Queensland Health Clinical Research Fellowships (QHCRF) Round 7 (2025)

Key Dates for Queensland Health Clinical Research Fellowships (QHCRF) Round 7 (2025)

7 October 2025: Round 7 opening date
10 November 2025: UQ R&I NOI Close
10 November 2025: Full Applications (including completed Letter of Support) due to UQ R&I for review and Letter of Support endorsement
9:00am on Wednesday 26 November 2025: Final Applications downloaded from portal due to UQ R&I for institutional certification due to UQ R&I
1 December 2025 (11:59pm AEST): Official external deadline
April 2026: Outcomes anticipated

Overview

There are two (2) streams of grant opportunity available in the 2025 round:

Clinical Research Fellowships (CRF) (Round 7) with an optional additional mentorship supplement (for eligible Applicants).
Clinical Research Capacity Building Grant 2025 to support multidisciplinary teams and a program of research.

1. Clinical Research Fellowships (CRF) (Round 7) with an optional additional mentorship supplement (for eligible Applicants)

The Clinical Research Fellowships (CRFs) are intended to support Queensland Health clinician researchers undertake research linked to their practice. The program recognises that clinician researchers (including doctors, nurses, dentists, allied health practitioners and clinical scientists) are uniquely placed to identify clinical issues that can benefit from further research, lead patient focused research discoveries and facilitate improved patient care through research translation.

The specific objectives of the program are to:

Support the career development of Queensland Health’s emerging clinician researchers and research leaders, particularly toward securing competitive research funding from national agencies and other funding sources.
Support health and medical research projects that have real potential to lead to better health outcomes for Queenslanders.
Build collaborative linkages between Queensland Health and the wider Queensland health and medical research sector to support the translation of research discoveries into frontline healthcare.
Build health and medical research capacity across all of Queensland, including in rural and remote areas.

To encourage more applications from researchers located in regional, rural, and remote areas, and promote equity of funding distribution across Queensland, applications by researchers from these locations will be eligible for additional weighting to their final panel score.

There will be four award categories to provide a pipeline of support for clinician researchers at various career stages:

Novice Researcher (Regional, Rural and Remote) (no or very limited experience in formal research activities) – up to $30,000 over 1 year.
Emerging Researcher (>0-2 years of research participation years*) – In their first 2 years of full-time equivalent research activity – up to $100,000 over 1-2 years.
Early-Career Researcher (>2-5 years of active research participation*) – up to $200,000 over 2-3 years.
Mid-Career Researcher (>5-10 years of active research participation*) – up to $250,000 over 2-3 years.

A targeted financial mentorship supplement of up to $10,000 (additional to the Fellowship) is available to support the fostering of a successful mentorship relationship between an eligible researcher and a more experienced researcher.

* Active research participation includes conducting or contributing meaningfully to systematic and organised investigations and research projects on specific topics, undertaking coordinated research data collection or data analysis, leading or contributing to research and knowledge dissemination and translation into practice, authoring or contributing meaningfully to peerreviewed publications. Generally, this does not include activities undertaken as part of a research higher degree (e.g. PhD).

2. Clinical Research Capacity Building Grant 2025 to support multidisciplinary teams and a program of research

The Queensland Health Clinical Research Capacity Building Grant is seed funding to support a multidisciplinary group of Queensland Health clinician researchers to undertake and translate research for improved care and health outcomes.

The specific objectives of the grant are to:

Encourage and enable research collaborations within and across teams, departments, and HHSs including multidisciplinary and inter-professional collaborations.
Support the conduct and development of innovative, high quality health research and the translation of research for improved care and health outcomes.
Foster and build research capacity and capability in the health and medical workforce, with a pathway to self-sustainability beyond the grant period.

Funding of up to $250,000 over 3 years is available under this grant opportunity stream.

The Administering Organisation for this grant opportunity must be the Applicant’s employing Hospital and Health Service (HHS).

How to apply

Internal notice of intent process

Researchers intending to submit an application for which UQ will be the administering organisation OR a partner organisation are required to submit a mandatory internal Notice of Intent. NOIs will be collated centrally and distributed to Faculties and Institutes in order to provide maximum support to the UQ research community.

Submit your Notice of Intent

UQ as partner organisation

Researchers submitting applications on which UQ is a partner organisation should send the following documents to UQ R&I at grants@research.uq.edu.au, as soon as possible:

Draft application responses (see Application Summary below)
UQ letter of support (templates below)
Completed and fully signed FAC
Evidence of any UQ cash contributions (if applicable)

Please note that unfortunately the UQ Research Office does not have capacity to provide feedback on applications on which UQ is a partner organisation.

UQ as lead organisation

Step 1: Scheme information

Familiarise yourself with the key Queensland Health and UQ documentation (see links below).

Step 2: Compile application documents for review

Draft application responses (see Application Summary below)
Draft letters of support (templates below)
Completed and fully signed FAC
Complete UQ Costing and Pricing Tool
Evidence from Head of School/Institute/Centre or relevant budget holder that any salary gap will be covered (e.g., email confirmation, incl. gap amounts by year)

Draft application responses can be provided either in the Application Summary document (noting that final responses will need to entered into RedCap) or as a PDF printout of the RedCap application.

Step 3: UQ R&I internal review and feedback

Ensure all required documentation is complete and certified, where necessary.
Email your application documents to UQ R&I at grants@research.uq.edu.au, cc’ing your local research support team.

Step 4: Final submission

Applications must be completed in RedCap.
Prior to submission, applications must be signed by you and by the UQ Research Office.
To prepare your application for signature by the Research Office, follow our guide (see below).

Important information regarding final submission: The official external deadline for applications is 11:59pm on 1 December 2025, which is outside UQ Research Office’s contact hours. Please send your application for signature to UQR&I by 9:00am on Wednesday 26 November 2025, so that we can certify the application and return it to you before close of business on Monday 1 December 2025.

Readership and researcher support

Before applying, we recommend you:

Contact your faculty or institute research manager for advice on peer readership programs.
Join the UQ R&I Mailer to stay up to date with round developments.
Access the UQ R&I Grants Library, a helpful resource of past successful proposals.
Contact the UQ library for advice on bibliometrics, online identifiers and data management planning.

Application Briefing Sessions for CRF Round 7

Queensland Health have scheduled two briefing sessions for prospective applicants to understand the new online application process and to ask any questions.

Key documents

Queensland Health