CFI John R. Evans Leaders Fund (JELF)

The CFI John R. Evans Leaders Fund (CFI JELF) is a federal program providing funding for research equipment and infrastructure that supports innovative research. Every 3 years, the FoMD is provided with a portion of funds from the central UofA JELF allocation.

CFI has three annual deadlines for JELF submission (February 15, June 15 and October 15). Applications for provincial match funding are submitted each October. FoMD applicants typically submit to the June 15 CFI deadline and the Government of Alberta Research Capacity program in October. 

Important Links:
CFI Policy and Program Guide
CFI JELF Guidelines for Proposal
Research Administration Services CFI JELF Website 

For the 2026–2028 period, the FoMD received a CFI JELF funding allocation of $4,269,282.
These funds represent only the CFI contribution to the project's total costs (40%), with additional funding typically coming from the Government of Alberta (40%) and supplier discounts or other sources (20%).

Eligibility

Investigators are eligible to apply only if they have a full-time academic appointment with a significant portion of their time (≥40%) dedicated to research and have not submitted a JELF application within the last 5 years.

Only applications that align with the FoMD’s research and strategic priorities and CFI’s objectives will be supported.

Priority

The FoMD prioritizes the following types of JELF requests:
1. New investigators: this includes new faculty members who are appointed at or above the assistant professor level. 
2. Infrastructure to be placed in FoMD Core Facilities
3. Department Core/Shared Infrastructure: infrastructure available to a broad user group within a department or group of labs.

The FoMD will adjudicate applications that satisfy the above criteria in the following order:

1. New investigators with equipment housed in core research facilities
2. New investigators to equip their laboratories
3. Faculty managed core research facilities
4. Shared infrastructure 
5. Individual investigators

Requests that do not align with the above FoMD priorities will not be considered for a JELF. Other federal programs such as the CFI Innovation Fund and NSERC RTI Program are also available for infrastructure funding requests.

The maximum CFI allocation request for a CFI JELF grant is $800K ($2 million in total project cost). However, due to the finite amount of FoMD CFI JELF funding allocation, FoMD researchers will be allocated a maximum of $200K from the FoMD CFI JELF allocation ($500K total project cost, including renovations). Larger CFI allocation amounts might be considered for proposals requesting equipment to be placed in a core research facility. In exceptional cases, modest increases above the $200K FoMD JELF allocation limit may be considered for proposals that cannot proceed without one or two indispensable, high-cost items that exceed the cap. Any such consideration will be limited and assessed on a case-by-case basis.

Researchers who have a request that aligns with FoMD JELF priorities are invited to submit their proposals to be evaluated for the opportunity to apply for JELF funding.

The process takes place over three steps: (1) Registration, (2) FoMD Internal Application, and (3) Research Administrations Services (RAS) Request to Apply (RTA) submission

Step 1. Internal FoMD Selection Process:

1. Interested applicants must complete a registration form that will include:
   1. Project title
   2. Team members
   3. Requested equipment (>$25,000)
   4. Space that will house equipment
2. The registration form will be administratively reviewed by the Office of Research. This stage is non-competitive and is used to confirm eligibility and identify appropriate expert reviewers for the next stage.

Step 2. Internal FoMD Selection Process:

1. Applicants are required to complete a JELF-FoMD Internal Application or Statement of Interest where they will provide the following information: 
   • Summary of research/technology development plan and alignment with FoMD strategic priorities.
   • Justification of infrastructure request, including its planned location.
   • Budget.
   • CFI format quotes for all infrastructure items.
2. A review committee chaired by the Vice-Dean Research, Biomedical will evaluate and adjudicate the applications.
3. Applicants will be notified via email whether their proposals were selected or not.
4. Official FoMD letters of support required for the RAS RTA will be provided to successful applicants.

Step 3. Research Administrations Services (RAS) Request to Apply (RTA) submission:

1. Successful Internal applicants are required to submit an RTA to RAS.
2. As indicated, only successful internal applicants will be provided a letter of support from the FoMD to be added to their RTA form.
3. At this time any comments provided by the internal application review committee must incorporated in the RTA form for final submission.

For more information on the RAS RTA process and a link to the RTA form visit: John R. Evans Leaders Fund (JELF)

Application development (post-RTA stage)
Once the RTA is approved, an internal FoMD committee will oversee the application development and review. In addition to the project leader, the committee includes:

• Vice Dean of Research (Biomedical) and/or Vice Dean of Research (Clinical)
  Director, Chair or delegate of the Institute(s) and/or Department(s) sponsoring the submission.
• Subject matter experts (minimum of 2, can be external to the UofA, to be selected by the project leader)
• Director, Research & Innovation
• Manager, Core Research Facilities
• Infrastructure Project Specialist, Office of Research
• Director, FoMD Facilities Planning and Projects
• Scientific Equipment Advisor, FoMD Facilities Planning and Projects

Internal FoMD deadlines for project development milestones will be provided at a later time.

If you have any questions about the CFI JELF program and the FoMD allocation, please contact Gonzalo Vilas, Director Research & Innovation, Office of Research & Matt Ormandy, Infrastructure Project Specialist. (gvilas@ualberta.ca & ormandy@ualberta.ca)

Facility Requirements and Core Facilities:

For information on facility requirements for equipment (e.g. renovations, specifications, space, etc.), please contact Brian Reuter (breuter@ualberta.ca).

If your proposal includes equipment for potential placement in core facilities, please contact Colleen Sunderland (crreid1@ualberta.ca).