Women's Health Research

Research Awards

Ensure women’s unique health needs get the attention they deserve and ignite innovation by funding research awards.

Offered through the Women’s Health Research Institute (WHRI), these awards provide a launch pad for the brightest minds and most cutting-edge ideas — improving care and changing lives for decades to come.

SCHOLAR AWARD, COMPLEX CHRONIC DISEASES

Investment needed: $60,000 annually for two years

Dr. Luis Nacul, a world-renowned clinician-researcher, and his team at the BC Women’s Hospital Complex Chronic Diseases Program (CCDP) are uniquely positioned to uncover the answers to mysterious diseases more frequently impacting women, including Post-COVID-19 Fatigue Syndrome (Long COVID). Investing in Dr. Nacul’s Scholar Award will accelerate this research, support the creation of a self-sustaining research program, and directly improve patient care.

GRADUATE + FELLOWSHIP STUDENT AWARDS

Investment needed: Two awards per year, $25,000 each

BC Women’s Health Foundation offers one Graduate Award and one Fellowship Award to outstanding students who are supervised by a WHRI member. These Awards supports research and salary costs, to allow the student to investigate a research question that can launch their career in the field of women’s or newborn’s health research.

There is tremendous demand for the kind of early career support this award offers. In the first year it was offered (2019), there were nearly 40 applicants. You can join us in achieving our goal of providing young researchers with a 10 to 1 chance of success by supporting Graduate Student Awards – and activate a new generation of women’s health researchers.

The Graduate Awards are our way to inspire the most gifted young researchers to continue on the track of investigating women’s health issues.

CATALYST GRANTS

Investment needed: Six grants per year, $28,000 each

Too often, early career researchers’ ideas and hypotheses remain uninvestigated due to lack of funding. Imagine how many breakthroughs in women’s health we’ve missed out on.

That’s why our Foundation partners with the WHRI to award six Catalyst Grants ($28,00 each) annually. Since 2016, research ‘investors’ have been helping to back new ideas and fund as-yet unproven innovations that will help us leapfrog over existing research biases to create real and sustained change for women’s health.

We know the value of investing in early career researchers has profound implications for healthcare. By supporting a catalyst grant you’re supporting the next generation of women’s health researchers in BC.