Health Systems Impact Fellowships

On October 2, 2017, Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor announced $5.8M from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and partners to support 46 new PhD candidates and postdoctoral fellows through the Health System Impact Fellowship (HSIF) Program during an event at Rekai Centre in Toronto, Ontario.

The HSIF Program is a core component of a three-pronged multi-year training modernization funding initiative that stems from the Canadian Health Services and Policy Research Alliance’s (CHSPRA’s) Training Modernization Strategy. 

The Fellowship provides highly qualified individuals with a doctorate degree in health services and policy research, or related fields, a unique opportunity to apply their research and analytic talents to critical challenges in health system and related organizations outside of the traditional scholarly setting (e.g., public, private for-profit, not-for-profit, and Indigenous health organizations that are not universities or research-focused institutes), and to develop professional experience, new skills, and networks. Fellows will be exposed to how the health system and related organizations work, how decisions are made, and how research and analytic skills can contribute to an organization’s performance. These awards provide fellows with a paid experiential learning opportunity within such organizations where they will dedicate between 70-100% of their time. Flexibility in the time commitment will enable fellows to make meaningful contributions to an employer’s program of work, become immersed in the culture and operations of the organization, and benefit from mentorship by executive leaders, while also making it possible to set aside a portion of their time for academic research. Fellows’ experiential learning will also be enhanced through three unique training opportunities:

• Professional development training in an expanded set of competencies (e.g., leadership, negotiation, project management, change management) designed to accelerate their professional growth and better prepare them to embark on a wider range of career paths with greater impact;
• Participation in a national cohort of fellows and leaders from academic and health system and related organizations; and
• Networking and mentorship opportunities with health system and academic leaders from across the country.

The program gives PhD candidates and postdoctoral fellows the chance to undertake experiential learning opportunities in health care organizations across Canada and is sponsored by the CIHR Institute of Health Services and Policy Research (IHSPR) in collaboration with the Institute of Aging (IA), the Institute of Aboriginal Peoples’ Health (IAPH), the Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health (ICRH), the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR),the Institute of Infection and Immunity (III), the Institute of Nutrition, Metabolism and Diabetes (INMD), the Institute of Population and Public Health (IPPH), and CIHR’s Science, Knowledge Translation and Ethics (SKTE) Branch in partnership with the Fonds de recherche du Québec –Santé (FRQS), the New Brunswick Health Research Foundation (NBHRF) and Mitacs.

Related Products

• News Release
• Health System Impact Fellowship
• Training Modernization Strategy