The purpose of Strategic Training Program Grants is to build capacity within Canada's health research community through the training and development of researchers, and foster the development and ongoing support of the careers of women and men in health research.

Together with our partners in the government, voluntary and private sectors, CIHR wishes to encourage transdisciplinary, integrative health research, in part through the training of the next generation of researchers, and to increase the capacity of Canada's health research enterprise to address important research questions in the four themes of health research: 1) biomedical, 2) clinical, 3) respecting health systems and services, and 4) the health of populations, the societal and cultural dimensions of health and environmental influences on health.

A Strategic Training Program consists of a group of excellent mentors/educators, accomplished in health research, who work collaboratively to offer a research training program of defined format and content to a group of trainees. Programs will be recognized nationally for:

• The research excellence of the mentors, and their success in training health researchers
• The interdisciplinary nature of the proposed program
• Innovative and effective approaches to the training experience, which will be advantageous to successful trainees when they enter the health research workforce in Canada
• Raising the national standard for best practices in training and dissemination of curriculum materials.