About us
The Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships program is one of a suite of elite federal research capacity development programs. The suite begins with early graduate student support through Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships, progresses to postdoctoral training through the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships program and continues through the academic career progression (Tier 1 and 2 Canada Research Chairs) to a career pinnacle with the Canada Excellence Research Chairs, and announced in 2014, the Canada First Research Excellence Fund.
Together, these programs are intended to increase the supply of highly-qualified research personnel in Canada and brand Canada worldwide as a nation known for quality research and research training. They complement other training vehicles, including postdoctoral fellowship programs supported by the three federal granting agencies (Canadian Institutes of Health Research - CIHR, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada - NSERC, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada - SSHRC).
The Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships program allows highly motivated and competitive researchers to realize their full potential and develop their careers. Upon completion of their fellowships, Banting fellows will be well positioned to contribute to the continued growth of Canada's research capacity and the country's economic and social prosperity.
Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships: Position yourself as a research leader of tomorrow (Transcript)
Introduction:
The Government of Canada's Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships program provides funding to the very best postdoctoral applicants, both nationally and internationally, who will positively contribute to the country's economic, social and research-based growth.
Call for applications is now available
Text Slide:
"Do not enter upon research unless you cannot help it… The force of the conviction will compel you to forsake all and seek the relief of your mind in research work."
-
Sir Frederick Grant Banting
Byline:
Sarah Yakimowski
Banting Fellow 2016-2017
Queen's University
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
Sarah Yakimowski:
The Banting Fellowship has really expanded my view of how I can apply my broad background in evolutionary ecology to a wide range of environmental problems that we're experiencing now and that, as biologists, we can help understand the interaction between human goals and the goals of preserving biodiversity and understanding all the ecological and genetic factors that are involved in making management decisions for our planet in the future.
Byline:
Saima Hassan
Banting Fellow 2013-2014
University of Montréal, CRCHUM and Institut du cancer de Montréal
Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
Saima Hassan:
I think that the Banting Fellowship has been very important in launching my career as a staff person. The research that I did during my Banting postdoctoral fellowship helped lay the necessary ground work. So my fellowship looked at in vitro breast cancer cell lines and in this manner, I was able to look at the different efficacies of different PARP inhibitors. PARP inhibitors are orally available therapeutic drugs that help target DNA damage repair. The problem is that, at the current moment, patients with triple negative breast cancer only have three or four types of chemotherapies that they can receive, so they get a lot of toxicity and it may not necessarily have all the possible benefits that they could possibly achieve. So PARP inhibitors are targeted therapies with decreased toxicity and they could potentially help these patients.
Byline:
Tom Ue
Banting Fellow 2015-2016
University of Toronto
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)
Tom Ue:
The Banting Fellowships are internationally recognized and I think that they bring a lot of attention to the work I’ve been doing. And because I work on a fairly non-canonical 19th century writer, George Gissing, it really allowed me to disseminate my work but it also allowed other people to hear about him.
Saima Hassan:
The Banting Fellowship is a win/win situation. I believe that the nature in which people are selected are based on an exceptional candidate in an exceptional institution. So once those two criteria are met, it will foster an environment where the candidate is going to grow, not only from a research perspective, but from an academic perspective.
Tom Ue:
I would highly encourage students to apply for the Banting project. It's the opportunity of writing about the work that we have done and also the work that we hope to do in the future.
Sarah Yakimowski:
I would say if you have a project that you're really excited about and it opens up a new area of research for you, that you should go for it because you never know what's going to happen. I was excited about my research proposal but I had no idea whether I had a real shot at getting one of these fellowships and here I am, I got one and it's taught me the lesson as well. You have to put yourself out there and you have to apply and you have to go for it. And it can happen.
Text Slide: Position yourself as a research leader in Canada
Text Slide: For more information on this prestigious opportunity, please visit Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships website
Photos:
Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library/University of Toronto
Toronto Star Archives
Vanier Scholar and Banting Fellow – Dr. Bouilly (Transcript)
Introduction:
The impact of being selected for these prestigious awards resonates with our past recipients. Among Dr. Delphine Bouilly's impressive repertoire of significant achievements, her resumé includes both the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship (Vanier CGS) and Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship (Banting PDF). We caught up with her to speak to her about the impact that these awards have had on her, her research field and future directions.
Text:
Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships
Delphine Bouilly
Vanier Scholar 2009
Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships
Delphine Bouilly
Banting Fellow 2015
Université of Montréal
Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer (IRIC)
Delphine Bouilly:
For the past year, I've been a physics professor at the University of Montréal's Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer (IRIC). This is where I'm starting my research program as an independent researcher. I now have a small research team with students, and we use nanotechnology to develop new technologies for biomedical applications. In particular, we want to study biological molecules like DNA and proteins directly at the molecular scale.
We are truly at the interface of physical and biological sciences. We are interested in building extremely miniaturized electric circuits that would allow us to immobilize biological molecules – we only need one – and then follow interactions, changes in shape and biochemical activity over time. This is a tool that we think will be useful in understanding how biological molecules function as well as their roles in health, among other things.
Much of what I do now as a professor, as a researcher, come from ideas I had during my postdoctoral studies, while I benefited from my Banting Fellowship. That's really when I started exploring some ideas myself, testing types of prototypes and projects that led me to what I am doing today. That's when I started mixing my field – physics – with applications in other fields, like biology. That's really when all of this came about.
Absolutely, you need to do it! There's no question. It's a really well-made program, even just in terms of design: you have to propose a project – broader than just a research project, it's more of a training project. And it's really interesting to develop the project itself, and then when you put it into action, that's even better! There's no reason not to apply, not to try the program. There can only be good things that come from developing the project – and receiving the funding, obviously!
Being where I am today, it's like a dream come true. That's for sure. I can teach science, conduct high-level research and work with my fantastic, hard-working students. Engaging with my students and helping them to go further and discover new things about nature – there isn't much more I could ask for in a job.
Text: Position yourself as a research leader of tomorrow
Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships
For more information on this graduate scholarship, visit Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships website
Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships
For more information on this postdoctoral fellowship, visit Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships website
- Date modified: