External funding opportunities

Interdisciplinary

The New Frontiers in Research Fund Exploration program supports high-risk, high-reward and interdisciplinary research.  It seeks to inspire projects that bring disciplines together beyond traditional disciplinary or common interdisciplinary approaches by research teams with the capacity to explore something new that might fail, but that has the potential for significant impact. 

Application deadline: Varies yearly, mandatory notice of intent is required for full application.  

Internal deadline (for both): 10 business days prior to submission

Award: $250,000 over 2 years (includes $50,000 for indirect costs that are institutional funding)

Mitacs Accelerate is a flexible program that provides funding for trainees (undergraduate, graduate, and post doctoral) that are participating in a research project between VIU and a partner organization.  Partner organizations can be for-profit entities, eligible not-for-profit organizations, municipalities, and hospitals in Canada.  An Accelerate project is built on internship units that can be arranged in endless combinations.  One internship unit is $15,000.

Application deadline: open

Internal deadline: 10 business days prior to submission

Award: Variable. Mitacs pays 50% of the total project cost with partner organizations paying the rest.  A small research expense allowance is included in an internship unit that can be used for research expenses, trainee salary top up, or a contribution to faculty teaching release.

The Mitacs Business Strategy Internship award provides either $10,000 or $15,000 per 4-6 month internship unit, to allow interns to undertake a project with a partner organization in Canada. Interns will work with their academic supervisor to co-design a project with their partner organization to work on the organization’s innovation activities, helping them improve their products, processes, or services. 

Application deadline: open

Internal deadline: 10 business days prior to submission

Award: $10,000 or $15,000 per internship unit; project partners contribute 50%.

WorkSafe BC Research Training Awards support highly qualified masters and doctoral students conducting research in occupational injury and disease, workplace exposures, prevention or treatment of injury or disease, disability management, vocational rehabilitation, return to work and workers, compensation.

Application deadline: see website

Internal deadline: 10 business days prior to submission

Award: $22,500 for masters student over 1 year; $40,000 per year over 2 years for doctoral students

The WorkSafe BC Innovation funding stream supports research ideas that may lead to new practical solutions, novel tools, products and technology, or breakthroughs in the workplace to improve health and safety for a broad audience of workers, employers and workplaces.  Currently, the Innovation stream consists of 3 funding opportunities: Applied Innovation, Proof of Principle and Prototyping, and Exploratory Research.

Application deadline: see website

Internal deadline: 10 business days prior to submission

Award: up to $50,000 over 1 year

The WorkSafe BC Specific Priorities/Systematic Reviews funding stream supports short-term, primary and secondary research of immediate relevance to answer key questions in occupational health and safety and worker’s compensation.

Application deadline: WorkSafe BC usually issues an RFP in the fall and spring

Internal deadline: 10 business days prior to submission

Award: up to $150,000

BC Parks' Living Lab Program promotes B.C.’s protected areas as places to learn about the effects of climate change, how to manage for these effects, and how to apply this information to management actions and decision making.  The three themes are: identify priority lands for protected area connectivity, assess key vulnerabilities in the park system, and climate change adaptation and mitigation operational policies and best practices for protected areas.

Application deadline: usually October 

Internal deadline: 10 business days prior to submission

Award: usually about $20K

Social Sciences and Humanities

SSHRC Connection grants support workshops, colloquiums, conferences, forums, summer institutes or other events or outreach activities that facilitate: disciplinary and/or interdisciplinary exchanges; intersectoral exchanges between academic researchers in the social sciences and humanities and researchers and practitioners from the public, private and/or not-for-profit sectors; and/or international research collaboration.
Application deadlines: November 1, February 1, May 1 and August 1

Internal deadline: 10 business days prior to submission

Award: Events $7,000 - $25,000 / Outreach activities: $7,000 - $50,000

SSHRC Insight Development grants support social sciences and humanities research in its initial stages.  The grants enable the development of new research questions, as well as experimentation with new methods, theoretical approaches and/or ideas.  Projects can involve, but are not limited to, the following types of research activities: case studies, pilot initiatives, and critical analyses of existing research.

Application deadline: early February 

Internal deadline: 10 business days prior to submission 

Award: $7,000-$75,000 over 1-2 years

SSHRC Insight grants provide long-term funding for research excellence in the social sciences and humanities.  Insight Grant research initiatives can be undertaken by an individual researcher or a team of researchers working in collaboration.  Applicants choose from one of two streams, depending on the amount of funding required.  Both streams will be adjudicated by the same committee and will receive the same rigorous level of merit review.  The targeted success rate for Stream A is higher than for Stream B.

Application deadline: October 1 

Internal deadline: September 17

Award: Stream A $7,000-$100,000. Stream B $100,001- $400,000 over 2-5 years

SSHRC Partnership Engage grants fund small-scale, stakeholder-driven partnerships, meant to respond to immediate needs and time constraints facing organizations in the public, private or not-for-profit sectors.  In addressing an organization-specific need, these partnerships let non-academic organizations and postsecondary researchers access each other’s unique knowledge, expertise and capabilities on topics of mutual interest.

Application deadline: May 15, September 15, December 15 and March 15

Internal deadline: 10 business days prior to submission 

Award: $7,000-$25,000 over 1 year

SSHRC Partnership Development grants develop research and related activities in the social sciences and humanities, including knowledge mobilization and the meaningful involvement of students and new scholars; or design and test new partnership approaches for research and/or related activities that may result in best practices or models.

Application deadline: November 15.

Internal deadline: November 1

Award: $75,000-$200,000 over 1-3 years

The SSHRC Partnership grant program is a two-stage competition that supports large-scale formal partnerships between academic institutions, businesses and other partners that work in formal collaboration to advance knowledge and understanding on critical issues of intellectual, social, economic and cultural significance. 

Application deadline: Stage 1 early February 

Internal deadline: early January

Award Amount: $20,000 for application development if invited to Stage 2. Funded Stage 2 applications are $2.5M

Science and Technology

The NSERC Discovery Grant program is the primary funding mechanism for discovery-based science and engineering research in Canada supporting ongoing programs of research with long-term goals rather than a single short-term project or collection of projects.  Discovery grants are very competitive.  The awards are made to individual researchers, normally for 5 years.  A mandatory Notification of Intent (NOI) is due annually on August 1.  Please contact the SRCA early if you are interested in applying.

Application deadline: November 1

Internal deadline: September 20 for peer review or October 15 without peer review

Award: usually $25-$60K per year over 5 years

The NSERC Discovery Horizons program funds discovery research that crosses or falls between the traditional disciplines of the 3 main funding agencies (SSHRC, NSERC and CIHR).  The research should aim to answer Natural Sciences and Engineering (NSE) research questions that are best addressed through interdisciplinary approaches.  Researchers cannot hold both an NSERC Discovery and an NSERC Discovery Horizons grant concurrently.

Letter of Intent deadline: mid-June

Full application deadline: mid-October

Internal deadlines: 10 business days prior to submission

Award: $50-$100K per year for up to 5 years 

The NSERC Alliance Advantage program enables collaborations between university researchers and partner organizations, which can be from the private, public or not-for-profit sectors.  These grants support projects led by strong, collaborative teams that will generate new knowledge and accelerate the application of research results to create benefits for Canada.  These projects are focused on the partners’ goals, with at least one partner sharing in the costs of research. Partner contributions start at $10,000/year and are matched 2:1 by NSERC.

Application deadline: open

Internal deadline: 10 business days prior to submission

Award: $20K- $1M per year from NSERC over 1-5 years

The NSERC Alliance Society program encourages university researchers to collaborate with partner organizations from the private, public or not-for-profit sectors to generate societal impact.  These grants support research projects led by strong, collaborative teams that will generate new knowledge and accelerate the application of research results to create benefits for Canada.  Partner contributions are recommended but not required.

Application deadline: open 

Internal deadline: 10 business days prior to submission

Award: $20K- $1M per year from NSERC over 1-5 years

The NSERC Research Tools and Instruments program fosters and enhances the discovery, innovation and training capability of researchers by supporting the purchase of research equipment up to $150,000 with a net cost of up to $250,000.  Applicants and co-applicants must hold an eligible NSERC grant (e.g., Discovery Grant, Alliance grant) in order to hold a RTI.

Application deadline: October 25

Internal deadline: October 11

Award: $150,000 over 1 year

The NSERC PromoScience program supports hands-on learning experiences for young students and their science teachers. Grants may be used to cover improvements to program content or delivery, as well as for new programs and activities, but not research.

Application deadline: September 15 

Internal deadline: September 1

Award: usually about $20K-$50K per year over 3 years

The Genome BC GeneSolve program facilitates the adoption of genomics across key BC sectors, such as health, forestry, agriculture and agrifood, fisheries and aquaculture, mining, energy and the environment.  The goals of the program are to: enable genomics derived and genomics enabled solutions to sector challenges and to support applied and translational research that can address societal and/or economic challenges in BC and beyond.

Application deadline: on invitation after submission of Expression of Interest; usually two intakes per year, see website

Internal deadline: 10 business days prior to submission

Award: up to $250K with 1:1 match from sector partner over 6-24 months

The Genome BC Genomics Innovation Fund (GIF) supports the development of transformative innovation genomics projects with commercial potential.  Through GIF, Genome BC aims to support technology development projects that could be game-changing and advance the field of genomics with commercial potential or new applications that could likely lead to new commercial products.

Application deadline: on invitation after submission of Expression of Interest; see website Internal deadline: 10 business days prior to submission 

Award: up to $250K over 1 year

The Genome BC Sector Innovation Program supports strategically important genomics research with long-term potential to address the needs and challenges of key sectors in BC’s economy and society.  Each intake of the program has a specific strategic focus.

Application deadline: varies, see website

Internal deadline: 10 business days prior to submission 

Award: $250K- $500K over 2-3 years

Health

CIHR's Project Grant program is designed to capture ideas with the greatest potential to advance health-related knowledge, health research, health care, health systems, and/or health outcomes in all areas of health.  The best ideas may stem from new, incremental, innovative, and/or high-risk lines of inquiry; or knowledge translation approaches.

Application deadline: twice per year in early September and March

Internal deadline: 10 business days prior to submission

Award: average $870K over 5 years 

CIHR's Planning and Dissemination grant provides support for planning (eg. developing collaborations, stakeholder consultations, environmental scan, preliminary knowledge synthesis etc.) and dissemination (eg. group education, knowledge dissemination that will inform practice, clinical care, dissemination of research findings etc.).

Application deadline: usually twice a year in fall and spring

Internal deadline: 10 business days prior to submission  

Award: usually ~$25K

Island Health’s Seed Grant program provides funding for projects where a VIU researcher has a collaboration with an Island Health researcher.  The project must create new health knowledge or evidence in a new way (or context). 

Application deadline: December

Internal deadline: 10 business days prior to submission

Award: $12,500

The Health Research BC Convening and Collaborating (C2) program promotes knowledge exchange and meaningful collaboration by supporting researchers, trainees and research users in co-developing research that can have direct impacts on people, including patients, health practitioners and policymakers.  Funds can be used to develop a research agenda, identify key priorities or evaluate a peer support initiative should consider applying to C2.

Application deadline: May 13

Internal deadline: April 30

Award: $20,000

The Health Research BC Reach program promotes knowledge translation (KT) activities by supporting researchers and research users in disseminating research evidence through co-developing events, activities and tools to “extend the reach” of their work.  This helps teams “reach” audiences who can directly use the knowledge to ultimately improve health in BC.

Application deadline: May 13

Internal deadline: April 30

Award: $20,000

The Health Research BC Scholar Program enables early career researchers to build their health research programs, train the next generation of scientists, and make significant contributions to their field.  The Scholar Program protects dedicated time for research activities for award recipients through salary support.

Notice of Intent deadline: usually November

Application deadline: usually February

Internal deadline: one month prior to submission

Award: $500,000 over 5 years

The Health Research BC Health Professional-Investigator program supports health professionals who are actively involved in patient care to build their health research programs, train the next generation of scientists, and make significant contributions to their field.  The program protects dedicated time for research activities through salary support.

Notice of Intent deadline: usually November

Application deadline: usually February

Internal deadline: one month prior to submission

Award: $500,000 over 5 years

Fellowships

Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships recruit top-tier postdoctoral talent, both nationally and internationally, develop their leadership potential, and position them for success as research leaders of tomorrow.  The Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships program, open to all fields, is unique in its emphasis on the synergy between the applicant – their individual merit and potential to launch a successful research-intensive career; and the host institution – their commitment to the research program and alignment with the institution's strategic priorities.  Please contact the SRCA office as early as possible.

Application deadline: September 17

Internal deadline: August 17

Award: $140,000 over 2 years

SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowships support the most promising Canadian new scholars in the social sciences and humanities at an important time in their research careers.  These awards support recent PhD graduates who are: undertaking original research; publishing research findings; developing research networks; broadening teaching experience; and preparing for research-intensive careers.

Application deadline: usually September

Internal deadline: 10 business days prior to submission

Award: $140,000 over 2 years

CIHR Fellowships provide recognition and funding to academic health research trainees and provide a reliable supply of highly skilled and qualified researchers.  This program provides support for highly qualified applicants in all areas of health research at the post-PhD or post-health professional degree stages to add to their experience by engaging in health research.

Application deadline: usually October

Internal deadline: 10 business days prior to submission

Award: $210,000 over 3 years for post-PhD applicants.  See website for health professional rates and durations.

NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowships program program provides support to a core of the most promising researchers at a pivotal time in their careers.  The fellowships are intended to secure a supply of highly qualified Canadians with leading-edge scientific and research skills for Canadian industry, government and academic institutions.  NSERC PDF awards can be held at academic research institutions in Canada or abroad.

Application deadline: usually October

Internal deadline: 10 business days prior to submission

Award: $140,000 over 2 years

WorkSafe BC Ralph McGinn Postdoctoral Fellowship supports doctoral graduates who are training for careers as academic researchers in occupational health and safety or work disability.  Applicants must be within 4 years of completing their doctorate.

Application deadline: see website

Internal deadline: 10 business days prior to submission

Award: $50,000 per year with the option to renew for a 3rd year upon successful application

Mitacs Elevate is a postdoctoral fellowship that includes access to Mitacs’ professional development curriculum.  Fellows address complex challenges through a one or two-year research project with a partner organization in need of high-level expertise.

Application deadline: open

Internal deadline: 10 business days prior to submission

Award: $60,000 per year