Selecting the Appropriate Federal Granting Agency and Addressing Other Sources of Funding

Selecting the Appropriate Federal Granting Agency

Introduction

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) support and promote high-quality research in a wide variety of disciplines and areas.

The funding agencies were created by Acts of Parliament, which define their individual mandates. In turn, these mandates define the areas of research funded by each agency. The agencies have each developed their own general guidelines for the eligibility of subject matter, described below.

The agencies recognize, however, that some areas of research will overlap two or more funding agencies. Therefore, individual agency mandates have been interpreted in order to ensure that areas of research that cross agency boundaries are eligible for support. This means that, in some areas of research, there is overlap between agency mandates, and some applications could be eligible for support by more than one federal funding agency. Therefore, more detailed guidelines have been developed for researchers working in health and psychology. Other areas of overlap include geography, business, management studies, physical education, optometry, etc.

Some research also requires an interdisciplinary approach. The agencies wish to encourage the Canadian research community to advance and lead interdisciplinary research that is cross-cutting and addresses important social, economic and health issues that matter to Canadians. This includes research that bridges more than one discipline or that requires the skills of several disciplines. The agencies support this type of research through a number of joint and co-operative programs (see  Research Funding Collaboration for a complete listing) and have in place a number of mechanisms to ensure that interdisciplinary research is accommodated within their individual programs.

General Principles for Submitting and Accepting Applications

• For any given submission, applicants should apply to the agency that is responsible for the dominant research discipline or area.¹
• A researcher or research team may not submit the same application to more than one of the three federal granting agencies at the same time, or submit to an agency an application already funded by one of the other agencies. Scholarships and fellowships applicants may only apply to one funding agency per academic year.
• An agency will not accept an application that would be more appropriately evaluated by another of the agencies. In such cases, the applicant may be required to prepare a new application to the appropriate agency.
• An application that is eligible for support by more than one agency will continue in the peer review process of the agency to which it was originally submitted.

Research Falling Under the Jurisdiction of More Than One Agency

The inter-agency funding mechanism is currently under review.

Although support from more than one agency is permissible, a researcher may not submit the same application to NSERC and CIHR or SSHRC.

Relationship Between NSERC Proposals and Other Sources of Funds

There are various sources of funding available for each discipline. These include other NSERC programs, and grants from government, industry and private sources. NSERC does not restrict researchers from obtaining other sources of funding, but does expect that there will be no duplication of funding for the same research.

The principles in assessing the relationship with other sources of funding are: 1) Access to NSERC funds should be fair for all applicants, regardless of their other sources of funding; 2) Applications are evaluated according to the program's review criteria; 3) There must be no duplication of funding for the same research. However, when research programs are supported by multiple sources, the additional benefits of NSERC support must be well explained and justified.

The onus is on the applicant to provide sufficient information to enable a review committee to evaluate the relationship with other sources of support and to recommend the appropriate NSERC funding level. The consequence of not providing adequate information to enable a selection committee to assess the relationship to other research support is that the committee may recommend reduced or no funding.