The NSW Clinical Excellence Commission invites applications from suitably qualified and highly motivated graduates to undertake a program of full time health services research to improve patient safety and quality in indigenous health. It is envisaged that the research would culminate in the award of a PhD. The scholarship is named in honour of the late Dr Ian O’Rourke AO, Chief Executive Officer of the Institute for Clinical Excellence, in his many roles in health as a surgeon, educator, academic and researcher. Dr O’Rourke was passionate about the work he undertook with Aboriginal communities, at the Redfern Medical Centre, in far north Queensland, and in the Northern Territory where he worked for five years.