Trainee Grants, Scholarships and Awards
Securing adequate funding is essential for the research and academic advancement of trainees. Unity Health trainees have access to a variety of funding sources, such as internal grants, university scholarships, and both governmental and non-governmental funding. It is recommended that students consistently consult their university to stay informed about available funding opportunities and application deadlines.
RTC Internal Funding Opportunities
RTC Top-Up Award for Graduate Students
The Research Training Centre (RTC) offers a limited number of top-up awards designed to support graduate trainees (MSc or PhD) at LKSKI and KRCBS. These awards aim to supplement stipends for graduate students registered with the RTC, assisting them in conducting research and obtaining their degrees through their work.
Funds Available:
The successful applicant will receive a one-time Top-Up Award of $2000 CAD. We also encourage applicants to seek external funding.
Application Deadline: TBA
For further details, please refer to the RTC Top-Up Award Guidelines.
RTC Travel Award
The RTC offers conference travel awards to assist RTC-registered graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in attending national and international events. These awards aim to promote research dissemination, knowledge translation, and career development for Unity Health trainees by helping to offset participation costs for oral and/or poster presentations.
For further details, please refer to the RTC Travel Award Guidelines.
Holmes-McInnes Research Student Leadership Award for Excellence and Community Building
The award is intended to recognize a graduate student, who demonstrates both academic and professional excellence, leadership and outstanding contribution(s) to supporting other research trainees and/or our research community within our Institute. The recipient of this yearly award will be a graduate (MSc or PhD) student engaged in thesis-related research at Unity Health during the academic year when a trainee is nominated. Awardees are to be nominated by members of the research community of St. Michael’s Hospital, Unity Health Toronto. The award is in the amount of $200 per recipient annually and it can be received only once by a given trainee while studying at UHT.
For further details, please refer to the Holmes-McInnes Research Student Leadership Award Guidelines.
External Funding Opportunities
Tri-Council Funding Opportunities
Canada Graduate Scholarships – Doctoral (CGS D) Program
The Canada Graduate Scholarships — Doctoral (CGS D) program is a federal program of scholarships administered by the Tri-Council (CIHR, NSERC, SSHRC). The CGS D program supports and promotes research excellence in a wide variety of disciplines and broad fields of natural sciences and engineering, health and social sciences and humanities, including interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research.
Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS) Program
The Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS) Program recognizes academic excellence in graduate studies at the Master’s and Doctoral levels in all disciplines of academic study
$5,000 per session for 2 or 3 consecutive sessions
See your university department for specific deadlines
MITACS Funding Opportunities
Accelerate: internships for graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows, rolling deadline
Elevate: internships for postdoctoral fellows
Globalink: travel funding between Canada and several international partners, rolling deadline
Canadian Science Policy Fellowship: usually opens in January
University Funding Opportunities
Students who are pursuing research-based Master’s or Doctoral studies may also qualify for additional financial support, which are administered by the respective graduate units. Please check with your specific department, and also visit the Graduate Awards Office for additional information about scholarship and financial aid programs.
Postdoctoral fellows can find funding opportunities on the Burroughs Welcome Fund website. Postdoctoral Funding Opportunities, on Government/NGO funding websites, or other university awards.
*Please ensure to verify all internal application deadlines with your university and/or program
Guidelines for Postdoctoral Fellows Applying for Research Grants
Postdoctoral fellows are vital members of the Unity Health research community, and we are committed to supporting them on their academic and professional development journey. We are aware that there are specific grants that explicitly name postdoctoral fellows, postdoctoral researchers or postdoctoral scholars as eligible applicants. Hence, we have developed the following Guidelines and Agreement Form to allow postdocs to apply to these opportunities, provided that specific criteria are met. We ask that postdocs review these documents and discuss any plans to apply for grants with their supervisor.
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