Amount: No amount awarded; the winning student is invited to showcase their work in the fall edition of the Clinical Section newsletter, The Canadian Clinical Psychologist.
The Ken Bowers Student Research Award was established to honour the enormous contributions of Dr. Ken Bowers (1937-1996) to the field of clinical psychology. Dr. Bowers is widely considered to have been one of the world’s pre-eminent hypnosis researchers. In addition, he is renowned for his contributions to our understanding of personality, revolutionizing the trait-situation debate through his assertion of a situation-by-person interactional model. One of Dr. Bowers’ last works was a highly influential paper on memory and repression that appeared in a 1996 volume of Psychological Bulletin. Dr. Bowers saw the philosophical foundations of inquiry as the common basis for both research and clinical practice. He was a consummate scientist-practitioner who devoted his career to the Department of Psychology at the University of Waterloo. The memory of his intellectual rigor and scholarship continues to shape UW’s clinical training program.
The Ken Bowers Student Research Award is given by the Clinical Section to the student with the most meritorious research paper.
Application Procedure:
To be eligible you must:
- Submit a single-page document (in APA format, 400-word limit) that includes information about the manuscript’s contributions, implications, and importance for the field of clinical psychology. The document should also include the journal’s impact factor.
- Submit a manuscript* (related to clinical psychology) for which you are first author (that has been published or accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal within the past year)
- Be a member of the Clinical Section at the time of submission of your paper**
*The manuscript must include a title page and abstract (in APA format) and must be accepted for publication/published in a peer-reviewed journal within the past year (i.e., April 2025- 2026). Manuscripts that do not conform to these criteria will not be reviewed. The deadline for submission of applications is May 1st, 2026 (11:59 PM). Submissions in either English or French should be sent by e-mail to the Clinical Section’s Student Representative, Natalie Stearns: cpaclinicalstudentrep1@gmail.com. If you have any questions about the submission process, please contact the Student Representative by e-mail. For the full call in English and French, please click here.
**If you are a CPA member but not a Clinical Section member contact membership@cpa.ca or 1-888-472-0657; if you are not a CPA member go to https://cpa.ca/membership/becomeamemberofcpa/ and be sure to indicate Clinical Section membership on your invoice.
The Clinical Section Travel Awards were designed to help clinical section students from across Canada travel to the annual convention of the Canadian Psychological Association. This year, we are awarding Clinical Section Travel Awards, each valued at $250 for travel (the number of awards is dependent upon available funding).
All students who have posters or presentations accepted by the Clinical Section are invited to apply. This award is separate from the travel bursaries granted by CPA to students traveling long distances.
To be eligible for the student awards, applicants must be:
- First author on a poster or oral presentation accepted by the Clinical Section for the CPA annual convention. The poster or oral presentation must present the results of an empirical study. Presentation of literature reviews and conversation sessions are not eligible.
- A student or similar type of member of the Clinical Section of CPA at the time of submission.
- A Canadian citizen or attending a Canadian university (or having graduated with their undergraduate degree within the past 2 years)
- Priority will be given to students who attend Universities (or reside) 500 kms or more from the city in which the conference is being held.
Application Procedure:
To apply, please submit:
- The application form (English link; lien pour la version française)
- A copy of the notification of submission acceptance
Please submit via e-mail to the Student Representative of the Clinical Section, Natalie Stearns, by May 1st, 2026 at 11:59 PM (cpaclinicalstudentrep1@gmail.com). For the full call in English, click here; Pour écouter l'appel complet en français, cliquez ici.
Notification of the results will occur via email by May 31st. Participants will be reimbursed after the convention once they provide travel receipts.
If you have any questions, please contact the Student Representative of the Clinical Section.