July 20 – 26

CIHR has recently launched its Operating Grant: Population Health Intervention Research funding opportunity.

The specific objectives of this funding opportunity are to:

The total amount available for this funding opportunity is $3,027,250, enough to fund approximately 12 grants. This amount includes funding from partners for applications that align specifically with their relevant research areas as described in the Partner Description section. This amount may increase if additional funding partners participate. The maximum amount per grant is $250,000 for over a period of up to 2 years. This funding is non-renewable.

Of this $3,027,250:

Please visit the CIHR website for further information regarding this funding opportunity.

Please note that there will be two speakers at our upcoming seminar on Wednesday, July 22:

PDF, Hancock Lab,

Centre for Microbial Diseases and Immunity Research

PDF, Strynadka Lab,

Centre for Blood Research

Research Orientation Day is a FREE annual, day-long event intended for assistant, associate and full professors who are new to UBC’s Vancouver campus (and affiliated health research institutes) since January 1, 2013. This year’s event is scheduled for Thursday, August 27, 2015 and will connect new faculty members with research support units and available resources. New researchers will also meet experienced faculty, research directors and other new faculty.

Presentations include an overview of support services available to researchers in all disciplines, advice on securing funding, and an introduction to research ethics and financial compliance procedures. Attendance is not mandatory but is strongly recommended.

Attached is the event poster with further information. If you have any other questions, please contact Clement Woo (clement.woo@ubc.ca).

Target audience: Psychiatrists, pharmacists, primary care physicians, psychologists, nurses, social workers.

Up to 5.75 Mainpro-M1/MOC Section 1 credits (This conference will also be accredited for CCCEP)

Martha Sajatovic, MD.

Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology, Case Western Reserve University

Director, Geropsychiatry Program, and Neurological and Behavioral Outcomes Center, University Hospitals Case Medical Center

Willard Brown Chair in Neurological Outcomes Research, Cleveland

Professor, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioural Neurosciences, McMaster University

Please note that a Pre-Conference Workshop is also available on September 17th.

I wanted to bring to your attention a new course that will be offered next year as part of the renewed MD Undergraduate curriculum that will offer a number of new teaching and mentoring opportunities for the faculty in your Department.  In the Fall of 2015, we will be launching a course called FLEX; FLEXible and Enhanced Learning. FLEX is an innovative new course that provides both time and space for medical students to participate in a variety of different learning activities, including research projects. The course will promote scholarly inquiry by introducing students to the basics of research and scholarship, and then provide them with time and support to pursue, design and participate in projects in their area of interest.

FLEX will span the first three years of the MD Undergraduate curriculum and will make use of one afternoon per week and dedicated blocks of time which are devoted solely to FLEX activity. As such, the framework for the course will support student engagement in larger, longitudinal projects, including research projects that may span more than one year.

We are currently collecting the names of faculty who are interested in working with a medical student. Attached to this email is our “FLEX Call For Proposals”. The package contains a pdf that provides background information about the course (goals of the course, information about course scheduling and how to get involved) and instructions for filling in the FLEX proposal form. The remaining two word files are the proposal forms themselves (.docx and .doc versions).

FLEX will serve to connect students with specific projects, and connect students with potential supervisors. If you have faculty within your Department that would like to work with a medical student but do not have not have a specific project in mind, we invite them to submit a proposal form that simply outlines their area of interest and/or a few potential ideas.  We will begin populating the FLEX database in August 2015. If you would like to work with a student in the upcoming academic year (2015/2016) and you would like have your activity posted to the database ford students to review this fall, please submit your proposal forms by July 30.

Please feel free to distribute this package to the faculty in your Department or to other individuals you feel would be interested. If you have any questions, do let me know. I am happy to meet with you personally, present to your group and/or meet with any individuals who are interested in getting involved. I should also note that faculty will receive evaluations and letters for their teaching dossiers and the assessment requirements of the faculty are both streamlined and minimal.

For more information please contact the course co-directors; Dr(s). Dawn Cooper (d.cooper@ubc.ca) and Richard Lazenby (Richard.lazenby@ubc.ca).