was created to provide strategic feasibility advice to individual requests from profit (industry) or non-profit (academic consortia and investigators) stakeholders in conducting feasible, innovative, and scientifically sound pediatric clinical trials.
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Formal agreements with international groups have been developed to bring trials to Canada through MICYRN, improving global study optimization.
Quick Links
Across Canada...
…MICYRN’s people are the leadership and investigators at member organizations.
2021 Member Organizations and Representatives
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After two years as chair of MICYRN’s Board of Directors, Dr. Sandra T. Davidge (WCHRI) completed her term in 2021. She provided outstanding leadership through two incredibly difficult years for health care research, and remains on the BOD as past chair.
Dr. Jason Berman (CHEO) officially took over as chair, while Dr. Padmaja Subbarao (SickKids-RI) and Dr. Quynh Doan (BCCHR) joined the Board of Directors. Dr. Anne Monique Nuyt (CHU Sainte Justine) joined as the Board’s ex-officio representing the Pediatric Chairs of Canada.
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MICYRN was excited to announce in 2021 that the Network welcomed its 21st member, Bloorview Research Institute (BRI)—and the first new member since 2014—to the family! BRI was established in 2004, and has quickly become recognized in Canada and around the world for its leadership in the field of childhood disability research.
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To support the Clinical Trials Consortium in streamlining research processes and enhancing the quality and efficiency of regulated and non-regulated clinical trials, MICYRN seconded three part-time clinical trial navigators embedded among our member organizations (University of Calgary, Department of Pediatrics, BCCHR, McMaster University). They play a critical role in ensuring the Network is able to build child- and family-centric research and education capabilities. In 2021, they worked on the following projects:
Quality Improvement and Performance Metrics
Integration of Research and Clinical Care in Pediatric Academic Health Care Centres
Study Start Up and CHEER Information Repository
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The KidsCan Young Persons’ Advisory Group are children and youth across Canada who assist investigators by providing a youth perspective on studies for that population.
In 2021 they assisted on seven studies, including consulting on an environmental scan of COVID-19 and virtual care for youth in Canada; a qualitative study to understand youths’ online information searching habits; an assessment survey to improve efficiency for wait times facing youth with chronic mental health conditions; a gender identity questionnaire for children; a patient engagement platform; and providing youth perspectives on medical cannabis research.
Facilitating research that...
paves the way toward national clinical trial infrastructure.
COVID-19 demonstrated that there is a need now more than ever to have a coordinated clinical trial infrastructure. MICYRN made considerable progress on its mandate to build capacity for this infrastructure in 2021. Through the newly launched academic research organization (ARO) clinical trial support services, the Network assisted sites in launching and conducting multijurisdictional studies.
In 2021 MICYRN completed:
Child health experts database
MICYRN developed a database to capture investigators with expertise in various child health sub-speciality areas. The information collected will enable the identification of specific expert groups to provide advice on conducting feasible and scientifically sound pediatric clinical trials. The database also provides a rich pool of investigators to be contacted for possible site participation in studies or mentorship opportunities. In 2021, MICYRN held discussions with its European counterpart, conect4children (c4c)—a collaborative network for European clinical trials for children. The group is working towards building capacity for the implementation of multinational pediatric clinical trials to ensure the needs of babies, children, young people, and their families are met. In addition, parallel international sets of group expertise are being developed, thereby providing the child health community with a rich pool to utilize for scientific depth and study site participation.
International trials
In 2021, MICYRN strengthened its partnership with conect4children (c4c) in Europe and the Institute for Advanced Clinical Trials for Children (I-ACT) in the US to bring clinical trials for children to Canada. In addition, the network is working with the groups to identify and harmonize key metrics and indicators. MICYRN and c4c also signed a formal agreement to facilitate discussions on future collaborations, including the sharing of knowledge, lessons learned, best practices, and other issues related to pediatric clinical trials.
As a member of the Enpr-EMA international working group, MICYRN worked on developing a survey that was distributed to clinical research organizations and industry sponsors to better understand the global requirements for clinical trial sites and to develop high-quality clinical trials in pediatrics. MICYRN also contributed to manuscripts on the role of a network in accelerating the development of therapeutics for children, and international pediatric regulatory and ethical requirements.
Advocating for...
MICYRN’s strength in advocating for maternal and child health research funding and nationally coordinated support of research has been recognized across member and partner organizations.
Education learning oppportunities...
…helping early career researchers and providing lifelong learning.
Effective research communications...
…can positively impact investment, policy change, and public awareness.
New website
In 2021, MICYRN launched a new website featuring expanded initiatives, improved services for investigators at member sites, and a number of resources to assist researchers in their work. A list of useful databases, tools and templates, which are updated and revised on an ongoing basis, are bookmarked on the website.
Consultations
Research organizations, government and other stakeholders must work together to improve health outcomes for Canadian children and families. Recognizing the need for harmonized messaging and effective communication between organizations across Canada, MICYRN supported a number of partners working to improve such collaboration. The Network contributed to reports, consultations and strategically placed calls to action in the media to advocate for maternal and child health research.
MICYRN's Reach
MICYRN was invited to participate in a formal Health Canada consultation designed to inform the development of a National Strategy for High-Cost Drugs for Rare Diseases. Discussions centred on how best to gather and evaluate evidence, and the opportunity to create a national pediatric clinical trials infrastructure. Children and youth with rare diseases have unique and important needs, and MICYRN contributed to talks on infrastructure that would help make Canada the “destination of choice” for industry interested in developing innovative drugs for children. This catalyzed the development of a full proposal to build the case for a national pediatric clinical trials infrastructure at the end of 2021.
Calls to action
MICYRN co-sponsored full-page ads in the Hill Times and The Globe and Mail with partner organizations. These calls to action and open letters urged the new government and parliamentarians to prioritize children in putting them at the heart of the pandemic recovery plans.
Supporting the work...
…through maintained financial health.
Revenue
A majority of MICYRN’s funding is through member research organizations who pay an annual membership fee to support the core work of the coordinating centre. As each year passes, the diversity of MICYRN’s funding increases. This year we saw the biggest increase in our non-member revenue through participation in funded applications and cost-recovery efforts due to the launch of our academic research service offerings. Although this revenue stream will increase over time, the support from our member research organizations remains essential for the core to continue pursuing growth-enabling opportunities. Sustainment of MICYRN’s core operations will continue to foster the rapid generation of added value to our members, and ultimately their maternal child health research investigators.
Funding Sources (%)
Expenditures
MICYRN’s highly qualified people with complementary skill sets operating in a natural teamwork culture enables work efficiencies. Human resources are MICYRN’s biggest expenditure and greatest strength; it is the efforts of the team in achieving the year’s accomplishments that move us closer to realizing our collective goals. Other administrative expenses of the Coordinating Centre are carefully managed in order to maximize investments in specific projects to benefit national maternal and child health research. This year, MICYRN was able to invest in a full-time clinical research-enabling role, which helped in rapidly establishing MICYRN’s clinical trial suite of support services. MICYRN was also able to create a strategic expenditure line, enabling the organization to nimbly respond to new opportunities as they present themselves in our rapidly evolving environment post-pandemic.
Expenditures (%)
Thank you!
These MICYRN members and their foundations provided the continued financial support needed to sustain the Network’s work and advance national initiatives into 2021. Thank you for this financial support!
Looking forward to delivering...
…on a mandate to improve health research for mothers and children.
Looking ahead
Delivering value to our membership
If this year’s theme is building, then 2022 will undoubtedly be that of delivering. With a significant role in several successfully awarded national research funding applications, MICYRN will be adding to its team to deliver on the clinical research support and coordinating expertise that these projects require. With our ARO services established and in full-swing, the focus will be on delivering value to our network partners by providing the suite of clinical trial supports to pre- and post-award research projects. We also look forward to continuing to deliver change through advocacy for a national maternal and child health research clinical trial infrastructure other key clinical research enabling issues and better health for mothers and children.
There remains a lot of work to do; our sleeves are rolled-up and we are ready to continue to deliver shared value as a national network. Thank you for your engagement and support of what we do.
MICYRN 2021 Impact Report