HPHSR Clinician Scientist Award 2025 (Singapore)

The HPHSR Clinician Scientist Award (HCSA) aims to provide salary & funding support for selected outstanding clinician scientists, to undertake research in the areas of Health Promotion, Preventive Health, Population Health and Health Services Research (HPHSR), bringing about significant and sustainable impact to health outcomes of the nation.

Research Areas

• Applicants focusing on translation of research and innovations into healthcare in the following strategic areas (covering both expertise in technology as well as use case areas) will be prioritised:
  • Medical Technology (MedTech), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Data Science and Digital Health
  • Epidemiology, Population Health and Implementation Science
  • Precision Medicine
  • Healthy and Meaningful Longevity
  • Family Medicine and Primary Care

Award Information

• The HPHSR Clinician Scientist Award (HCSA) has two levels of award:
  • Investigator (INV) Category: This is for a clinician scientist with good track records of research work and demonstrated potential to become leaders in this field. The award includes up to $500k grant support, with up to 30% indirect costs^ and between 0.5 FTE to 0.7 FTE salary support for protected time in research over 3 years.
  • Senior Investigator (SI) Category: This is for a senior clinician scientist who has demonstrated sustained, high levels of productivity and leadership in this field, and are expected to mentor junior clinician scientists. The award includes up to $1.3M grant support, with up to 30% indirect costs^ and between 0.5 FTE to 0.7 FTE salary support for protected time in research over 5 years. There is no limit to the number of renewals for this category.

Eligibility Criteria

• Applicants should hold a clinical qualification (e.g. MBBS, MD, BDS or equivalent), with specialty training beyond medical or dental school (including specialists, family physicians and public health practitioners).
• Applicants who are health science/healthcare professionals with non-medical degrees, such as nurses, pharmacists and other allied health professions listed on MOH’s website in clinical practice, possess PhD or equivalent qualifications are eligible to apply. Those without PhD or equivalent qualifications but possess relevant research track record can be considered for award on case-by-case basis.
• Applicants working in human clinical research, including epidemiologists and biostatisticians, and whose research is clinically relevant and has potential health impact, will be considered as exceptions on a case-by-case basis.
• All applicants must be doing research in clinical settings or doing research with clinical and healthcare applications/relevance.
• Applicants with non-medical degrees conducting laboratory-based research are not eligible.
• Applicants must have been an independent PI on at least one national or international peer-reviewed research grant, with the grant quantum equivalent to a Health Services Research Grant (HSRG)/Population Health Research Grant (PHRG) (i.e., approx. $1M).
• Applicant must hold the following appointments:
  • A primary appointment in a local public hospital/public health institutions/national specialty centre/public university/Academic Medical Centre (AMC) and be salaried by the institution;
  • A regular-rank faculty/academic appointment in one of the AMCs or medical schools within 3 months of award conveyance.
• Applicant must be a Singapore citizen or Permanent Resident at the point of application.
• Applicant must generally not be beyond the retirement age in the year of grant call.
• All research must be conducted in Singapore at a public research institute, hospital/centre or medical school.
• Applicant should not have outstanding reports from NMRC grants and other national grants.
• Applicant may only submit one application to the human capital/talent awards (i.e. STaR, CSA, HCSA, CIA and TA) for each round of grant call.
• Applicant is only allowed up to 2 resubmissions following an unsuccessful first submission.

Assessment Criteria

• The assessment criteria will be broadly as follows:
  • Track Record of PI will be the highest priority
  • Scientific excellence and potential to improved health outcomes and adoption into actual policy/practice
  • Feasibility of study in local context
  • Productivity
  • Overall Impact in local context
  • For INV: Mentorship training plan, suitability and track record of mentor

Application Requirements

• Awardees will have to provide an annual report to NMRC which sets out what has been achieved and the progress made towards the contributions which had been agreed to at the point of recruitment.
• For HCSA SI awards, there will be an extensive mid-term review (apart from the annual progress report submission) in the third year of funding support. The subsequent 2 years of funding support will be subject to review of the Year 3 mid-term report and progress made.
• Awardees are also required to submit a final report to NMRC within 3 months from the project completion date.

For more information, visit NMRC.