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Update on increased support for students, trainees and research support personnel funded through NSERC research grants

Program news Professors Students

June 30, 2020

As a follow up to the notice on June 4 that announced additional funding to support trainees (students and postdoctoral fellows) and research support personnel, please find below some additional information on the supplements.

• Research grant offices (RGOs) will be contacted in the coming weeks to be made aware of which grants will be considered for the supplement. Once the supplements have been approved, they will also receive confirmation of payments through the GSAP secure site.
• Eligible grant holders will be contacted directly through a SharePoint platform in the coming weeks for each eligible grant that they hold. For each grant, they will need to confirm that the research and work of trainees and research support personnel was disrupted by COVID-19 from April 1 to June 30, 2020, and that that grant was used to pay the salaries and stipends of trainees and research support personnel during this period of disruption.
• If the above-mentioned conditions are not met, grant holders would indicate this and a supplement would not be provided.
  • An example of this might be for a new project where trainees and research support personnel haven’t yet been recruited/hired onto the research team or haven’t been paid from agency grant funds.
• Once confirmation has been received, a supplement and accompanying documentation will be provided for each grant. The supplement value is based on the average amount typically used to support trainees and research support personnel over a three-month period.
• Trainees and research support personnel who are paid by the supplement will need to ensure they did not benefit from compensation under the Canada Emergency Student Benefit or the Canada Emergency Response Benefit between April 1 and June 30, 2020. They also cannot have benefited from other income supports related to COVID-19, including the extensions of tri-agency scholarships and fellowships during this same period.
• Note that the supplement cannot be used for the remuneration for work directly associated with a program of study for trainees who graduated in the spring of 2020.
• Eligible grants are those that were active on April 1, 2020 and that were not already in a time extension period.
  • We realize that the impacts of COVID-19 are broad, and that no one initiative will address them all; however NSERC is committed to taking a flexible approach and continuing to monitor opportunities to support the research community over time.
• If you are a co-applicant on a grant, the supplement will be administered in the same manner as the grant to which it is associated.
• Please read the full update for all details, eligibility and conditions.