HEAL Future Leaders School
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2025
The HEAL Global Research Centre (GRC) successfully hosted its second HEAL Future Leaders School (FLS) from 19–23 May at the Health Research Institute, University of Canberra.
Bringing together Early to Mid-Career Researchers (EMCRs) from across Australia, the intensive week-long program provided a rich platform for emerging leaders in health and climate research. Participants engaged in a dynamic blend of expert panels, roundtable discussions, classroom lectures, site visits, and problem-based learning activities.
The program also featured joint sessions with the HEAL Leadership Executives, fostering collaboration and mentorship while sharpening participants’ leadership capabilities. The HEAL FLS continues to serve as a cornerstone initiative in building a skilled, connected, and forward-thinking research community across the nation.
2024
The inaugural HEAL Future Leaders School (FLS) was held in Canberra during the first week of June 2024. The program was aimed at early to mid career researchers to strengthen inter-disciplinary research capabilities, and research-policy translation and communication. The school brought together 35 researchers from across Australia.
HEAL EMCR Support & Opportunities
The HEAL Early- and Mid-Career (EMCR) Network aims to empower EMCR researchers, including PhD students, across the network by creating and fostering a collaborative environment that supports professional development, research leadership and networking. We strive to achieve this through providing equitable access to opportunities in career development, funding, mentorship, leadership, networking & collaboration, building research capacity and capability. We also advocate for EMCR involvement and recognition of EMCR contributions to HEAL activities. The HEAL EMCR Network is coordinated by a democratic steering committee consisting of eight EMCR representatives. To find out more, join the mailing list or ask any questions, please contact us at heal.emcr@canberra.edu.au.
HEAL HDR/EMCR Professional Development Grant
The Professional Development Grant Scheme is designed to support HDR and/or EMCRs HEAL Members in their professional development. The eligible applicants can apply for a grant to help to cover (all or partial) costs associated with:
- Undertaking a training program/course
- Conducting a field trip
- Upskilling through secondment, traveling to a different institution to learn new skill or methodology or similar.
Professional Development Grant Applications are currently closed
HEAL Mentorship Program 2025
The aim of the HEAL Early- & Mid-Career Researcher (EMCR) Mentorship Program is to match self-nominated mentees and mentors from across the HEAL Network. We aim to match pairs on a needs/preference basis and conduct a short pre-matching survey to establish preferences from both mentees and mentors. Mentoring pairs can be at close-career stages (e.g. PhD student with first year postdoc) or further apart (e.g. Postdoc with professor), from different or similar research fields and with shared demographic focus, if requested (and depending on availability of suitable mentor/mentee) (e.g. from culturally diverse background, with caring responsibilities, rural/remote location). We hope that this approach will facilitate sharing of practical and relevant advice between those in similar situations where preferred, whilst also encouraging participants to connect with others from different disciplines and/or backgrounds.
Mentees are PhD students and EMCRs who would like practical advice on different aspects of career development. This can be on topics such as: how to successfully transition from PhD to ECR, how to establish networks and collaborations, how to improve the reach of individual research, how to manage work/life balance, etc. For both mentees and mentors this program is not only a chance to boost their CV but also to meet others from across the HEAL Network. For mentors specifically, this is a great opportunity to give back by passing on personal knowledge and experience, and to gain practical mentoring skills which can be applied in other and future aspects of their career.
The HEAL Mentorship Program will be back in 2026.
HEAL Travel Grants
HEAL Travel Grants are available to support HEAL Network EMCRs, including PhD students, or HEAL Network EMCR Affiliates that can demonstrate undertaking of applied policy and practice translation and/or research aligned to any of the HEAL Research Themes. This scheme provides opportunities for awardees to present their research and/or projects to national or international audiences with funding support up to a maximum of AUD $2,000.
For more details on the next round of funding (as it becomes available) please refer to the HEAL Opportunities webpage
HEAL Innovation Fund
The HEAL Innovation Fund 2025 is now closed. Applicants will be notified of the outcomes by 31 October 2025 and successful proposals will be announced at the HEAL 2025 National Conference.
For more information on the HEAL Innovation Fund and past funded projects please refer to the HEAL Innovation Fund Projects webpage.
HEAL & Deeble Scholarship
This HEAL Scholarship has been established in partnership with the Deeble Institute to educate and train emerging research leaders in strategic health policy and advocacy in health and climate. This scholarship supports scholars as part of the HEAL vision to catalyse research, knowledge exchange and translation into policy and practice that will bring measurable improvements to our health, the Australian health system, and the environment. For further information, application details and timelines please follow this link to the Deeble Institute for Health Policy Research: https://ahha.asn.au/deeble-scholarships/