Training Program - Clinician-Scientist Awards

2025 MARATHON OF HOPE CLINICIAN SCIENTIST AWARD

Purpose

To provide outstanding young clinician investigators with funding to support high quality research in precision oncology. The award is designed to support young investigators as they develop their careers as independent clinician scientists, in close collaboration and mentorship with established Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network (MOHCCN) funded-teams.

Scope

Support under this Request for Applications (RFA) is targeted at high-quality, clinically-related research, providing information that may form the basis of innovative cancer prevention, diagnosis and/or treatment. In general research supported by these awards should include, but may not be limited to studies that develop new:

• ways of generating therapeutically actionable biological cancer data
• types of therapeutically actionable biological cancer data
• tools to analyze existing rich, complex or large datasets, and
• precision oncology trial design, conduct and analysis.

Applicants must be mentored by researcher(s) (clinician and/or scientist) currently associated with a MOHCCN-funded study. Special consideration will be afforded to applicants who include plans for inclusion of marginalized populations in their work.

Support Offered

Up to four awards of $75,000 each per annum are tenable for three years and provide:

• Approved research expenses for the research project awarded.

The sponsoring, eligible Canadian institution is required to match the Marathon of Hope Clinician Scientist Award with a similar amount to be used to augment research expenses. Up to four awards will be made for this round of the competition.

Eligibility

To apply you should:

• Be a physician (MD, or international equivalent) and are eligible to start, continue, or have completed their subspeciality training (medical oncology, hematology-oncology, pediatric oncology, surgical oncology, radiation oncology and pathology, etc.)
• Have completed MD or MD PhD degrees by the time the award is taken up
• Be a Canadian citizen or a Permanent Resident of Canada
• Have a valid, active Canadian medical licence
• Be within the first five calendar years of their first faculty appointment at an eligible Canadian hospital or academic health sciences centre
• Be planning an investigative career in clinical oncology
• Have a mentor in the proposed research field from the sponsoring Institution. The mentor must assume responsibility and provide guidance for the research
• Not currently be holding a Terry Fox Research Institute New Investigator Award
• Have a letter of commitment from the eligible Canadian hospital or academic health sciences centre
  • confirming the date of appointment of the applicant which can EITHER be no more than one year later than the start of the award OR be no more than five calendar years before the start of the award, and
  • indicate provision of direct support for the applicant to spend dedicated time for research.

Funding Envelope

The MOHCCN has an initial funding envelope sufficient to fund up to four Marathon of Hope Clinician Scientist Awards awards in the first round.

Key Deadlines and Dates

Guidance Provided

Please refer to the following documents for guidance:

• 2025 MOHCCN Clinician-Scientist: REQUEST FOR APPLICATIONS:   EN |  FR
• 2025 MOHCCN Clinician-Scientist: REGISTRATION OF INTENT:   EN |  FR
• 2025 MOHCCN Clinician-Scientist: CV:   EN |  FR
• 2025 MOHCCN Clinician-Scientist: FULL APPLICATION:  EN |FR 
• 2025 MOHCCN Clinician-Scientist: FULL APPLICATION GUIDE:  EN |  FR 

Contact

Jessie Micholuk, MPH
Network Programs Manager, MOHCCN
Email: jmicholuk@tfri.ca