On 4 June 2026 (1pm) the Health Research Council's 2027 Career Development Award (CDA) funding round will open for applications here on HRC Gateway. These awards are an important way in which we invest in developing New Zealand's excellent health research workforce.

With the HRC's investment budget reduced as the Government has reprioritised funding within the science, innovation and technology sector, most recently to support the science system reforms, our CDA round looks different to previous years.

The changes are designed to provide a meaningful spread of grant types across investment streams while keeping within our reduced funding envelope. We continue to provide opportunities across the open, Māori, Pacific and health delivery categories, targeting investment to early to mid-career researchers, including clinician researchers.

Career Development Awards offered in the 2027 funding round

* Please note: the General and Health Delivery investment streams are also open to Māori and Pacific researchers

General Investment Stream:

• Sir Charles Hercus Fellowship
• Clinical Research Training Fellowships
• Foxley Fellowship

Māori Investment Stream:

• Māori Postdoctoral Fellowship (introducing a $100k salary cap per year)
• Māori PhD Scholarship
• Māori Masters Scholarship

Pacific Investment Stream:

• Pacific Postdoctoral Fellowship (introducing a $100k salary cap per year)
• Pacific PhD Scholarship
• Pacific Masters Scholarship

Health Delivery Investment Stream:

• Health Delivery Career Development Award

Key changes to Career Development Awards

For the 2027 funding round, we have streamlined the Clinical Research Training Fellowships into one opportunity, pausing the Clinical Practitioner Researcher Fellowships. We have also paused some of the smaller grant types such as summer studentships and knowledge translation grants, and consolidated the Sir Thomas David Fellowship and Pacific Postdoctoral Scholarship.

Join our webinar to find out more

If you'd like to find out more about the 2027 Career Development Awards on offer, including an overview of the assessment processes, you can join our free webinar on 18 May 2026. You can register for the webinar here.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) online portal is now open for applications for the Catalyst Strategic: New Zealand–China Strategic Research Alliance 2026 funding round.

MBIE will fund new joint research projects between New Zealand and China in the areas of environmental technologies, and health and biomedical science. Up to $330,000 over three years is available from the Catalyst Fund to support six projects, with projects expected to start in June 2027.

The Health Research Council (HRC) has previously been responsible for administering the portion of this programme that focused on biomedical research. MBIE will be administering the 2026 round onwards.

Further information on the fund, eligibility, application process and call for proposals can be found here.