CIHR End-of-Grant KT Plan: Five Factors to Address
CIHR's KT planning guide identifies five factors for an end-of-grant plan: goals, audience, strategies, expertise and resources. Map those factors to concrete outputs, budget lines and reporting, with practical ways to keep production costs down.
The default knowledge translation plan is two lines long: publish in journals, present at conferences, and name "clinicians and policy makers" as the audience. CIHR's own guide is direct about why that falls short: "simply mentioning clinicians, managers, policy makers, etc., is not sufficiently specific".
This guide is for Project Grant applicants writing the KT parts of a proposal, and for grant holders who now have to deliver those plans and write them up in the final report. It walks through the five factors in CIHR's KT planning guide, maps CIHR's own strategy list to outputs and budget lines, and suggests ways to keep delivery costs down. For how CIHR's expectations compare with SSHRC's, see our guide to knowledge mobilization tools for SSHRC and CIHR, and if you also apply to SSHRC, our one-page SSHRC knowledge mobilization plan template.
A note on words: CIHR's 2026 Knowledge Mobilization Strategy describes "shifting from using the term 'knowledge translation (KT)' to 'knowledge mobilization (KM)'," but the Project Grant application instructions and peer review manual still say knowledge translation. This guide uses KT to match the forms.
The Five Factors and the Question Behind Each
CIHR's Guide to Knowledge Translation Planning (2012) defines end-of-grant KT as "any activity aimed at diffusing, disseminating or applying the results of a research project," and says "The following five factors should be addressed in end-of-grant KT plans." It adds that "These factors are the same regardless of the domain of research, though how they apply will vary." The guide "is not meant to replace the review criteria or scoring system used for a funding opportunity," but its key questions are a fair test of whether your plan will read as specific to a reviewer:
| Factor | CIHR's question | What a strong answer names |
|---|---|---|
| Goals | "Are the KT goals clear, concrete and well justified?" | One goal from CIHR's list, such as "increase knowledge/awareness" or "inform/change practice", for a named group |
| Audience | "Are the audiences precisely defined in terms of their sector, roles, responsibilities and decision-making needs/opportunities?" | The unit, profession or community, not "clinicians" |
| Strategies | "Are key messages clearly identified?" and "If appropriate, is there a plan to adapt the knowledge to each specific audience?" | One key message and one format per audience |
| Expertise | "Is there a sufficient description of the team's ability to execute the proposed strategies?" | Who writes, designs, films and pitches, in the team or contracted |
| Resources | "Does the budget allocate adequate financial support to implement the plan?" | A cost line for every output |
In the current Project Grant, KT is not scored as a separate criterion. The instructions say KT approaches "should be considered" under Significance and Impact when applicable, and that under Approaches and Methods they "should be well-defined and justified." The peer review manual sets the bar by audience: when the primary knowledge users are researchers, articles in accessible journals are appropriate, but when knowledge users outside the research community should be informed of specific findings, "dissemination plans with more ambitious goals and comprehensive strategies are expected."
CIHR's Strategy List, Mapped to Outputs and Budget Lines
The guide sorts strategies into "Diffusion (let it happen)", "Dissemination (help it happen)" and "Application (make it happen)". Its examples include "web-based activities (e.g. postings, wikis, blogs, podcasts, etc.)", "plain-language summaries", "summary briefings to stakeholders", "social marketing (e.g. Facebook, Twitter)" and "media release/outreach campaign". It also says findings can be shared face to face by a knowledge broker "or via emerging online technologies (e.g. podcasting, webinars, YouTube)." Here is how those turn into outputs, using the expertise and resource items the guide itself lists:
| CIHR strategy | Concrete output | Expertise the guide names | Resource line the guide names |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plain-language summaries | A 150-word summary per paper, built from your lay abstract | "writer/editor/copy editor" | Personnel: "writer/editor/copy editor" |
| Summary briefings to stakeholders | A two-page brief for a named decision-maker | "communication specialist" | "production/printing" |
| Social marketing | A short vertical video and posts for the platforms your audience uses | "writer/editor/copy editor/videographer" | "media development and release" |
| YouTube and podcasts | A video abstract and an audio summary on your project page | "writer/editor/copy editor/videographer" and "website developer/IT expert" | "web-related costs (blogs, podcasts, wikis, website development/maintenance)" |
| Media release or outreach campaign | A release through your institution's media relations at publication | "public relations" | "media development and release" |
| Open access publication | The paper itself, free to read | Your team | "open-access publication fees" |
One worked example in the guide is worth copying: a team budgeted "resources to contract a writing consultant to prepare lay summaries of the research findings," and later built policy briefs on those summaries.
Discovery Research Is Not Exempt
The guide does not expect a basic science lab to run a media campaign. It says conference presentations and journal articles "remain the best approach for research at the early stages of discovery," and "When there are limitations on the validity or generalizability of the results, a modest approach is most appropriate."
It still asks for one thing from everyone: "Even research aimed at scientific audiences and peer reviewers, including early-stage discovery proposals, should have a lay summary at both proposal and final report stages that clearly delineates where the research is expected to lead." CIHR's 2026 strategy names end-of-grant KM among the approaches most likely to be relevant to biomedical research. The Project Grant lay abstract, approximately 2,000 characters, is used by CIHR "to inform the public and Parliament", so write it as the first output of your KT plan rather than as an afterthought.
The Rules That Shape the KT Budget
At the time of writing (October 2026), CIHR's General Conditions of Funding say "All information intended for public consumption, including for the purposes of informing and engaging partners (e.g., website content, information pamphlets, guidelines, promotional and event-related material, etc.), must be provided in both official languages (English and French), accessible to screen readers, and should be developed using plain language practices."
That makes French versions and accessible formats a cost to plan for, not an extra. The Project Grant funding opportunity lists "Costs related to the translation and preparation of information/material intended for public consumption" as eligible, and says "Reasonable expenses related to knowledge translation" are eligible too.
In the budget form, Knowledge Translation is its own category, for "costs associated with disseminating your research results, such as manuscript publication, travel for knowledge translation activities (e.g., conferences), etc." The instructions say each amount must be rounded to a multiple of $1,000, and each category's justification runs to a maximum of 3,500 characters. The manual adds that "The costs of dissemination are eligible expenditures in all CIHR grants." Advancing Health at the University of British Columbia puts it plainly in its grant writing advice: "be sure to consider the costs associated with the KT plan, as these can comprise a significant portion of the budget."
Keeping Delivery Costs Down
Producing a separate piece for every audience can add to KT costs. These approaches can reduce duplicated work while keeping the plan specific:
- Write once, reuse everywhere. Start from the lay abstract. The plain-language summary, the brief's first paragraph, the video script and the French version all grow from the same 150 words.
- Make outputs per paper, at publication. That is when journalists, partners and your own institution are paying attention, and the paper is the source every format must agree with.
- Use channels you do not pay for. Partner newsletters, your institution's media relations, professional associations and your project page cost little or nothing.
- Put everything in one place. A project page with the paper, summary, video and audio gives every audience the same link, and Western University's KT help sheet suggests building "strategies to measure uptake and impact (e.g., social media analytics, # of downloads, # of attendees etc.)."
- Fill in the final report as you go. The funding opportunity says the electronic Final Report "will be made available to the NPA on ResearchNet at the beginning of the grant funding period and can be filled in as the research progresses." CIHR's sample final report asks for a "Lay Summary and Implications of Key Findings" and counts interviews with journalists and articles in mass media, so log them when they happen.
Where Amplify Fits
The table above has the same few outputs in most rows, made for each paper. Amplify produces several of them from the PDF you upload, and nothing else: a video abstract of about 3 minutes, a vertical short of 45 to 60 seconds, an audio brief in English (with 21 more languages on request, including French) and a one-page, print-ready infographic. Every piece carries the title, the authors and a link back to the paper of record.
Each format arrives as three variants you can edit line by line, a person reviews every format before it is released, and nothing publishes until you approve it, which matters when the findings are clinical. The embeddable widget puts every format beside the paper on your project page, and its analytics show reads, listens, questions asked, languages and which format moved people: numbers for the reach section of your final report. You still need your own French versions of written materials and your own checks against CIHR's accessibility and plain-language requirements.
A CIHR reviewer reading your KT plan should be able to answer the five questions without guessing. Name the goal, the people, the message and format, who makes it and what it costs, then deliver it per paper and log the reach as you go.
Quick answers
What are the five factors in a CIHR end-of-grant KT plan?
Goals, audience, strategies, expertise and resources. CIHR's 2012 Guide to Knowledge Translation Planning says these five factors should be addressed in end-of-grant KT plans and are the same regardless of the domain of research, though how they apply will vary. Each comes with key questions, such as whether the goals are clear, concrete and well justified, and whether the budget supports the plan.
Do discovery or basic research CIHR grants need a KT plan?
Expect to show some KT, scaled to the work. CIHR's peer review manual says it expects researchers to disseminate their findings, and its 2012 guide says even early-stage discovery proposals should have a lay summary at proposal and final report stages. Conference presentations and journal articles remain the best approach early in discovery.
What KT costs can go in a CIHR Project Grant budget?
Costs of disseminating results, in the budget's Knowledge Translation category. At the time of writing (October 2026), CIHR's instructions name manuscript publication and travel for KT activities, and the Project Grant funding opportunity lists translating and preparing material for the public. CIHR's planning guide lists items such as media development and release, web-related costs and a writer or videographer.
Do CIHR public materials have to be in English and French?
Yes. At the time of writing (October 2026), CIHR's General Conditions of Funding say all information intended for public consumption must be provided in both official languages, accessible to screen readers, and should be developed using plain language practices. The Project Grant funding opportunity lists the costs of translating and preparing such material as eligible.
