Overview
The Research Trainee Program supports the career development of talented post-doctoral or health professional researchers. These awards provide salary support that enables trainees to advance their careers while increasing the productivity of their labs.
Since 2001, we’ve granted more than 1,400 Research Trainee awards, supporting the launch of successful careers in research, biotech, health policy and other sectors.
Program 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.
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).
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.
- Not have held a previous Health Research BC/MSFHR post-doctoral fellowship award.
- 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.
Application resources
2026 Guidelines
Download2026 Evaluation criteria
Download2026 Conditions of award
Downloadsample pdfs
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.
We recruit reviewers who are subject matter experts in areas that align with applications. These reviewers are selected for their research excellence, breadth of knowledge and maturity of judgement.
View full listPartnered awards are available for this program!
Health Research BC’s partners may co-fund successful applications through this program to provide additional support. Indicate your interest when prompted in your application, or, if you missed this step, email the Partnerships team with your Application ID and preferred partner(s). The organizations below are interested in co-funding through this competition.
Past recipients
2025 Research Trainee award recipients
Congratulations to these outstanding BC-based health researchers named as this year’s Research Trainee Program award recipients.
See recipients