2024-25 Canadian Behavioural Interventions and Trials Network (CBITN) Postdoctoral Fellowships

Eligibility

• This funding is open to postdoctoral fellows, who will be registered full-time for the 2024-25 academic year and conducting research related to behavioural intervention development or testing.
• The funded mentee must be a Canadian citizen, Canadian permanent resident, or have a valid work permit or student visa.
• Applicants and their academic mentors must be members of CBITN. It is free to join CBITN. To become a member please sign up at: https://mbmccmcm.wufoo.com/forms/cbitn-membership-application/.
• CBITN requires applicants to have a second professional/community mentor, e.g., a patient, community member, healthcare professional, policy maker, or someone from the private sector. These mentors cannot be primarily researchers, but may have an academic appointment such as an adjunct position or equivalent.
  • The definition of someone who has a primary research profile is: having held principal applicant/investigator or co-principal applicant/investigator funds from a recognised provincial/federal/international funding agency OR being the first or senior author on a peer-reviewed journal article within the last 5 years. This second mentor is a requirement of funding.

Applicants submitting to the CBITN competition may not submit applications to other Clinical Trials Training Platforms (CTTPs) participating in this competition (i.e., CANTRAIN, StrokeCOG, and CAN-TAP-TALENT).

Only one application per level per academic mentor is allowed. Should an academic mentor support more than one mentee per level then all mentees at the level will be removed. This means that an academic mentor can support a maximum of 3 mentees, 1 at the masters level, 1 at the doctoral level, and 1 at the postdoctoral level.

Summary

With funding support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the CBITN is a unique platform designed to leverage the recent rapid innovations in behavioural intervention-based clinical trial designs, the mounting evidence demonstrating the efficacy of behavioural interventions, and the breadth and depth of behavioural clinical trials expertise within Canada and further enhance Canada’s capacity to develop, test, and implement innovative, evidence-based, effective behavioural interventions in clinical medicine and public health.

At the core of initiative will be a funded cohort of highly skilled postdoctoral fellows and graduate students (i.e., mentees), who will receive specialised training in the development, testing and delivery of behavioural interventions using innovative approaches and trial designs. These core skill sets can be applied to a variety of disease areas (infectious, NCDs), at multiple levels (individual, community/public health), and across sectors (industry, not-for-profit, government, and academia). The platform’s innovative training and mentoring program will build upon a number of pre-existing training initiatives and activities, such as those led by some of the CBITN’s scientific leads, notably Dr. Simon Bacon and Dr. Linda Carlson’s CIHR-SPOR Mentoring Chairs and Dr. Kim Lavoie’s Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Medicine, which have resulted in the training of over 20,000 Canadian and international graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, early career researchers (ECRs), HCPs (both trainees and practitioners), policy makers, and individuals from industry.

Award Details

The maximum scholarship funding values that can be obtained through this competition for Postdoctoral fellows is $45,000
The level of funding each mentee will receive is based on two factors:

1. Mentees with current funding from federal, provincial, or equivalent agencies and organisations:
   Mentees who already have external funding* will not be eligible for the maximum level of funding. However, a top-up scholarships of $6,000 will be provided

   * Each mentee will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis

2. The level of provincial partner funding that is provided to CBITN
   For mentees who are eligible to receive the maximum funding, $22,500 will be provided by CBITN through the CIHR grant.

In all cases, it is expected that the supervisor contributes to the applicant’s funding in the 
amount required to meet any minimum stipend rules at their institution. This award may be combined with other awards as an incentive, up to a combined maximum stipend allowed by the institution and/or partnering co-funders and/or the funding conditions of current awards previously obtained the applicant.
 

Commitment to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (EDIA)

This training program considers scientific excellence and also aims to support the full and fair participation of all members of the health research community through consideration of barriers experienced by underrepresented groups, with respect to EDIA principles as outlined by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (learn more).

Application deadlines

RSO final internal review deadline

Program application deadline

NOTE: Consult your Faculty Associate Dean (Research) (ADR) regarding Faculty-specific deadlines and submission processes.

Principal Investigators: Complete a Research Management System (RMS) record, including a copy of your complete application, and submit this for approvals in RMS.

Postdocs, students, and trainees: For fellowships and externally-sponsored research training awards or opportunities, you must complete the Research Funding Application Approval (RFAA) Trainee PDF form, and submit it, along with a complete copy of the application, to Research Services at rsotrainee@ucalgary.ca. Trainees should not use RMS at this time.

Approvals: The University of Calgary requires that all funding applications be approved prior to submission. Approval requires signatures via either RMS or the RFAA Trainee form, in the following order:

• Principal Investigator
• Department Head
• Faculty ADR/Dean
• Research Services (on behalf of the Vice-President Research)

Read the Meaning of Grant Signatures policy to understand what your approval means. Please see the agency guidelines for details about which signatures are required on your application, as it may differ from internal requirements.

Late submissions: Late submissions will only be accepted in cases of medical or family emergencies, or other exceptional circumstances. If you submit your RMS record to Research Services after the internal deadline has passed, you must secure additional approvals. Please read: Late Applications Process.

Steps to Follow

1. Both the applicant and the academic mentor must become CBITN members (which is free to join).
2. To become a member please sign up at: https://mbmccmcm.wufoo.com/forms/cbitn-membership-application/
3. Go to the CANTRAIN portal at: https://wecantrain.ca/home/studentships-fellowships-and-internships/
4. Select the opportunity that you intend to apply too (Master’s and Doctoral Studentship or Postdoctoral Fellowship)
5. Select the “APPLY TO CBITN” tab.
6. Complete the registration information. As part of the registration process some information about the applicant, the academic mentor, and the Professional/Community mentor will be needed.
7. Finalise your registration using the activation email sent to your email address, after which you can access and verify your profile and submission information.
8. Applicant profile information and application document can be modified, as needed, after submission until the Monday, May 31st, 2024, 5:00pm EDT (3:00pm MST) deadline.
9. Download complete application guides