Objective

The CHEPA Doctoral Fellowship is intended to provide income support for graduate students enrolled in a PhD program at McMaster University whose field of research is health economics or health policy analysis.

Qualifications

To be eligible, candidates must be entering their first year of doctoral study at McMaster, be supervised by a CHEPA faculty member, and be nominated by the chair of their graduate program. In the event that there are no appropriate or successful nominees among first-year doctoral students or if sufficient funds are available, a second or later year student may be nominated for an award. Awards to such students will be valued at half the normal amount.

Award

Under normal circumstances, one award of $20,000 will be made annually. The exact amount of the award will be reviewed annually with the intent of keeping it comparable to the amounts of similar awards offered by the major funding councils.

If a recipient of the CHEPA Doctoral Fellowship is successful in obtaining another major award (e.g., from SSHRC, NHRDP, MRC, etc.), they may receive only up to half of the CHEPA award, assuming that this additional award is acceptable to the other funding agency.

CHEPA Doctoral Fellowship holders may concurrently hold Teaching Assistantships, which is consistent with University policy.

Application Procedure

Nominations and supporting materials should be sent by the graduate program chairs to the chair of the CHEPA Student Awards Committee by March 10, 2008. Graduate program chairs are expected to inform students that they are being nominated. Nominations should include: 

1) a statement by the graduate program chair attesting to the candidate's qualifications and merit;

2) a statement by the CHEPA faculty supervisor describing both the merits of the candidate and the nature of the supervision anticipated during the period of the award;

3) a brief description of strategies that will be pursued to engage the student in CHEPA, beyond specific research or coursework with the supervisor.  Such plans might include:  participating and presenting in Polinomics, locating the student’s office within the central CHEPA 3H area, attending monthly CHEPA seminars, informal meetings with CHEPA faculty other than the supervisor, participation on research teams involving multiple CHEPA faculty, and contributing to other CHEPA-sponsored activities such as policy workshops and briefings for relevant audiences; and

4) the documentation from the candidate's application for graduate studies at McMaster, including statement of purpose, letters of reference, copies of transcripts, and other materials.

Merit will be the principal criterion for the award. In the case of nominees whom the committee considers to be equally meritorious, the financial need of the nominees may also be taken into account.  Awards will be announced by the end of March.

For more information on Student Awards, please contact Lyn Sauberli at sauber@mcmaster.ca .