Khoo Mentored Research Awards (KMRA)

Objective

The Khoo Mentored Research Award (KMRA) aims to engage experienced clinician researchers in an effort to develop clinician investigators (CIs) and clinician scientists (CSs). Collaboration, training, and mentoring are key components to the success of the KMRA. The award will have a PI (“Mentee”) and a Co-I (“Mentor”), and is designed to facilitate the career development of the PI (Mentee). The project may entail clinical, translational or health services research.

Funding Details

Awards will be given for up to a total of S$200,000 for 2 years.

Eligibility Criteria:

Principal Investigator (PI)

1. The Applicant (PI) must be clinically qualified (i.e. with MD/MBBS/BDS/PharmD) with specialty training beyond medical or dental school, or have PhD qualification. Non-clinically qualified PhD-holders cannot apply with lab-based research projects.

2. The Applicant must be performing clinical duties as a clinician or allied health professional with primary employment in the SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Centre (AMC).

3. The Applicant must not have been PI on an NMRC CSA, CS-IRG or OF-IRG, MOE-Tier 2 grant or an NRF grant, or have been PI on any grant with grant value exceeding S$375,000 in a single grant. Applicants with NMRC CS-IRG-NIG, Open Fund-YIRG, Transition Award and other institutional grants with grant value not exceeding S$375,000 are eligible to apply.

4. The Applicant must have received in-depth scientific training such as obtained in a PhD programme, Masters programme, or at least 2 years post-doctoral intensive research experience, in relevant local or overseas universities, research institutes, centres, etc.

5. The Applicant must have at least 0.3 FTE protected time endorsed in the application by the Applicant's Department Head.

6. The Applicant must hold a Duke-NUS academic appointment at time of funding.

7. Applicants who have held a Khoo Award (e.g. a previous Khoo Pilot Award) must have completed the project funded by the Khoo Award before applying for the KMRA. Awardees will not be allowed to apply for the same award again.

Co-Investigator (Co-I)

1. The Mentor (Co-I) must be a PhD, PharmD, MBBS, BDS or MD holder with primary employment in the SingHealth Duke-NUS AMC. Mentors must hold an Associate Professor or Professor (Adjunct or Regular Rank) appointment at Duke-NUS at time of application.

2. The Mentor must have been PI on a NMRC (other than NIG or TA), MOE, NRF or A*STAR grant, or equivalent international grants, within the last 3 years or have headed a section on a funded TCR Flagship Programme or major Centre Grant/Programme.

3. Preference will be given to Mentors with established track records of research mentorship. Mentors with a strong history of first, second or senior authored journal papers with substantial impact, but who have not been PIs on a competitive peer-reviewed grant may be considered on a case by case basis. The Applicant and Mentor must collaborate on the development of the proposal and its execution.

Submission

investigators should submit the title and 300 words abstract of project as well as their CV to Angie Tan, email: angietan@duke-nus.edu.sg. Suitable projects will be scheduled to present at a CCSD Research Development Seminar. Investigators will either be invited to submit the Khoo Mentored Research Award application form after the presentation or asked to present again.

Contact Person

Ms Angie Tan

Email: angietan@duke-nus.edu.sg

Additional Information

Please refer to Duke-NUS's website here (internet accessible link).