The PSI Mid-Career Knowledge Translation Fellowship – valued at $400,000 for over three or four years – helps protect a mid-career physician’s research time, allowing the Fellow to undertake high-impact translational research in Ontario.
Two Physician Researchers Awarded with the 2024 PSI Mid-Career Knowledge Translation (KT) Fellowship
PSI Foundation is pleased to name two physician researchers as the 2024 PSI Mid-Career KT Fellowship recipients:
Dr. Venkatesh Thiruganasambandamoorthy – The Ottawa Hospital (Recipient Biography)
Dr. Carolyn Snider – Unity Health Toronto, St. Michael’s Hospital (Recipient Biography)
Please visit their recipient biographies for more information on each of these Fellows and how they will be using PSI funds to conduct high-impact knowledge translation research. We thank all stakeholders for supporting PSI with the 2024 competition.
Filling in the Gaps: Evolving Nature of Our Funding Streams
PSI’s KT Fellowship program initially targeted early career physician researchers through the PSI Graham Farquharson KT Fellowship, which launched in 2012. Since then, the program has evolved and expanded to include funding mid-career physician researchers through the PSI Mid-Career KT Fellowship, which launched in 2022.
Dr. Robin Walker, PSI Chair, explains the rationale behind this evolution.
“It’s obvious that researchers in early career need lots of support to get their careers started, but it has become increasingly evident that the transition from early career funding (of which there is more now available than in the past) to funding from large agencies like CIHR can be a difficult one. PSI has always tried to fill gaps in funding, so it was natural that we should try to help close this gap between early funding and the time when a researcher is fully established and able to get grants from major national agencies. It’s early to evaluate the effectiveness of this approach, but I am expecting it will prove very helpful to mid-career researchers.”
Filling in the Gaps: From the Lab to the Bedside
“Talking of gaps, one of the biggest has always been the difficulty of getting established science from the lab to the bedside. Studies a few years ago suggested it takes, on average, fourteen years for a new evidence-based therapy to go from clinical trials to clinical use. Even then, adoption of most proven therapies is far from 100%. The response to COVID shows us it is possible to be much faster,” says Dr. Walker.
Knowledge translation research aims to transition research discoveries into the real world to improve health outcomes. Dr. Walker highlights how PSI’s KT Fellowship program prioritizes funding translational research — research that is more likely to directly affect the health outcomes of Ontarians.
“Our support of KT researchers offers hope that we can develop methods to bring evidence-based therapies into use much faster to the benefit of all Ontarians.”
