The Food and Health Bureau today (August 28) invited interested parties to apply for the Research Fellowship Scheme under the Health and Medical Research Fund.
The scheme aims to support researchers or professionals in their early to mid-career, particularly healthcare professionals, to enhance their skills in public health research, in particular public health policy.
To tie in with the launch of the Government's "Towards 2025: Strategy and Action Plan to Prevent and Control Non-communicable Diseases (NCDs) in Hong Kong" and the Hong Kong Cancer Strategy 2019, higher priority will be accorded to applications which address the preventable or modifiable risk factors for NCDs, namely smoking, alcohol drinking, unhealthy diet and physical inactivity. Subject to the quality of the applications, at least four of the eight awards will be granted to applications which can address the aforementioned four factors for NCDs, with one award in each area.
In addition, as the main purpose of this research fellowship scheme is to equip fellowship awardees with the knowledge and skills to become independent scientists/researchers, starting from this round of application, more emphasis will be put on the training plan by raising the budget ceiling and weighting on assessment of the training programme.
The grant ceiling per award is $1.2 million inclusive of $400,000 for training. Tertiary institutions funded by the University Grants Committee can each nominate up to five fellowship applicants. Each applicant can only submit one application.
The application should cover:
* a local or overseas training programme (regular programmes for higher academic qualifications, e.g. Master or PhD degree will not be considered); and
* a research project relating to the proposed training programme which could be a small-scale study, preferably with no more than three research objectives. Pilot studies are also welcomed.
Shortlisted applicants will be invited for an interview. Applications will be subject to peer review. The vetting will take into account the capability of the applicant and his or her performance at the interview, the support by the mentor and administering institution, the importance of the training proposal and its relevance to the proposed research project. The proposed research project will be evaluated on its scientific merit, local relevance, translational potential or value, value for money of the proposals, research ethics and the track record of the applicant.
The closing date for application is 6pm on November 19, 2019. Application guidelines can be downloaded from the website of Research Fund Secretariat. Enquiries can be made by fax at 2102 2444 or by email to rfs@fhb.gov.hk.
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