In January 2023, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) directed over $31M in support of seven clinical trial training platforms.  Western University received $3.7M to develop the HDRN Canada Pragmatic Trials Training Program through the leadership of Dr. Amit Garg, Nominated Principal Investigator, and Associate Dean, Clinical Research, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University.

Now the team is pleased to announce that applications to the HDRN Canada Pragmatic Trials Training Program are being accepted. This two-year virtual pan-Canadian program will provide training to advanced learners across three streams: (1) future trial leaders (faculty-level trainees), (2) postdoctoral fellows, and (3) highly qualified personnel (employed in the public and private sectors). Funding will be made available to successful applicants across all three streams to facilitate their engagement in the program.

The application forms are available HERE.

Applications will be accepted until Friday, December 22, 2023 (5:00 PM Eastern).

The program will commence on April 15, 2024.

As described in the program overview, there will be an emphasis on experiential learning (for future trial leaders and postdocs in the program) through the development of a pragmatic trial protocol. Further, the program is aiming for highly qualified personnel employed by HDRN Canada member organizations to be involved, when possible, in a project-based learning experience. These projects will further HDRN Canada’s ability to support pragmatic trials research in the long-term. (Note, however, that the highly qualified personnel stream is not restricted to applicants from HDRN Canada.)

HDRN Canada is a distributed pan-Canadian network that supports multi-regional data access for transformative and world-leading health data use, working to shape a data future that better supports health and health equity.  HDRN Canada supports researchers in accessing multi-regional data housed in data centres across the country through its Data Access Support Hub (DASH).