Opportunities

Thank you for your interest in the study of injury prevention. BCIRPU provides training and mentorship for students, trainees, health care professionals, researchers, policy makers, and injury prevention practitioners.

If the funding opportunities listed below do not apply to you, please send us an email with a cover letter, your current CV, and your project idea to bcinjury@bcchr.ca. We are pleased to work with you to ensure the type of training/professional development experience that you are seeking—whether that is to join an established project, or support for your own project.

  • BCIRPU Injury Research Summer Internship: This opportunity is ideal for undergraduate students who are interested in injury prevention. Students will have the opportunity to work with leading experts in the field and gain valuable experience in injury prevention. Apply to bcinjury@bcchr.ca.
  • BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute Summer Student Research Program: This program has two components: An individual research project and a research education program. The program is held in June-July and is based at the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute (BCCHR) in Vancouver, BC. Learn more on the BCCHR website.
  • UBC Faculty of Medicine Flexible and Enhanced Learning (FLEX) Program: FLEX is a series of three courses occurring in Years 1, 2, and 4 of the renewed UBC medical undergraduate program. This is an exciting opportunity for undergraduate medical students to pursue a variety of scholarly activities. Learn more on the UBC Faculty of Medicine website.

Interested individuals are welcome to suggest their own research topics, or you can send your expression of interest in one of the following current projects as part of your application.

  • Creating child-sized injury prevention knowledge translation materials
  • Cannabis and injury
  • Trampoline park injuries
  • Injury surveillance data anlyses
  • Female firefighter injury survey
  • Economic and social costs of injury
  • Injury research reviews and synthesis
  • Injury research recruitment and baseline data gathering
  • Youth athlete concussion study: SHRed Concussions Study

Please note that we receive numerous outstanding applications each year, and unfortunately are not able to accept all requests.

Volunteer Opportunities

BCIRPU accepts a limited number of volunteers each year. If you are interested, please send us an email with your cover letter, your current CV, and project idea to bcinjury@bcchr.ca.

Brain Waves BC

Brain Waves BC is a BCIRPU program with the goal of educating children, youth, and adults in BC on how to prevent brain and spinal cord injury through elementary school presentations and helmet fitting clinics at community events.

The program delivers fun and engaging neuroscience presentations to raise awareness among school children and teachers on the importance of protecting the brain, how best to protect it, and proper helmet fitting. The program empowers participants to make safe decisions that contribute to building safe and inclusive communities.

BCIRPU is the delivery partner for Parachute’s national program in BC, and recruits college and university student volunteers from diverse academic fields including neuroscience, medicine, nursing, physical education and kinesiology. To ensure the safety and security of the program, all the volunteers are registered through the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute and undergo a Criminal Record Check. BCIRPU provides comprehensive orientation and volunteer training to the registered volunteers. Parachute provides materials for classroom presentations such as activity booklets, volunteer training resources, and gelatin brain molds. The trained volunteers deliver the presentations via stories, demonstrations, games, and activities that are designed to align with the themes of Science, Health, and Physical Activity within the school curriculum.

If you are a student interested in becoming a Brain Waves volunteer presenter, contact us at bcinjury@bcchr.ca.

Learn more about the Brain Waves program.