Grants, opportunities & career support

The ECPG [formerly known as the Young Pharmacists’ Group (YPG)] aims to support young pharmacist and pharmaceutical scientist' members from around the globe by providing resources for professional development, networking or opportunities to carry out their own research. There are several career resources, opportunities and grants that ECPG members can take advantage of to support their professional development:

- Career support resources

- FIP ECPG Mentorship Programme

- FIP ECPG Remote Volunteering Programme

- The Ton Hoek Scholarship for Young Leaders

- The FIP Congress ECPG Travel Scholarship

- FIP Foundation and ECPG Innovation Research Grant

- The Mike How Travel Award

Career support resources

The ECPG supports its members by creating resources for professional development.

In 2020, FIP YPG launched a 'Career development toolkit
for early career pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists'.

The toolkit aims to be a guide for early career pharmacists
and pharmaceutical scientists to help them to develop their careers
and build their expertise in pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences.

The toolkit comes with worksheets that users can work with
while going through the toolkit, as well as case studies from
YPG members which provide examples of how they have applied
key skills in their professional development.

The "Leading with emotional intelligence" resource aims
to help young pharmacists learn and practise emotional intelligence
skills.

It outlines sample cases and provides suggestions on how
emotional intelligence skills can be used to overcome challenges
in different situations.

FIP YPG Mentorship Programme

The aim of the FIP ECPG Mentorship Programme is to provide mentorship for young pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists who are developing their career. Mentors are intended to provide general advice, assist in setting goals and help the young pharmacist/pharmaceutical scientist to stay on track with their career development. The Mentorship Programme lasts for nine months.

The FIP ECPG Mentorship Programme was redesigned and relaunched in 2020. The 2022 batch of the Mentorship Programme was held from January to September 2022 and each mentor-mentee pair completed an individual month mentoring plan. An email will be sent to ECPG members with information on how to join the 2023 FIP ECPG Mentorship Programme that will run from January to September 2023.

Outcomes of the 2020/2021 FIP YPG Mentorship Programme,
including testimonials from mentors and mentees, are available
in an implementation and evaluation report.

FIP YPG Remote Volunteering Programme

The FIP ECPG Remote Volunteering Programme was launched in August 2020.

The aim of this programme is to provide opportunities for young pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists, who are interested in learning and developing their skills in global projects within FIP. FIP will provide training and the opportunity for volunteers to learn and support the projects.

The remote volunteering programme will run for a period of 3 to 5 months and may be longer in special cases. These volunteers are usually expected to provide monthly reports to the FIP ECPG which will facilitate effective tracking of progress and achieved milestones.

Interested ECPG members may provide their information in this form.

For further information on the FIP ECPG Remote Volunteering Programme please email ecpg@fip.org

FIP Foundation and ECPG Innovation Research Grant

This innovation research grant consists of €1,000 for the implementation of a project by a early career pharmacist/pharmaceutical scientist who is a ECPG member. Projects can stem from any field of pharmacy (practice, science or education) but must focus on innovation that improves the practice of pharmacy or the advancement of pharmaceutical science with direct clinical application.

Pending the acceptance of a project report, the awardee may, in addition, be granted complementary registration, a return APEX airfare and hotel accommodation to attend the incoming world congress of pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences.

Judging - Applications are evaluated based on five criteria: significance & relevance, creativity & innovation, scientific accuracy, feasibility, and clarity of communication.

Grant conditions - The grant recipient is expected to submit a project report to the FIP Foundation for Education and Research and to present on the winning project at the FIP congress. They will also be obliged to submit interim reports and updates as required by the ECPG or the FIP Foundation.

How to apply: The Professional Innovation Grant deadline for submissions has closed for 2022. A call for the 2023 Professional Innovation Grant should launch in the second quarter of 2023.

Here are some Tips for Success and Pointers for Professional Innovation Grant Application that might help you in your application.

Recent professional innovation awardees include:

		2022: Brian Cicali, USA Brian Cicalu will conduct a project titled “Model-informed Evidence Approach for Pediatric and Neonate Dosing of Tramadol. Results will be reported at the 2023 FIP World Congress in September 2023.
		2020: Dallas Smith, Malawi Dallas Smith is a recent PharmD graduate with a passion for equitable pharmaceutical interventions. He is a clinical pharmacy and pharmacognosy lecturer at the College of Medicine, University of Malawi. His project explores the role of an ambulatory care pharmacist in an outpatient hypertension clinic in urban Malawi. Through capacity building in this local pharmacist, this study will evaluate blood pressure control and medication adherence through medication therapy management (MTM) services. Dallas hopes the outcomes of this data will encourage public and private entities in Malawi to employ ambulatory pharmacists and expand the role of the pharmacy profession


		2019: Shepard Nqobile Mhlaba, Zimbabwe Shepard Mhlaba is a Young Pharmacist from Zimbabwe, with keen interest in Global Health. He has served the International Pharmaceutical Federation Young Pharmacists Group as a Subcommittee Member and is currently serving FIP as Global Lead for Pharmaceutical Workforce Development Hub. His research on integrating supply chain management practices in community pharmacies and information technology was inspired by the disheartening poor supply chain practices affecting developing countries. This has resulted in significant expired medicines. His research aims to improve access to medicines and also to give a step towards universal health coverage by ensuring effective use of available scarce resources.


		2018: Jack Collins, Australia Jack is a PhD candidate at The University of Sydney and a practising community pharmacist in Australia. Jack’s area of research is the role of the community pharmacy in consumer self-care. His project explores whether implicit (unconscious) racial bias is present in practising community pharmacists through the use of simulated patients. Through this pilot research, Jack aims to determine to what extent implicit racial bias is present and then use these findings to go on to explore other potential biases and eventually develop interventions to address this bias to improve the uniformity of patient care regardless of patient demography.


		2017: Chelsea Thorn, Australia Chelsea is a PhD candidate from the University of South Australia and a registered pharmacist in Australia. Her project focuses on identifying new solutions to treat highly tolerant bacterial infections relating to biofilms. The direction is to deliver antibiotics with biofilm-dispersing enzymes through a nano-carrier delivery formulation. With the innovative formulation, Chelsea is attempting to improve the efficacy of infection treatment, especially for the drug-tolerant infections.

		2016: Ekpenyong Aniekan, Nigeria Ekpenyong’s project was about developing adequate human resources for pharmacy in developing countries. It was piloted in Nigeria and involved using data to make a five-year trend assessment and in-depth analysis of the pharmacy workforceacross 36 states to inform workforce planning and policy development.

		2015 Arcelio Benetoli, Australia Arcelio was a PhD candidate in Pharmacy Practice at the University of Sydney, and before that received his MSc in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the State University of Maringa, Brazil. His research focused on how consumers use social media for health purposes. The research comprised an observational study which identified chronic disease public Facebook groups whose content was quantitatively and qualitatively analysed and consumer focus groups. Understanding how consumers use social media will assist health care providers in guiding consumers in their social media health journey; and importantly, help design innovative ways to deliver care via social media, accessing people who may not visit health care professionals regularly.


		2014 Vivian Tong, Australia Vivian was a PhD Candidate at the University of Sydney. Her PhD focus was on optimising written medicine information to support safe and appropriate consumer use of over-the-counter medicines. The research focus for the YPG grant was to develop and test alternative standardised over-the-counter medicine label formats. The new labels were informed by consumer opinions and good information design. Vivian found that the new labels performed well when user tested and consumers were able to find and understand key points of information about their medicine.
Mike How Travel Award The Mike How Travel Award was created in 2007 in honour of Mike How who dedicated much of his time and efforts to the promotion of industrial pharmacy, particularly towards young pharmacists and pharmacy students. The award is granted to young pharmacists or pharmacy students who have shown keen interest and passion for industrial pharmacy. The Mike How Travel Award is a collaboration between the ECPG, FIP’s Industrial Pharmacy Section, and the International Pharmaceutical Students' Federation (IPSF). It supports ECPG or IPSF members involved in the development, manufacturing and regulatory aspects of pharmaceuticals and includes: Up to €1,500 to be used in support of transport, accommodation and registration for the annual FIP congress Free attendance to Industrial Pharmacy Section pre-satellite workshops at the FIP congress Invitation to the Industrial Pharmacy Section dinner Information about how to apply for this grant in 2023 will be emailed to ECPG members.
		The 2020 Mike How awardee was Joyce Marianne J. Alvarez, a fifth-year bachelor of Science in Industrial Pharmacy student from the University of Philippines, Manila.

		The 2019 Mike How awardee was Bakani Mark Ncube, a 2019 B.Pharm (Hons.) graduate of the University of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe.

		The 2018 Mike How awardee was Isaac Nii Ofoli Anang, a sixth year PharmD student at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana.

		The 2017 Mike How awardee was Muoh Joanne Chinemerem, a fifth year PharmD student at Kwame Nkrumah University Of Science And Technology, Ghana.