UBC Health has announced $100,000 in new research funding to foster cross-faculty collaboration in health research at the university. 

“Interest in health research touches nearly every faculty at UBC Vancouver and UBC Okanagan,” said Dermot Kelleher, Vice-President, Health. “The importance of working together across faculties and disciplines is made clear by complex local and global issues, such as climate change, health equity, and emerging technologies. There is enormous depth of research excellence at our university, but there are still challenges in developing research ideas and initiatives that cross disciplines and faculties.”

The Health Innovation Funding Investment (HIFI) Awards are designed to help address those challenges, including developing new ideas that will lead to a grant application, supporting innovative but potentially risky research, and enabling the translation of a proven initiative into practice. 

The HIFI Awards are intended to catalyze health researchers to undertake innovative and perhaps somewhat risky activities that have the potential to create change.

“Part of UBC Health’s mandate is to support collaboration among faculty members engaged in health-related research, and that’s what the HIFI awards are intended to encourage,” said Kim McGrail, Director of Research at UBC Health. “Health is produced by a complex interplay of individual, social, political, and economic factors. The development of robotics and AI and global threats like climate change and pandemics only add to this complexity. The HIFI awards are intended to catalyze health researchers to undertake innovative and perhaps somewhat risky activities that have the potential to create change.”

Faculty members at UBC Vancouver and UBC Okanagan are eligible to apply. Teams will be expected to include at least two faculties/departments at UBC, with bi-campus collaborations encouraged. “Ideally there would also be a trainee included to ensure we're benefiting from their ideas and exposing them to different disciplines and perspectives,” said Kim. 

Five awards ranging from $10,000 to $25,000 will be disbursed in early 2021, with projects expected to begin by February 1. The deadline to apply for the inaugural HIFI Awards is November 30, 2020. Learn more about the application process.

UBC Health works under the auspices of the Office of the Vice-President, Health to enhance interdisciplinary health education, research and systems by fostering collaboration across disciplines and faculties at both UBC campuses, as well as with institutions and government organizations around the province.