PI funding and research

[todpose]

I've been working in a lab for 2 years. I was going to do an honors research course in the same lab this Fall semester. But the PI said he did not get CIHR grant funded, so his major source of funding will disappear and he can't accept any more honors research students. He said he applied for another funding and the process will take 12-18 months. Since I've been in the lab for 2 years and there is a project I've been working on and is almost close to completion, I'd like to continue it by volunteering, if not by honors research course, to make it into a publication. But does lack of CIHR funding for honors projects adversely affect other projects in the lab which aren't done as part of honors research course? How exactly does funding work? Are there different kinds of fundings? In other words, even if his CIHR funding ran out, will he have enough of the other fundings for projects of grad students in the lab? I don't know how this whole thing works.

[sparkles3288]

Depending on your PI's research, there are different avenues of research funding he can obtain from other agencies (some are specific, some not and it also depends on the province). One may not get CIHR, but get AHFMR or whatever equivalent, etc etc etc. They typically need funding to take on any students, even volunteers, due to the cost of reagents, equipment, etc.

 

If a PI completely runs out of funding, then he/she is usually in trouble. Some uni's will help them for a bit via internal funding until they can obtain external funding, some not. One PI at my uni has no funding and thus cannot take on any graduate students. Instead all she has are postdocs that are externally funded on their own (they obtained their own funding seprate from the PI).