Submissions Open: John Gavin Post-Doctoral Fellowship (New Zealand)

Projects may be in any field of cancer-related research including public health, biomedical, clinical, epidemiological or psychosocial aspects of cancer. The expectation is that this Fellowship will support their journey to become established as an independent researcher in New Zealand.

In order to support the transition to independence, the Fellowship provides full salary support for two years, which may be spread over a maximum of four years. This flexibility enables the researcher to secure additional sources of salary support and provides a stepping stone to independence.

Eligible Costs

• Salary costs for John Gavin Postdoctoral Fellows are intended to allow the recipient to develop a sustainable research component to their career. Salary costs can either support the Fellow on a full-time basis for two years, or a fractional basis spread over up to four years.
• Should a tenured position be secured while holding the John Gavin Fellowship, funding from the Trust will cease. Under no circumstances will salary buy-out for permanent staff be an allowable expense.
• The Trust does not fund overheads including: property costs; depreciation; utility charges such as lighting, heating and water; telephone line charges; library; office stationery and accessories; or laboratory “bench fees”.
• Only actual costs for ACC and superannuation should be included in salary associated costs. Annual salary adjustments will be covered by the Trust.
• Attendance at conferences and training courses cannot be included. A separate funding application (Professional Development Award) should be submitted to request support.

Eligibility Criteria

• Applicants for the John Gavin Postdoctoral Fellowship should be New Zealand citizens or permanent residents who have recently completed a Doctor of Philosophy or equivalent degree. Applications would normally be made within five years of graduating PhD or equivalent.
• In exceptional circumstances applications will be considered from persons who have not yet received the results of their thesis examination, but the award and commencement of the Fellowship will be conditional on award of their doctoral degree. Usually the thesis will have been submitted for examination at the time of application.
• In any funding round, an applicant can be named on no more than two applications, with a maximum of one as the Principal Investigator. Submitting a John Gavin Post-Doctoral Fellowship application will be counted as a Principal Investigator application, which means a maximum of one further application is allowed and this must be as a co-applicant.
• The Trust expects that an individual will only be a Principal Investigator on one active Project Grant at a time. The individual may also be a named investigator on one or more active grants at the same time.
• Only one resubmission of a previously unsuccessful Project Grant or Fellowship application is permitted. It is an expectation that the applicant addresses all concerns raised by the referees and assessment committee in their re-submission.
• An applicant who has been unsuccessful twice may submit further proposals in their chosen field of research, but it will need to be based on a new or substantially revised hypothesis.

Application Requirements

• Applicants should pay attention to any details in the subheadings of each section of the application.
• Applicants may attach any images, figures, charts or diagrams referred to in the body of the application. Clinical trial protocols may also be attached. Applicants must not use these attachments to exceed the application word limit (3,000 words = 6 pages) to supply additional details. In such cases, the Committee will be instructed to disregard all attachments and the application may be rejected.
• Applicants must upload their Curriculum Vitae (CV).
• Attachments may include details of other sources of partial funding, ethics approval letters, quotes for items of equipment, sub-contracts with other institutions, and letters of support for collaborations.
• Applications should be accompanied by a letter of support that should comment on the facilities and mentoring available for the applicant.

For more information, visit Cancer Research Trust.