Grand Challenges Grant Opportunities

How to Apply: 

Applications for all RFPs are due no later than April 28, 2026, at 11:30 AM Pacific Daylight Time.

We will host a dedicated webinar on each RFP to provide more details and answer your questions. Please check the challenge page of the RFP you are interested in for exact dates and times. The webinars will be recorded and available for viewing after the session.

External Deadline: 
Tuesday, April 28, 2026
Funding Source: 
External
Funding Level: 
Research

Gates Foundation

Supporting Psychological Health in First Responders (SPHIFR)

How to Apply: 

Apply for funding for services or research supporting mental health in first responders and emergency workers.

Alberta’s firefighters, police officers, paramedics, sheriffs, corrections officers and emergency workers often deal with stressful, dangerous and traumatic situations. This stress has a negative impact on first responders and emergency workers. They experience post-traumatic stress injuries (PTSI) at significantly higher rates than the general population.

For this program’s purposes, “emergency workers” are those who encounter serious, unexpected and often dangerous situations requiring immediate action as part of their jobs.

The Supporting Psychological Health in First Responders (SPHIFR) grant program has 2 separate funding streams:

  • Stream 1 (Services) provides funding for non-profit organizations that provide services that support first responders and emergency workers living with or at risk for PTSI.
  • Stream 2 (Applied research) provides funding to researchers engaged in applied research that generates evidence on prevention or intervention for first responders and emergency workers living with or at risk for PTSI.
External Deadline: 
Monday, May 25, 2026
Funding Source: 
External
Funding Level: 
Research

Team Grant : GACD 2026: NCD Multi Sectors (Implementation Science to Tackle Non-Communicable Diseases: Maximizing Collaboration and Coordination Beyond Healthcare Systems)

How to Apply: 

This funding opportunity supports implementation research focused on strategies leveraging opportunities provided by settings and sectors beyond the health system in LMICs and/or underserved populations, including Indigenous populations, in HICs.

The projects funded under this call will collectively:

  • contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3.4 to reduce premature mortality from NCDs by one third by 2030;
  • address implementation of strategies across sectors that will:
    • provide evidence and recommendations to national programmes and policies; aiming to inform policy and practice to address the growing burden of NCDs.
    • expand accessibility of programmes addressing NCDs.
    • promote the early prevention, risk reduction, and timely diagnosis of NCDs.
    • ensure continuity of care for NCDs, from prevention and screening to management in the community.
    • promote improved health outcomes in underserved populations, and low-and middle-income countries.
    • improve quality of life across the life course and extend healthy life expectancy.
    • improve local capacity for implementation research, data collection and harmonisation, and stakeholder engagement for strategies leveraging sectors beyond the health system to tackle non-communicable diseases.

While the focus is on settings outside of the healthcare system, collaboration with the relevant healthcare system(s) as part of the project is expected to facilitate effective design and knowledge mobilization.

External Deadline: 
Tuesday, June 23, 2026
Funding Source: 
External
Funding Level: 
Research

Operating Grant: ECRs in Human Development, Child and Youth Health (2026)

How to Apply: 

Objectives

 

The specific objectives of this funding opportunity are to:

  • Support early career researchers in initiating and conducting independent research in human development, child and youth health with the goal of building research capacity in this important health research area.
  • Generate new knowledge that will contribute to improving human development, child and youth health outcomes, promote health equity, and increase our understanding of the challenges, needs and current gaps in this research area.
  • Facilitate knowledge exchange and translation between early career researchers and other stakeholders in human development, child and youth health.
External Deadline: 
Tuesday, September 15, 2026
Funding Source: 
External
Funding Level: 
Research

Forest Sector Investment and Innovation Program

How to Apply: 

The Forest Sector Investment and Innovation Program (FSIIP) provides funding for strategic investments in the forest sector that:

  • improve productivity and innovation
  • enhance competitiveness
  • support new market access
  • provide benefits to Ontario’s broader forest sector
  • strengthen regional economies

Support is available under two project categories – business projects and collaboration projects.

External Deadline: 
Friday, June 19, 2026
Funding Source: 
External
Funding Level: 
Research

CBRCanada Awards

How to Apply: 

Award for Excellence in Community Campus Research Partnership 2026

The CBRCanada Community Research Excellence Awards are intended to recognize the achievements of a promising community-based research partnership and signify the importance of community-based research as a growing field of practice. The Award for Excellence in Community-Campus Research Partnership honours the exemplary contributions of a community-campus research partnership that has demonstrated excellence in community-based research. Research partnerships applying for the award should demonstrate excellence in research process (e.g., driven by community with meaningful participation of research partners); research quality (e.g., meaningful, innovative data collection and analysis), and research impact (e.g., community issues addressed by research informed evidence). Research partnerships applying for the award should exemplify an authentic and reciprocal relationship among community and academic partners.

Award for Emerging Community-Based Researcher 2026

The CBRCanada Community Research Excellence Awards are intended to recognize the achievements of a promising community-based researcher and signify the importance of community-based research as a growing field of practice. The Award for Emerging Community-Based Researcher recognizes and celebrates an individual who embodies community-based research values in their work. Nominees for this award should be working closely with a community(ies) in support of transformational community-driven, participatory, and action-oriented research that imagines and builds innovative solutions that address community needs. They are deeply committed to social justice, the issue and/or community(ies) in which they work, and have a drive toward turning research into short and long-term actions to pressing societal issues.

If you are interested in being nominated for one of these awards, please contact the Office of Research Services (ahacquo1@lakeheadu.ca) to indicate your interest by March 27, 2026.

External Deadline: 
Friday, April 10, 2026
Award Category: 
Award
Funding Source: 
External
Funding Level: 
Research

Postdoctoral Fellowships

How to Apply: 

The HFSP fellowship program supports proposals for frontier, potentially transformative research in the life sciences. Applications for high-risk projects are particularly encouraged. The projects should be interdisciplinary in nature and should challenge existing paradigms by using novel approaches and techniques. Scientifically, they should address an important problem or a barrier to progress in the field.

HFSP postdoctoral fellowships encourage early career scientists to broaden their research skills by moving into new areas of study while working in a new country.

Two different fellowships are available:

  • Long-Term Fellowships (LTF) are for applicants with a PhD on a biological topic who want to embark on a novel and frontier project focussing on the life sciences.

  • Cross-Disciplinary Fellowships (CDF) are for applicants who hold a doctoral degree from a non-biological discipline (e.g. physics, chemistry, mathematics, engineering or computer sciences) and who have no (or little) experience in the life sciences.

External Deadline: 
Tuesday, May 5, 2026
Funding Source: 
External
Funding Level: 
Research

Alzheimer’s Association Health Services Research in Alzheimer’s disease and Related Disorders Program

How to Apply: 

Brain Canada is excited to support the Alzheimer’s Association on the Alzheimer’s Association Health Services Research in Alzheimer’s disease and Related Disorders (HSR-ADRD) Program. 

The HSR-ADRD program is aimed at advancing health services research that ensures high-quality, equitable, and person-centered brain health and dementia care along the healthcare continuum, across communities and settings. 

This program seeks proposals that utilize rigorous methodologies to advance understanding and improvement of cognitive impairment, including mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (AD/ADRD) detection, diagnosis, and post-diagnostic care.   

 This award is structured as an individual research grant, with funding administered through the recipient’s institution. Proposals should address one or more Areas of Focus. Areas of Focus represent high-priority research topics for which this program is actively seeking proposals and include:   

  • The Value of Early Detection and Diagnosis: Studies should investigate outcomes associated with early detection and diagnosis on at least two levels of the dementia care ecosystem (i.e., individual/families, providers/clinicians, health systems/payers, and policy/society).  

  • Care Pathways for Individuals with MCI or Dementia: Studies should consider comorbidities and investigate how people are being screened and diagnosed in different settings, and the post-diagnosis pathways for care and treatment, including pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions or combinations thereof.  

 

The Alzheimer's Association and Brain Canada Foundation are pleased to consider partnership for successful Canadian-led applications.  

Click here to view the request for applications 

External Deadline: 
Wednesday, May 6, 2026
Funding Source: 
External
Funding Level: 
Research

Brain Canada-CQDM Call for Collaborative Research Projects on the Brain

How to Apply: 

Brain Canada and CQDM are joining forces to support interprovincial collaborative biopharmaceutical research and development (R&D) projects on the brain. This partnership creates a unique funding opportunity that brings together experts from academia and industry to support the development of platforms, tools and biopharmaceuticals that will pave the way for new advances in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of brain disorders. This initiative is focused on brain research relevant to biopharmaceutical applications. The aim of the initiative is to increase research collaborations, foster technological maturation, and to promote the knowledge, capabilities and new technologies developed in public institutions.  

Investigators must be affiliated with and conduct research at an eligible Canadian institution, as defined by CIHR, for the full duration of the grant.
 
The principal investigator must be based at a research institution in Quebec (university and affiliated hospital, research institute, public research center). They must work in close collaboration with at least one other independent researcher working in a research institution in another Canadian province or territory, as well as with at least one Quebec company.

External Deadline: 
Wednesday, June 3, 2026
Funding Source: 
External
Funding Level: 
Research

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