Research Trainee Program
Our Research Trainee Program supports health researchers in the training phase of their research career to enable career development and enrich BC’s health research talent.
The Research Trainee Program is one of Health Research BC’s flagship funding opportunities. Since 2001, we’ve granted more than 1,400 Research Trainee awards helping to develop, attract and retain BC’s best and brightest health researchers and support the advancement of world-class health research in BC.
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This competition is
OPEN
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Important Dates
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Applications open:
Mid-November 2024
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Letter of intent deadline:
December 12, 2024, 4:30 p.m. PT
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Full application deadline (applicant):
February 13, 2025, 4:30 p.m. PT
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Full application deadline (host institution):
February 20, 2025, 4:30 p.m. PT
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Anticipated notice of funding decision:
July 2025
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Anticipated start of funding:
September 01, 2025
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Award Term
Up to 3 years
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Award Amount
$60,000/annum
Jump to:
Program details Eligibility How to apply Application resources WebinarProgram details
- Award amount: $60,000/annum and a research and travel allowance of $4,500/annum.
- Award term: Applicants may request up to three years of support.
- Provides salary support for talented post-doctoral or health professional researchers and develops their health research careers.
- Helps post-doctoral researchers increase their, and their labs’, research productivity.
- Prepares post-doctoral researchers for successful careers in research, biotech, health policy and more.
- New for 2025: Applicants and supervisors/co-supervisors will no longer be able to include a Canadian Common CV in Research Trainee applications and instead will be asked to complete a few new questions about supervision of trainees, career history, and experience leading or participating in funded research projects (see Section 9, Assessment of Research Outputs)
Partnered awards are
available for this program!
Learn more
Eligibility
Applicants must:
- Have a PhD and commit to a minimum of 75 percent of their time conducting research, or be a health professional in active clinical service and commit to a minimum of 50 percent of their time conducting research.
- Hold or be eligible to hold a post-doctoral fellowship position by the award start date, and for the duration of the award, at a BC institution that holds a memorandum of understanding with Health Research BC (formerly known as MSFHR).
- Not have held a previous Health Research BC/MSFHR post-doctoral fellowship award.
- New for 2025: We no longer require applicants to be within a certain number of years of their PhD or health professional degree completion date to be eligible to apply for a Research Trainee award (see Section 4, Eligibility Requirements of guidelines). If an applicant is eligible to hold a postdoctoral fellowship under their host institution’s policies, they may apply to the Research Trainee Program, provided they meet the other eligibility requirements.
How to apply
Applications to our funding competitions are coordinated through Health Research BC's ApplyNet, our online grants management system that allows users to manage their entire award lifecycle, from application submission to post-award monitoring.
Log in to ApplyNet:
Applynet
Webinar
The 2025 Research Trainee information session has passed. To watch the recording, please click “View” below and enter the passcode. The slides are also available for download.
Fostering health research capacity
As a funding agency with a provincial mandate, we recognize the importance of fostering health research capacity in all regions. Additionally, we’re working to increase applications from around the province, including the north, Interior, Fraser Valley, and Vancouver Island, to support research of importance to those communities and train tomorrow’s researchers to strengthen health research capacity across the province. For this competition, we will continue to identify and remove barriers to success for applicants from around the province, including:
- Implementing peer review processes and evaluation criteria to ensure applications from across BC are reviewed fairly and equitably.
- Recruiting peer reviewers from underrepresented regions and institutions in BC and from smaller institutions outside of BC.
- Working with Health Research BC partners to proactively identify partnership opportunities for fundable applications from regions and institutions outside of the Lower Mainland.
