NMRC Clinician Innovator Award (CIA) - Senior Investigator level (SI)

Objective

The Clinician Innovator Award (CIA) aims to provide salary & funding support for selected outstanding clinician innovators, to bring healthcare innovation ideas to the next level, and eventually, towards the commercialisation end-point.

Areas of Research

This programme is open to applications on all research areas. Applicants focusing on translation of research and innovations into healthcare in the following strategic areas (covering both expertise in technology as well as use case areas) will be prioritised: 

• Medical Technology (MedTech), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Data Science and Digital Health

• Epidemiology, Population Health and Implementation Science

• Precision Medicine

• Healthy and Meaningful Longevity

• Family Medicine and Primary Care

Funding Details

The award includes up to $500K with 30% indirect costs and up to 0.3 FTE salary support for protected time in research over 2 years. 

For more information about the funding details, please take a look at the website (internet accessible link).

Eligiblity Criteria

1. Applicants should hold a clinical qualification (e.g. MBBS, MD, BDS or equivalent), with specialty training beyond medical or dental school (including specialists, family physicians and public health practitioners)^1,2.

2. Applicants who are health science / healthcare professionals with non-medical degrees, such as nurses, pharmacists and other allied health professions listed on MOH’s website here in clinical practice, possess PhD or equivalent qualifications are eligible to apply. Those without PhD or equivalent qualifications, but possess relevant research track record can be considered for award on case-by-case basis.

3. Applicants working in human clinical research, including epidemiologists and biostatisticians, and whose research is clinically relevant and has potential health impact, will be considered as exceptions on a case-by-case basis³.

4. All applicants must be doing research in clinical settings or doing research with clinical and healthcare applications / relevance.

5. Applicants with non-medical degrees conducting laboratory based research are not eligible.

6. Applicant must hold the following appointments:

• • A primary appointment in a local public hospital/public health institutions/national specialty centre/public university/Academic Medical Centre and be salaried by the institution; and
  • A regular-rank faculty/academic appointment in one of the academic medical centres (AMC) or medical school within 3 months of award conveyance⁴.

7. Applicant must be a Singapore citizen or Permanent Resident at the point of application.

8. Applicant must generally not be beyond retirement age at the point of first award¹.

9. All research must be conducted in Singapore at a public research institute, hospital/centre or medical school.

10. Applicant should not have outstanding reports from NMRC grants and other national grants.

11. Applicant may only submit one application to the human capital/talent awards (i.e. STaR, CSA, HCSA, CIA and TA) for each round of grant call.

12. Applicant is only allowed up to 2 resubmissions following an unsuccessful first submission.

Notes:

¹ Recipients of NMRC Human Capital Awards (i.e., STaR, CSA, HCSA, CIA/CIDA) and Transition Award are exempted. 　

² Clinicians with recognised specialty training are:

1. Clinicians who are accredited by the MOH Specialists Accreditation Board (SAB), Dental Specialists Accreditation Board (DSAB) and Family Physicians Accreditation Board (FPAB).
2. Clinicians who do not fulfil the above but are able to demonstrate completion of specialist training in countries which do not have specialist boards/colleges and are holding consultant positions as a specialist may be considered on a case-by-case basis.

³ Applicants who are submitting on an exception basis are to submit their CV (with track records including publication records and grants held as PIs/Co-PIs in the past 5 years) to the Secretariat to determine their eligibility prior to submitting a full proposal.

⁴ An applicant without regular-rank faculty/academic appointment pledged by the AMC/medical school can be considered, if the PHI demonstrates that there is existing framework and governance that allow sustained research career / opportunities available to the applicant, as well as the availability of a conducive and facilitation structure where high quality research can be undertaken.

Submission

All applications must be submitted and endorsed by:

1. Institution's Head of Department online via IGMS (internet accessible link) and

2. Institution’s Director/ CEO / Dean of Medical School on 'Other Attachment Template’ [if Duke-NUS is selected as the Academic Institution (AI)] through Host Institution Research Office

• • Letters/emails of support from the applicant’s respective ACP chairs for the putting up of applicant for a regular-ranked faculty/ academic appointment at Duke-NUS is required (if applicant do not have any regular ranked appointment)

Note

• SingHealth PIs are to please refer to your respective Institutional Research Administrators for guidance on internal deadlines and submission procedures set by your institutions.

• STaR/ CSA/ HCSA/ CIA applications will not be routed to Dean, Duke-NUS for endorsement via IGMS. AI’s endorsement is now required under ‘Other Attachment template’ of the application form zipped package instead.

Contact Person

Mr Nicholas Mok

Email: nicholasevan.mok@mohh.com.sg

Additional Information

• Please download the 'Application Guide and Template' documents from NMRC's website here (internet accessible link).

• For more information on CIA, please visit NMRC's website here (internet accessible link).