About the Grant

The Graham Seed Fund (GSF) is designed to broadly encourage innovative health-care solutions to challenges of today and tomorrow. The GSF seeks to leverage and build health system partnerships by providing resources for collaborating directly with a full range of health providers and clinicians. It is anticipated that this collaborative, interdisciplinary model will help to quickly advance solutions for challenging areas in health technology.

This five-year initiative (2022-2026) responds to one of University of Waterloo’s strategic priorities of creating a globally recognized hub for innovative and transformative health technologies. With funding made possible from the J.W. Graham Trust Endowment Fund, the GSF is primarily intended to cover the cost of hiring highly qualified personnel (HQP), with the aim of leveraging the seed funding to generate preliminary research results that can be used in funding applications to external granting agencies and organizations. 

As it has evolved, the Graham Seed Fund will be the primary means of supporting University of Waterloo initiatives as part of our participation in the Care Next coalition.  This opportunity is for all faculties at the University of Waterloo, with a preference for early and mid-career researchers to lead the applications. The first round of applications focused on engagement with healthcare partners and potential collaborations across disciplines and/or faculties at Waterloo, across NSERC/CIHR/SSHRC related fields and/or on a regional, national, or global level. The second round focused on strengthening Waterloo’s position in the community by emphasizing partnerships with the local hospitals and the KW4 Ontario Health Team.

This third round will be directed towards the goals of the Care Next Coalition. Care Next is a partnership involving The University of Waterloo, Grand River Hospital (GRH) and St. Mary’s General Hospital (SMGH), which was initiated in 2024 with the goal of fostering growth of health innovation through ideation, experimentation, scaling and research. Round three GSF applicants must work closely with one or more regional hospitals (St. Mary’s General Hospital, Grand River Hospital, or Cambridge Memorial Hospital) or member organizations of the KW4 or Cambridge-North Dumfries Ontario Health Teams to co-design projects that address pressing problems within our healthcare system such as rising healthcare costs, staffing pressures, and/or a lack of healthcare innovation. Applicants will be required to outline the costs of partner participation in their budget.

For round three of the GSF, project grants will be increased in value to $35,000 with up to $10,000 of that total dedicated to funding the costs of partner participation.