2025 Doctoral Awards- Call for applications

 

The Emerging and Pandemic Infections Consortium (EPIC) is an integrated network for researchers, trainees and partners working to confront infectious disease challenges. We unite members across the University of Toronto (U of T) and its hospital partners to accelerate cross-disciplinary work in understanding pathogens and the development of new countermeasures against them. A key pillar of EPIC’s work is training the next generation of infectious disease research leaders that will help stop future pandemics and reduce the societal burden of infectious diseases.

EPIC Doctoral Awards are designed to support a cohort of multi/interdisciplinary trainees engaged in collaborative research with an infectious disease focus. These competitive awards support excellent students supervised by faculty from EPIC’s partner institutions. Applicants for these merit-based awards will be evaluated using the submitted application package.

EPIC is strongly committed to diversity within its community and especially welcomes applications from racialized persons / persons of color, women, Indigenous / Aboriginal People of North America, persons with disabilities, LGBTQ2S+ persons, and others who may contribute to the further diversification of ideas.

Successful applicants will form a unified cohort and will be expected to participate in EPIC’s networking and educational activities, present their research at various EPIC research events and provide a yearly activity report and exit survey. Awardees are required to acknowledge EPIC support in publications, presentations, and communications resulting from their EPIC-funded project.

Eligibility

Candidates must be registered as a full-time graduate student in a program with the U of T School of Graduate Studies for the duration of the award  between January – December 2025, and:

  • Have successfully completed qualification or reclassification exam for their doctoral candidacy within the last two calendar years, between January 2023 and December 2024, or have completed their second or third year of a direct entry PhD program in 2024,
  • Be pursuing a research project that has an infectious disease focus,
  • Be supervised by a faculty member who has a primary affiliation at the University of Toronto or one of EPIC’s partner hospitals (the Hospital for Sick Children, Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Sunnybrook Research Institute, Unity Health Toronto and/or University Health Network).

Please also note that to qualify to receive an EPIC Doctoral Award, the applicant cannot

  • be a past EPIC Doctoral Award winner and,
  • concurrently hold another major award ($10,000 or more) for the full duration of the award term (January – December 2025).

We encourage students who hold another major award ($10,000 or more) with an overlap of less than 12 months to contact EPIC at epic@utoronto.ca to discuss their eligibility for the EPIC Doctoral Award.

Value and Duration

EPIC Doctoral Award recipients will receive stipend support of $10,000 for one year. Awardees will be eligible for additional EPIC student support, such as travel awards to develop field or experimental skills at other sites, and will have priority access to EPIC workshops, networking events and training courses. 

We aim that through the training program, awardees will gain a core set of interrogative skills in the area of infectious disease research through their independent project research plan and coursework and/or attendance and participation at EPIC trainee events and programs, tailored to their program of research.

EPIC anticipates supporting 18 applications in the 2025 Doctoral award competition.

Awardee Responsibilities

EPIC Doctoral Award recipients will automatically become EPIC members and be expected to participate in EPIC’s programs and activities with other awardees, including presenting their research to the EPIC community at profiled events. In particular, awardees will be expected to present their ongoing work at the EPIC trainee seminar series. 

Awardees must fulfill the academic requirements of their degree program.

Awardees are required to submit an annual activity report and must also complete an exit survey after their PhD defense. 

Awardees are required to acknowledge EPIC funding and support in publications, presentations and communications resulting from their award. 

Application materials

All materials, except for the supervisor form(s), should be submitted online at the same time through the application form. For any questions or concerns, please email epic@utoronto.ca with “Doctoral award” in the subject line.

Please complete the online application form with relevant details about yourself, your supervisor(s) and your course of study. The form also includes sections to upload your supporting documents (proposal, CV, transcript, progress report, etc.) as outlined in the tabs to the right.

Note that your application will not be considered complete until we have received a completed supervisor form. More details about how to download and submit the supervisor form can be found under the “Supervisor form” tab.

    Please upload a single PDF using the upload file link under applicant proposal, section (21), in the online application form. The PDF should have the following three sections:

    Candidate Statement (maximum 250 words): summarize your personal training goals (including research aims as well as broader career development goals) and how your research aligns with and supports EPIC’s mandate.

    Thesis Description (maximum 1000 words; references not included in word limit): Please include the following:

    • Project rationale
    • Research objectives
    • Research approach
    • Feasibility and timeline
    • Anticipated outcomes and impacts

    Note: Inclusion of figures is permitted but figure legends will count towards total word count of the proposal.

    EDI Statement (maximum 250 words): Summarize your capacity and plans to advance equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) during your studies. For example, your plans to integrate EDI considerations into your research question and methods, EDI-related social outcomes from your research or your work, and reflections about the importance of promoting EDI in research, training, and mentoring environments relevant to your thesis program.

    Upload as a PDF file through the application form (MSForm) using the following naming convention: [Last name][First name][Student number]_proposal

    Upload applicant’s CV (Canadian Common CV style preferred).
    Upload applicant’s academic transcript (official transcript not required). 

    Please note, applicants finishing their second or third year of a direct entry PhD program in 2024 that do not require a qualification exam are required to submit their most recent progress report from their thesis advisory committee. 

    Upload as PDF or Word documents through the application form (MSForm) using the following naming convention: [Last name][First name][Student number]_[CV/transcript/progress report]

    Download the supervisor form.

    The form must be completed and submitted by the primary supervisor, with signatures from the primary supervisor and co-supervisor, if applicable.

    Applicant Potential (maximum 250 words): comment on the applicant’s research potential.

    Research & Training Plan (maximum 250 words): As part of the plan of study, EPIC Doctoral Award recipients are required to gain skills in quantitative and domain-specific areas, depending on their primary program of enrolment. Please describe your role as supervisor or co-supervisor(s) in training and supporting the applicant’s development of novel approaches to infectious disease research, or the integration of cross-disciplinary perspectives in the applicant’s research project.

    Signatures: to be signed by the supervisor and co-supervisor, if applicable.

    Submit as a PDF document to epic@utoronto.ca using the following naming convention: [Last name][First name][Student number]_[Supervisor last name]_[Co-supervisor last name] form

     

    Demographic Survey

    Following receipt of all application components, a survey with demographic questions will be provided to the applicant, supervisor and any co-supervisor(s) as a separate MS Form and is required for your application to be considered complete. While this survey is required, there is an option to select “Prefer not to answer” for any or all questions. The data collected from these surveys will be de-identified and assessed in aggregate to help inform EPIC’s practices to promote EDI.

    Important Dates

    Call for applications – September 23, 2024

    Deadline to submit all application forms and supporting materials (through the online system) – November 8, 2024, 11:59 pm (EST)

    Anticipated review period – November/December 2024

    Anticipated Notice of Award – January 2025

    Funding start date – January/February 2025 via ROSI

    Results