Heart and Stroke Foundation pledges 10-year funding to Canada's leading institutions to help save more lives, faster

The Heart and Stroke Foundation has an ambitious goal: to reduce Canadians' rate of death from heart disease and stroke by 25 per cent by 2020. To help achieve this goal, the Foundation has made an unprecedented commitment to research, pledging $300 million over 10 years to 19 of Canada's leading institutions. "Simply put, there's an urgent need to save more lives faster and that's why the Foundation has created the Heart and Stroke Foundation Research Leadership Circle," said David Sculthorpe, CEO, Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. "This $300-million commitment will allow our partners an unprecedented ability to plan major research projects, foster greater collaboration and attract even more of the world's best researchers within and outside of Canada to fight these insidious diseases." Since 1952, the Foundation has provided more than $1.35 billion to heart and stroke research - second only to the federal government. But, this funding has never been an up-front commitment that can support long-term research planning. "The time has come to establish a new, more aggressive and coordinated approach to ending heart disease and stroke, so we've partnered with some of the highest performing researchers in Canada to get the job done," said Irfhan Rawji, past Chair of the Foundation and one of the architects of the Research Leadership Circle. "We're now counting on the generosity of Canadian philanthropists, our millions of longstanding donors as well as new supporters, to join with us to make this bold commitment succeed."