Heart and Stroke Foundation- New Investigator Award (NI)
Well-being, Health and Biomedical Discovery
Deadlines
Academic Unit: Inquire with Unit
Memorial Deadline: Friday 28th, August 2026
External Deadline: Thursday 3rd, September 2026
Description
The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada (“Heart & Stroke”) New Investigator Award (“NI”) program is a salary award to support early-career investigators who have demonstrated excellence in their doctoral and post- doctoral training and wish to establish their own independent research career (“Applicants”). Salary awards provide an added incentive for researchers to continue or begin their program of cardiovascular or cerebrovascular research within Canada. The stipends, amounting to a maximum of $240,000 ($80,000 per year for up to three (3) years), will support successful NI Applicants (“Recipients”) in conducting their research programs and engaging with mentors and trainees at their respective institutions (“Host Institutions”).
Eligibility
In order to be eligible to apply for the NI competition, Applicants must meet the following criteria:
- a. At the time of submission, the Applicant must have a full-time appointment at the Assistant Professor level or above at an eligible Canadian institution.
- b. The Applicant must have an MD, PhD, or equivalent degree.
- c. At the time of submission, no more than five (5) year or sixty (60) months may have passed since the date of the first faculty appointment at the Assistant or Clinical Assistant Professor level. This would include Adjunct positions in a research track for which the Applicant is eligible to write a Grant-in-Aid as a Principal or Co-Principal Investigator. The date of first faculty appointment will be based on the date listed in the BioSketch under First Faculty Appointment. Note that the eligibility period may be extended resulting from career interruption due to extenuating circumstances such as parental leave(s), illness etc. The period of eligibility will be extended by the equivalent duration of the eligible interruptions(s). Please refer to B.4.3 BioSketch for more information.
- d. Applicants must have an identified one (1) mentor and provide a co-signed letter of the Mentorship & Training Plan. Please refer to B.4.3 Mentorship for more information.
- e. The Applicant should clearly demonstrate the potential to become an independent investigator.
- f. Partial awards of less than one (1) year are not available to New Investigator Award Applicants.
- g. Applications for this award must be supported by the university or institution at which the Applicant will conduct the proposed research program. The Host Institution is expected to guarantee the Applicant appropriate academic rank and to provide adequate space and facilities for the investigator’s research, commensurate with the status of the individual’s experience and level of support from Heart & Stroke. Please refer to B.4.3 Institutional Statement for more information.
- h. The Dean and Department Head (or institutional equivalents) must guarantee at least 75% of the Applicant’s time will be allocated to the proposed research program. Please refer to B.4.3 Institutional Statement for more information.
- i. At the time of submission, and for the duration of the award, Applicants are ineligible if they hold or have already held funding, directly or indirectly, from the tobacco industry.
Funding Availability
Financial contributions for this initiative are subject to availability of funds. Should the funders’ funding levels not be available or decrease due to unforeseen circumstances, funders reserve the right to reduce, defer or suspend financial contributions to grants and awards received as a result of this funding opportunity. Also, once funded decisions are finalized, Heart & Stroke may identify an unranked pool of fundable (but unfunded) applications for the competition. An application within this pool may receive funding should a donor(s) be identified to support the full grant or award. In order to facilitate such funding, application information such as project title, lay summary and/or research summary may be shared with the donor(s).
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by 15:00 EDT September 3, 2026. CIRCUlink will not accept submissions after this deadline.