Our granting process

To obtain funding for summer research from the foundation a student must apply through the medical school research office.

The Mach-Gaensslen Foundation of Canada provides grants to students at Canadian medical schools. These grants enable the recipients to conduct medical research during the summer in psychiatry, oncology, and cardiology — the three areas of medicine that the foundation's charter permits.

Student research grants are made on certain conditions. As a long-term objective, the Mach-Gaensslen Foundation of Canada is interested in knowing whether involvement in summer research while a medical student will influence career choice or lead to research later in a student's professional life. Therefore, to receive funding, students must agree to participate in a prospective study for the balance of their careers.

This participation will not be arduous. It simply requires completion of a pair of initial questionnaires (at the start and end of their summer student research term), a short evaluation questionnaire after completion of the summer term, and a follow-up short questionnaire every 5 years.

The university's role is to select the students for the grants, advise them of the foundation's terms, approve the students' research, and submit the required forms to the foundation. Once the foundation receives these forms, it will forward funds to the university to pay the researchers during the summer. At the end of the summer research, the results are to be submitted to the foundation.

October 30 is the deadline for submission of the questionnaires, abstract, and research report to the Foundation using the designated forms. The number of grants to a medical school in subsequent years will be decreased by the number of students who do not submit a report of their research to the foundation in the previous year.

The Foundation will initially fund each medical school with the same number of student research grants regardless of size of the medical school. The number of grants per university may be affected, positively or negatively, by the previous year's return on the foundation's investments because the foundation must not deplete its capital through grants. The foundation does not require that research necessarily be conducted at the student's medical school; however, the research must be approved by a member of the faculty of the student's medical school.