Won by 19 Canadian Health Reporters

Ottawa - The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) announced today the results of its first-ever CIHR Journalism Awards competition. Nineteen Canadian journalists won awards that will give them critical extra resources to conduct additional in-depth investigation and reporting of health research issues of interest to Canadians.

The recipients of the first-ever CIHR Journalism Awards, worth a total of $300,000, are:

Tier 1 Awards ($20,000 each)

Valérie Borde - freelance

Claudia Cornwall - freelance

Cheryl Croucher - freelance

Andrew Duffy – Ottawa Citizen

Véronique Morin - freelance

Margaret Munro – CanWest News

Jen Skerritt – Winnipeg Free Press

Stephen Strauss - freelance

Margaret Webb - freelance

Paul Webster - freelance

Mark Witten - freelance

Tier 2 Awards ($10,000 each)

Joshua Bezanson - CBC

Pamela Cowan – The Leader Post

Pauline Dakin - CBC

Elie Dolgin – The Scientist

Lisa-Marie Gervais - freelance

Wendy Glauser - freelance

Alex Hutchinson - freelance

Noémi Mercier – Québec Science

“We see the media as a key vehicle for communicating the results of health research to Canadians, including practitioners as well as their patients,” said Dr. Ian Graham, CIHR’s Vice-President, Knowledge Translation.

“This pilot program breaks new ground in Canadian health journalism, and we are seeing a lot of interest and excitement in the journalism community,” observed Karen Spierkel, CIHR’s Director of Communications and Marketing. “We received a large number of very high quality applications and the evaluation committee really had its work cut out for it.”

The 33 applications received for this program were evaluated by an eight-member independent merit review committee. Four of the members were nominated by the Canadian Science Writers Association and four by the Association des communicateurs scientifiques du Québec. The members were: Jake Berkowitz, Dominique Forget, Timothy Hornyak, Tim Lougheed, André Picard, Gilles Provost, Mélanie Robitaille and Mathieu-Robert Sauvé.

In view of the high quality of the applications, CIHR has decided to fund 19 awards instead of the original 10 proposed in order to foster additional coverage of health research issues that would benefit Canadian readers, viewers and listeners.

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is the Government of Canada's agency for health research. CIHR's mission is to create new scientific knowledge and to catalyze its translation into improved health, more effective health services and products, and a strengthened Canadian health care system. Composed of 13 Institutes, CIHR provides leadership and support to nearly 12,000 health researchers and trainees across Canada.