Council Terms of Reference

The roles and responsibilities of Council are set out in the NSERC Act and By-laws.

The Council collectively represents the academic research and private sector R&D communities in the natural sciences and engineering, as well as other stakeholder groups in the Canadian innovation system. Council’s main responsibilities are to set the strategy and high level policies for NSERC, and review and evaluate performance. Council works to obtain the maximum strategic impact for Canada from the expenditure of public funds, and to advance Canada’s research and development agenda.

Council approves funding allocations to broad program areas of grants, scholarships and fellowships programs. The responsibility for reviewing applications rests with NSERC’s various selection committees; Council members are not normally involved in these reviews. However, Council may be asked, on an exceptional basis, to give final approval on certain awards.

Council is advised on policy and programming matters by Standing Committees responsible for overseeing, where appropriate, the work of selection committees and panels. The committee structure adopted by the Council enables it to devote most of its deliberations to broad policies, strategic direction and financial issues.