Competition

* Unless explicitly noted, all times indicated for deadlines are for the appropriate NL timezone (NST or NDT)

Alberta’s firefighters, police officers, paramedics, sheriffs, corrections officers and emergency workers often deal with stressful, dangerous and traumatic situations. This stress has a negative impact on first responders and emergency workers. They experience post-traumatic stress injuries (PTSI) at significantly higher rates than the general population.

For this program’s purposes, “emergency workers” are those who encounter serious, unexpected and often dangerous situations requiring immediate action as part of their jobs.

The Supporting Psychological Health in First Responders (SPHIFR) grant program has 2 separate funding streams:

• – Stream 1 (Services) provides funding for non-profit organizations that provide services that support first responders and emergency workers living with or at risk for PTSI.

• – Stream 2 (Applied research) provides funding to researchers engaged in applied research that generates evidence on prevention or intervention for first responders and emergency workers living with or at risk for PTSI.

The applied research grant recipients must meet these requirements:

• Applicant must be affiliated with a Canadian-based organization.

• The research project must generate evidence on prevention or intervention for PTSI in first responders and emergency workers.

Funding

There is up to $1.5 million available for this grant program in 2026-27. Successful applicants notified in early 2027.

In addition to the external funding agency’s submission procedures, this opportunity must also be submitted for Departmental, HSS Faculty, and Research Initiatives and Services (RIS) institutional reviews and approvals via Memorial's Researcher Portal (RP). In order to facilitate the HSS Faculty’s administrative review, please ensure "Heather C. O'Brien (Grants Facilitator)" and “Matthew Milner (Grants Facilitator)” are added as "Team Members" on your RP file. 

In accordance with University-wide approval protocols, all tabs of the RP file must be completed, the completed application must be uploaded to the “Attachments” tab, all supporting documentation including support for cash and in-kind commitments and/or letters of support must also be uploaded, and “Submit” must be pressed prior to the HSS internal deadline listed below. HSS cannot guarantee completion of an administrative review for application files that are incomplete and/or are submitted after the HSS deadline. For more detailed submission instructions and information, please consult the HSS Research Support Services website.

If you plan to apply to this competition or other research funding opportunities (as either PI or CI), e-mail an HSS Grants Facilitator, Heather C. O’Brien (HSSResearchAdmin@mun.ca or 864-8603) or Matthew Milner (HSSResearchGrants@mun.ca or 864-8050), to notify the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of your intent to apply. E-mailing the intent to apply as early as possible will help to facilitate an efficient review. A Grants Facilitator can answer any questions you may have about internal or external submission procedures and may also be able to help with proposal development.