Alliance Consortia Quantum grants

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Funding your research project

You can request $500,000 to $1 million per year from NSERC for three to five years. Cash contributions from partner organizations are not required. While NSERC will cover 100% of the project's eligible costs, your project must involve at least one partner organization whose cash contributions would be recognized, had there been any required.

You and your co-applicants may receive funds from other sources to cover direct costs of your project. These sources of funds could include cash contributions provided by the university or by other funding agencies. Such funds would add to and complement those requested from NSERC. You must include all of the project's direct costs funded by sources other than NSERC in the budget table. All costs must be explained in the proposal and are considered in the merit assessment of your proposal.

In-kind contributions are important for the success of the project. All partner organizations participating in the project must play an active role in it and make in-kind contributions through such involvement (see Partner organizations). In-kind contributions are considered in the merit assessment of your proposal (see Review of your application).

Eligible expenses

Alliance Consortia Quantum grant funds from NSERC cover the direct costs of the research. The funds from NSERC are paid to eligible universities and cannot be used to buy equipment, products or services from any partner organization, or to cover any part of the travel and travel-related subsistence expenditures for partner organization personnel.

You can only include NSERC-eligible direct costs of research in your project budget, such as

• salary support for undergraduates and graduate students as well as postdoctoral fellows to perform research and related training
• salary support for technicians and research professional personnel
• materials and supplies
• activities that support collaborations and knowledge mobilization related to the project
• activities to develop and grow the research collaborations with the partner organizations

Refer to the guidelines on the use of grant funds in the Tri-agency guide on financial administration.

You can also include the costs of equipment, provided that the equipment is

• essential to achieving the objectives of the research project
• incremental to the equipment already available at the university or at the partner organization's location

If your total expected equipment cost (including operation and maintenance) exceeds $400,000 over your project’s duration, then you should apply for an alternate source of funding such as the Canada Foundation for Innovation’s (CFI’s) John R. Evans Leaders Fund. NSERC and CFI have developed a joint application and review procedure for these cases. Contact NSERC or CFI for more details.

You may also include project management costs, up to 10% of the total direct research costs (see Guidelines for research partnerships programs project management expenses).

What’s next?
How to apply