2025 Heart & Stroke Postdoctoral Fellowship Award

Eligibility

Equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in research environments enhances excellence, innovation and creativity. Heart & Stroke is committed to excellence through equity and encourages applicants from diverse and equity deserving groups to apply to our funding opportunities.

Applicants must meet the following criteria:

a. The applicant’s institution must provide a signature committing to contribute at least the same monetary amount per year as Heart & Stroke’s contribution towards the postdoctoral stipend should the applicant be successful. The signature must be from an individual with signing authority for the institution. The applicant must upload the Signatures Page to CIRCUlink as part of the submission package (see C.7  How to Apply).

 b. As of the application deadline date, applicants must be Canadian citizens, permanent residents of Canada or Protected Persons under subsection 95(2) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (Canada) as of the application deadline date. 

c. Applicants must hold or be completing either (i) a PhD or (ii) a regulated health professional degree.

d. At the time of submission, applicants must either (i) have a position as a full-time Postdoctoral Fellow or Clinical Fellow at an eligible Canadian institution; or (ii) have applied for the position of full-time Postdoctoral Fellow or Clinical Fellow at an eligible Canadian institution with a start date of no later than December 31, 2025. 

e. Clinical Fellows must be in a research stream.

f. Applicants may not hold, or be on leave from, an independent research position. 

g. Applicants must have an identified research supervisor based at an eligible Canadian institution where the research will be undertaken. 

h. Applicants must submit, from the institution, a written declaration of being enrolled as a full-time Postdoctoral Fellow or Clinical Fellow prior to funds being released. 

i. At the time of submission, and for the duration of the award, award recipients are ineligible if they hold or have already held funding, directly or indirectly, from the tobacco industry. 

j. Applicants cannot currently hold, or have previously held a Heart & Stroke postdoctoral fellowship award. 

Summary

Heart & Stroke’s personnel award programs provide salary support to Canada’s top researchers across the career continuum. This support helps ensure the training, retention and success of Canada’s cardiovascular and cerebrovascular researchers. Heart & Stroke is pleased to launch the Postdoctoral Personnel Awards for the 2025/26 funding year. The objective of the competition is to increase the number of researchers and clinician-scientists in Canadian universities and research institutions devoted specifically to cardiovascular and/or cerebrovascular health. The stipends awarded will enable Postdoctoral Fellows to pursue their program of research and engage with mentors as part of their training.

Applications must be submitted no later than 4:00 PM ET September 5, 2024 using CIRCUlink – Heart & Stroke‘s online research programs portal. CIRCUlink will not accept submissions after this deadline.  Any applications attempted or submitted after the deadline will NOT be accepted. There will be no appeal process to late submissions. It is the applicant’s responsibility to ensure that a completed application, including letters of support and all required signatures, is submitted online via CIRCUlink prior to the deadline. Applications will not be accepted by email. Heart & Stroke will decline late or incomplete applications. There will be no appeal process.

Overhead

These multi-year stipends may be used ONLY for salary support for the award recipient. No part of this stipend is to be used to support other direct or indirect costs associated with any research programs or operating grants. 

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 fellowships@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.

Please review agency guidelines here