Next steps - Grant Selection Committee (GSC) Structure Review

The Committee conducting the GSC Structure Review has held its last meeting, and its recommendations, now being finalized, will appear in an interim report scheduled for the end of May (a separate NSERC eBulletin will be devoted to this topic).

The GSC Structure Review Committee has recommended that NSERC adopt a Conference Model for the review of Discovery Grant applications. The new model expands on a system that has already been implemented successfully by four GSCs. Its primary advantage lies in the increased flexibility it offers, allowing a rigorous assessment of proposals regardless of whether they are purely disciplinary or cross over several fields, or whether they are in established areas or newly emerging fields. The system will permit organization of the conferences along either cross-cutting or single disciplinary lines, depending on the needs of the communities involved.

NSERC is now intensifying its consultation on the fine details of the streaming of panel topics. NSERC will meet with deans, VPs of research, societies and chairs of GSCs in May and June. The detailed model and processes will then be subject to extensive testing over the summer and fall. The transition from the current structure to a new one will commence, at the earliest, with the 2010 competition.