Scholarships Funding

The aim of the BM-NHSP is to contribute positively towards efforts to strengthen and accelerate progress towards equity in research in line with the South African National Department of Health (NDoH) human resource for health strategy and the national health research priorities. The purpose is to attract and enable young scientists and professionals to access PhD research opportunities in a university environment and thereby strengthen their research profiles and consequently improve their prospects of permanent employment within the health/clinical research space.

There is no set amount of scholarship value. The scholarship value is determined by establishing how much the SA Government would pay the candidate if they were full-time employed with the qualifications they currently hold. Thus, the scholarship value is equivalent to the after-tax take-home pay of the candidate, based on the salary scales of the relevant post (or equivalent) in the National Department of Health. Prospective applicants are to note that once the benchmarking process has been completed (based on the criteria at the time) and a scholarship amount has been awarded, it will remain fixed for the full duration of the degree studies.

Requirements and Eligibility

Applicants must meet the following requirements and eligibility for the application to be considered by the scholarship selection committee:

• You must be a South African Citizen or permanent resident
• You must be a registered full-time PhD student at a South African University
• You must have research project and where applicable ethics approval for PhD study
• You must be a professional in the following, medicine, dentistry, nursing, medical science, occupational therapy, speech therapy, audiology, and biomedical engineering.
• Your research project must be aligned with the national research priorities
• For Equity and redress, preference will be given to scholars from under-represented and or previously underprioritized/funded groups and institutions.

The SAMRC is invested in strengthening efforts that take cognizance of the scarcity of Clinician researchers in South Africa. The purpose of the Clinician Researcher Development programme is to develop a cadre of highly trained clinician-scientists who are likely to be attracted to and excel in careers in academic medicine. Through its Division of Research Capacity Development, the SAMRC is committed to encourage and enable Universities to effect a substantial increase in their production of early-career clinician scientists (sentence break here) and develop a vibrant and transformed health research academic pipeline in South African medical schools.

General Requirements and Eligibility

Applicants must meet the following requirements and eligibility criteria for the application to considered by the scholarship selection committee.

• You must be a South African Citizen or permanent resident
• You must be a PhD student at one of the South African Medical Schools
• You must have a research project and where applicable ethics approval for your PhD study
• Your research project must be aligned with the National and SAMRC's research priorities
• Preference will be given to scholars from historically underrepresented groups, namely Asian, Black, Coloured and Indian.
• Scholars who require once off funding to complete the last 12 months of PhD are prioritized

This programme seeks specifically to train and develop scientists from under-represented groups, namely African Black, Indian, Coloured and Asian, whose research supervisors are employees or researchers or Grant holders at SAMRC. These research supervisors may be working for the SAMRC as researchers within SAMRC intra or extra mural research units. The research supervisor may be an SAMRC funded Principal Investigator working as a research scientist at any of the universities in South Africa.

The purpose of the program is to (i) contribute towards the SAMRC's transformation agenda to increase the representation of quality postgraduate scientists from designated groups with an emphasis on Black females and (ii) growing the number of PhD candidates from Historically Disadvantaged Institutions (HDIs).

The programme attracts young scientists of the highest calibre to complement SAMRC senior researchers and influence sustainable long-term collaboration with national and international institutions through joint supervision of South African students.

The long-term goal of this programme is to substantially increase the number of scientists from designated groups in strategic and emerging fields within the health and clinical research where these groups are underrepresented, such as, but not limited to Biostatistics, Demography, Data Science, Genomics, Epidemiology, Implementation and Translational Science etc.

The value of the scholarships is at least the following:

• PhD: R180 000.00 (plus tuition per annum= R20 000.00)
• Master (funding is for 2^nd year only): R140 000.00 (plus tuition per annum= R20 000.00)

General Requirements and Eligibility

Applicants must meet the following requirements and eligibility criteria for the application to be considered by the scholarship selection committee.

• You must be a South African Citizen or permanent resident
• You must be a member of the historically underrepresented groups in STEM fields namely Asian, Black, Coloured and Indian.
• You must be a registered full-time PhD student at a South African University
• You must have both project and where applicable ethics approval for your PhD research project
• Your research project must be aligned with the SAMRC's research priorities
• You must be receiving supervisory support from an SAMRC intramural unit or SAMRC extramural unit or SAMRC research centre or your PhD must be linked to an SAMRC funded research project

RCD is working with different South African Universities and/Research Centers specializing in Vaccinology to develop the next generation of leaders in the field of Vaccinology. The focus is on early career researchers specializing in the various research areas within the broad field of Vaccinology including but not limited to, Vaccine discovery, Vaccine development and manufacturing, Vaccine implementation and Clinical epidemiology of vaccines.

The SAMRC has previously collaborated with the Government of Switzerland via the Swiss Vaccine Research Institute (SVRC) and the University of Lausanne (UL) in a capacity development program in the research field of Vaccine Development. This is an e-learning facilitated program.  As at August 2021, five universities within South Africa (namely; MUT, SMU, UKZN, WITS and WSU) and seven SAMRC research units and hosted/funded entities namely; Cochrane South Africa, Health Systems Research Unit, HIV Prevention Research Unit, Respiratory and Meningeal Pathogens Research Unit, Afrigen Biologics, Cape Town HVTN Immunology Laboratory and CAPRISA are hosting scholars participating on the program.

The value of the scholarship is R300 000.00 for completion of the Master’s degree.

The programme provides support to individuals employed in academic institutions or SAMRC research units who are engaged in health/medical/clinical research to improve their academic qualifications. The funds can be used to afford dedicated time to spend in research activities, either as a salary while on unpaid leave or to pay for work relief. The programme targets previously disadvantaged groups and is expected to increase the number of academic with PhD degrees as part of overall research capacity strengthening and transformation.

The value of the award is up to up to R250 000.00 per year (once-off funding).

General Requirements and Eligibility

Applicants must meet the following requirements and eligibility criteria for the application to be considered for the award:

• South African Citizen or permanent resident
• Academic or staff at research institutions, allied health professionals, nurses or clinical/health research professionals who are registered for PhD in health/medical/clinical research and need support for dedicated time to complete a PhD.
• Applicants must submit
  • a full research proposal,
  • research and ethics approval
  • PhD completion plan which should include a work plan with time frames in form of a Gantt chart for the full PhD study duration
  • Budget request indicating how the award will be utilized.
  • Supervisor’s cv and motivation
  • Candidate’s cv and motivation
  • Proof of availability of running costs for the research project.

Applicants must consult with RCD before they submit their application