Clinical Research Training Fellowships are awarded to suitably qualified and practising health professionals, such as medical and dental graduates, psychologists, nurses, allied health professionals and other clinical researchers to enable them to undertake specialised or further clinical research training in areas that can improve health and economic outcomes or health services.

The fellowship offers a stipend plus university fees and research costs for up to three years full-time, or four years part-time. A maximum of $260,000 is available.

NEW: This year, Clinical Research Training Fellowships are no longer being offered through the Māori and Pacific Career Development Award streams. We encourage Māori and Pacific Clinical Research Training Fellowship applicants to apply via this open opportunity. It is the responsibility of the HRC to ensure all assessing committees are comprised of appropriate expertise to assess the applications received.

Eligibility criteria

You can apply for this fellowship if you are a New Zealand citizen or hold New Zealand residency at the time of application. You will need to be based in New Zealand and undertake the research activity in New Zealand.

You will need to be a practising medical graduate, dental graduate, psychologist, nurse, allied health professional, or a graduate with research ability, background training and expertise in fields relevant to clinical research. In addition, you will need to have a current clinical role.

You will also need to enrol for an appropriate postgraduate qualification with a research component, e.g. medical and dental graduates progressing to MD or PhD, or nurses and other health professionals progressing to MHSc, DPH, MPH or PhD. You will need to identify a suitable research training environment and develop a research training programme in consultation with your proposed supervisor and head of the relevant academic department(s).

How do I apply?

First, you’ll need to ensure that you have an up-to-date profile on HRC Gateway. You will then need to complete an online registration form via HRC Gateway to signal your intention to apply for this fellowship. Following registration, you’ll need to submit a full application online via HRC Gateway using the forms available below. Application guidelines are also available below. Ensure that you have read the guidelines as they contain information that is essential to consider when writing your application.

Got a question?

If you have a question about this fellowship, please email info@hrc.govt.nz.

Documents

Guidelines

2027 Career Development Awards Application Guidelines
28 May, 2026 11:17am - 414KB

2027 Peer Review Manual CDA
28 May, 2026 1:07pm - 886KB

Forms

2027 Career Development Awards Application Form - CRTF
28 May, 2026 10:59am - 769KB

2027 Career Development Awards Budget Form
28 May, 2026 11:00am - 37KB