Health Research Training Awards

Canada Graduate Research Scholarship — Doctoral (CGRS-D)

Funds Canadian doctoral healthcare research fellowships for health-science students to strengthen real-world implementation.

The Canada Graduate Research Scholarship — Doctoral (CGRS-D) is a Tri-Agency doctoral scholarship administered jointly by CIHR, NSERC, and SSHRC. It was introduced as part of a 2024–2026 restructuring of federal graduate and postdoctoral training awards that discontinued both the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships and the legacy CIHR Doctoral Research Awards. The CGRS-D now serves as the primary doctoral-level award for exceptional PhD candidates whose research falls within CIHR-eligible health research areas across the four pillars: biomedical, clinical, health systems and services, and population health.

Although the scholarship supports health researchers, the CGRS-D is administered through NSERC's systems and portal rather than CIHR's ResearchNet; health-stream candidates apply via nserc-crsng.gc.ca with CIHR-specific quotas published separately for each competition year. The 2025–2026 competition dates were listed as TBD in the CIHR ResearchNet opportunity record (prog=4362) as of the April 2026 data fetch, and the per-cycle stipend amount was not captured in the available raw documentation. Tri-Agency programs of this type historically set stipend values in the range of CAD $35,000–$50,000 per year, but no confirmed figure appears in the source files for this cycle.

Applicants must be enrolled in or accepted to a doctoral program at a Canadian university. The scholarship follows the candidate, not the institution, and covers research in any CIHR-eligible health science discipline. Because the Vanier CGS has been discontinued, the CGRS-D represents the highest broadly available Tri-Agency doctoral award for health researchers. Prospective applicants should check the NSERC portal and CIHR's quota announcement for updated stipend figures and competition timelines once the 2025–2026 cycle details are formally published.