Vacation Study Program

The ACT Vacation Study Program (VSP) offers health researchers a chance to lead projects and supervise students. This enhances patient outcomes and researcher skills.

The program is designed to spark interest in research and provide a foundational research experience for second, third, and fourth‑year university students. Students will develop the basic skills they need to include research in their future careers.

Students undertake placements at Canberra Health Services or the Health and Community Services Directorate, working on real‑world research projects and developing core research capabilities.

To support equitable access to the program, students who have previously completed a VSP placement are not eligible to apply for another placement.

Benefits for students

• Build research capability.
• Ignite a passion for research, for those currently not enrolled in a research degree.
• Equip students with the skills they need to embed research into their future career.
• At the successful completion of the program, students will be eligible to receive a $3,000 stipend.

Benefits for supervisors

The program builds research capacity for supervisors, through:

• workshops that build supervision skills
• the opportunity to lead research projects
• project management and supervisory experience.

Vacation Study Program 2026-2027

Project submissions closed on Monday 6 July 2026.

The PRIMARY supervisor MUST be from Health and Community Services Directorate or Canberra Health Services. You’re encouraged to collaborate and co-supervise projects with colleagues from affiliated academic institutions.

We called for project proposals for disciplines across the health system.

This included:

• medicine
• medical science
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health services
• nursing and midwifery
• allied health
• health economics
• epidemiology
• biostatistics
• population health
• public health
• preclinical research
• environmental health
• health policy
• biology
• medical education
• value-based healthcare

Key dates

• Project submissions from potential supervisors open 9 am, Monday 18 May 2026
• Project submissions from potential supervisors close 5 pm, Monday 6 July 2026
• Student applications open 9 am, Monday 10 August 2026
• Student applications close 5 pm, Friday 4 September 2026
• Pre-placement workshop, Friday 30 October 2026
• Placements are any six-week period between November 2026 and February 2027
• Final student presentation Friday 5 February 2027
• Final reports due 5 pm, Friday 27 February 2027

Workshop dates

• Supervisor workshop: From Idea to Application: Designing a Strong VSP Project, Thursday, 4 June 2026
• Supervisor workshop: Research supervision 101, TBC
• Student workshop 1: Introduction to data analytics, TBC
• Student workshop 2: Science communication, TBC
• Student workshop 3: Presentation skills, TBC

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