Objective

The Clinician Scientist Award (CSA) provides salary and funding support for selected outstanding clinician scientitsts, to enable them to carry out internationally competitive translational and clinical research, to bring bench discoveries to bedside applications.

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 $675k grant support, with 30% indirect costs and and between 0.5 FTE to 0.7 FTE salary support for protected time in research over 3 years. The award is renewable once under the same category.

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. Applicants must have been an independent PI on at least one national or international peer-reviewed research grant, equivalent to an Individual Research Grant (IRG)-level grant.

7. 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.

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

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

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

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

12. 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.

13. 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

Contact Person

Ms Joefina Lim

Email: Joefina_LIM@moh.gov.sg

Additional Information

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

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