Read the Technology Access Centres (TAC) grants description before you complete the application.
Only colleges invited to apply for a new Technology Access Center (TAC) grant (following their letter of intent) or colleges that already have a TAC grant that is up for renewal can submit an application. Existing TACs that are hoping to renew their grant for an additional five-year term must complete a renewal progress report and submit it along with their application (see instructions below).
Who completes the application?
TAC grants are institutional grants; the institution is identified as the grant recipient. Therefore, the applicant prepares the application and is responsible for administering the grant on behalf of the institution.
The applicant must hold a remunerated position at an eligible Canadian college and is responsible for creating and completing the application in the Convergence Portal. The applicant is typically a senior manager in the college’s administration who is delegated by the college president to manage the grant. The applicant must complete the My information section by entering CV details and uploading the CCI CV contributions document. The applicant should not be the college’s research grants officer.
Participants are typically faculty or professional/technical staff from the college and/or from another CCI-eligible institution contributing to the TAC. The applicant invites participants to access the application via Convergence, and those invited will receive an email asking them to accept the invitation. Upon accepting, the participant(s) will be re-directed to Convergence to log in (or create an account), to determine their eligibility and complete their My information section. Participant(s) must complete the My information section by completing the CV affiliation and employment, and CV education sections, and uploading a CV contributions document.
Contributors (optional) are individuals designated by the college that have access to edit the application, and who typically help the applicant complete the application, but do not participate in the research activities. The applicant invites the contributor(s) to access the application via Convergence, and those invited will receive an email asking them to accept the invitation. Upon accepting, contributors will be re-directed to Convergence to log in (or create an account). The contributor(s) information is not captured in the application.
Collaborators (optional) are members of the research team not affiliated with the college (e.g., individuals from collaborating organizations, clients, or university faculty) who will contribute to the overall intellectual direction of the research center and/or play a key role in the conduct of the research and related activities. Collaborators do not have access to the grant funds and do not play a role in the financial aspects of the grant. Collaborators must bring their organization’s resources to the project.
The research grants officer (RGO) is the designated institutional liaison officer. This role is called Research Administrator in Convergence, and they approve and submit the grant application on behalf of the college. The RGO must click on the Research Administrator button in the blue bar at the top in Convergence to access their RGO account and see these applications.
The information you provide in your application is collected under the authority of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Act and stored in a series of NSERC data banks described in Information about programs and information holdings. Details on the use and disclosure of this information are described on the Use and disclosure of personal information provided to NSERC section, in the NSERC program literature and below. The information is used in accordance with the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act.
Your application must be received at NSERC by 8:00 pm (ET) on January 24, 2024.
You will not be able to edit your application once it has been submitted. You may not send updates separately before or after the deadline date.
As the applicant, you must complete and submit your application using the Convergence Portal. Convergence is only supported on the latest versions of Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Apple Safari and Mozilla Firefox. Follow the instructions provided in Convergence to complete your application. Details on the information needed to complete an application are outlined below.
Note: All relevant information from your letter of intent (LOI) will be prepopulated into the full application. Participants may be added and information for existing members may be updated at this stage, if needed. The Enrolment section below includes instructions on how to add participants. To access your full application in Convergence, go to the Applications tab and locate the application with the same ID as your LOI. Then, select Application in the Actions column to complete your full application.
The applicant and participant(s) will be required to complete enrolment steps when creating (applicant, steps 1 to 5 below) or accepting an invitation to participate in an application (participant[s], steps 2 to 5 below). If you have previously completed the enrolment steps in Convergence, some fields may be pre-populated. At this point, you can update any information that may have been previously provided.
Step 1 – Eligibility: Confirm that you have been delegated, by the college’s president, the responsibility of applying.
Step 2 – Affiliations: List all of your current affiliations and identify your primary affiliation (select your current affiliation associated with the application).
Step 3 – Equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI): Completion of the self-identification form is mandatory however, you may select “Prefer not to answer” for any or all questions; see the self-identification information section below for more information.
Step 4 – Fields of research: List at least two fields of research and indicate at least one as a primary area of research. These do not need to be directly related to the application.
Step 5 – Keywords: Provide a minimum of five keywords that best describe, overall, your areas of research. They do not need to be directly related to a specific application and will not be used for evaluation purposes.
Terms and conditions: Accept the terms and conditions to access the application.
Self-identification information
The applicant and participant(s) must complete the self-identification form to apply for NSERC funding. However, you may select “Prefer not to answer” for any or all questions. NSERC appreciates your participation, which supports the granting agencies in monitoring the equity of their programs and strengthening EDI in the research enterprise.
The self-identification information is collected as part of your user profile when you register in the Convergence Portal. It is not part of your application and is not accessible to, or shared with, external reviewers and/or review committee members.
Select View application to access the application. The application will also be accessible from the Application tab in the home screen. Select Application to edit the application.
Note: You can access the My Profile section by selecting your name from the navigation menu in the top-right corner, however it is not necessary to complete your entire profile in Convergence. More specifically, the Funding, and the Interruptions and personal circumstances sections do not need to be completed as they are not captured in the application nor used in the assessment of applications.
The applicant and participant(s) must complete the My information section of the application, including CV affiliation and employment, CV education, and the CV documents.
Once these sub-sections are completed and finalized, the inform sub-sections.
Once these sub-sections are completed and finalized, the information cannot be edited.
CV affiliation and employment: You must provide at least one employment experience that is an academic, research, professional or industrial position you have held.
If you are completing your My information section for the first time in Convergence, add past and current affiliations by selecting Add new affiliation. If you have previously completed your profile, you may add previously recorded affiliations by selecting Add existing affiliation.
CV education: You must provide at least one academic experience in a postsecondary program.
If you are completing your My information section for the first time in Convergence, add past and current education, if applicable, by selecting Add new education. If you have previously completed your profile, you may add previously recorded education by selecting Associate education.
CV documents (PDF attachment): You must attach a CV contributions document (or university equivalent). This free-form text document is limited to five pages, which should be used to list relevant experience and contributions to applied research and innovation in natural sciences, health and social sciences, including contributions to training. Ensure your name appears outside the set margins of the page, et the top right corner of each page.
The applicant and contributor(s) must complete the Shared information section of the application.
Application details
Depending on whether you are applying for a new TAC grant or are renewing an existing TAC grant, provide the name of the proposed or current Technology Access Centre—do not include other organization names or the full name of the college in the name. The main body of your application should be written in either English or French, rather than in a mix of both official languages.
Invitations
Click on Invite participant to invite participants and/or contributors to complete their sections in the application. A maximum of 10 participants, excluding the applicant and contributors, can be invited for a TAC grant application. Collaborators are not invited; they are listed in the Collaborators sub-section.
Participants
This section lists all the participants and contributors who have accepted your invitation and accessed Convergence. If an individual has not accepted your invitation, follow up with them to confirm they have received it.
If an invited participant has a status of Pending Eligibility, they have accepted your invitation but have not completed their enrolment (steps 1 to 4 in Convergence and agreeing to the terms and conditions of applying) to access the application.
If an invited participant has a status of Information not finalized, verify that they have completed the My information section (CV documents, CV affiliation and employment and CV education) by selecting View Information.
Once you (as the applicant) and all participants have completed the respective sections, you (the applicant) must finalize each participants’ record by selecting Finalize information from the Actions menu, which changes the status to Complete. Once finalized, the information cannot be edited by the applicant or participant(s), you need to email websupport@convergence.gc.ca, with a carbon copy to colleges@nserc-crsng.gc.ca, or call 1-855-275-2861 to unlock the My information section.
Note: Only the applicant can finalize information entered by participants.
Collaborators
If applicable, list the members of the research team not affiliated with the college who bring their own resources to the project. Their CVs or biographical sketches (optional, up to two pages each) may be attached as a single PDF file in the Supporting documents section under CV collaborators.
Socioeconomic objectives
Provide at least one primary socioeconomic objectives relevant to the application. You may list up to three socioeconomic objectives in total.
Note: Socioeconomic objectives were previously referred to as “areas of application”.
Fields of research
List at least one primary field of research that best describe the research focus of this application. You may list a maximum of five fields of research.
Keywords
List at least five keywords that best describe this specific application. You may list a maximum of ten keywords.
Summary of proposal
The summary is intended to explain the proposal in language that the public can understand. Briefly describe the nature of the proposal, context, objectives, planned activities, and anticipated results. Indicate how the proposal is important for the college’s community and local/regional organizations. This plain-language summary will be available to the public if your proposal is funded.
The maximum character count is 2,500.
Certifications, licenses and permits
Answer the questions in the Certification requirements sub-section ensuring that your responses are relevant to this application. Depending on the answers you provide in the questionnaire, you may be asked to submit an Impact assessment form in the Supporting documents sub-section. For more information on certification requirements, consult the Requirements for certain types of research web page.
Proposed budget
Before completing this section, consult the Tri-agency guide on financial administration and the Specific rules for the use of grant funds for information about the eligibility of expenditures and the regulations governing the use of grant funds.
Use the Budget justification sub-section under Supporting documents (details below) to explain and justify each budget item.
Applications (both renewal and new) can include a request for up to $350,000 per year over five years. For colleges and CÉGEPs in Quebec, given the substantial network of centres that support local/regional innovation requirements, applications (both renewal and new) are limited to a maximum of $100,000 per year to support an added administrative, research management or business development position (and associated expenses) for an established centre of the college. Quebec applications should report on the centre's full budget and total set of activities (i.e., the application descriptions should not be limited to incremental activities made possible by an increase of $100,000 per year to the overall budget of the centre).
Supporting documents
You are responsible for submitting a complete application that conforms to the presentation standards established by NSERC. You must review the number of pages and formatting of any attachments uploaded to Convergence. Incomplete applications or applications that do not meet the presentation standards outlined below may be rejected, or be at a disadvantage, in comparison with those that are complete and respect the presentation standards. Where page limits are stated, pages in excess of the number permitted will be removed. If a submitted application contains one or more attachments that do not comply with the page length or formatting standard, the application may be deemed ineligible.
Convert the documents to PDF
All attachments must be converted to portable document format (PDF) before they can be attached to the application. The conversion process varies with the operating system and word processing or spreadsheet software you are using. If you have questions about converting your documents to PDF, contact your institution’s technical support staff.
If you do not have a PDF conversion program, you may download a free version of PrimoPDF. Macintosh users have a PDF conversion option in the Macintosh system’s Print function.
The following supporting documents must be attached to the application. The File column in the Supporting documents section of Convergence indicates which documents are required.
If applicable, download a copy of the Impact assessment form (appendix A), complete it and upload it to the Supporting documents sub-section of your application. For more information, consult NSERC’s guidelines on impact assessment.
Provide a letter from the president of the college (one page maximum) outlining the college’s support for the proposed new centre or the renewal of the existing centre and the relationship to the college’s strategic plan.
Your application will be evaluated according to the merit evaluation criteria detailed in the TAC grants description. The description should be a maximum of 15 pages and must address all criteria and sub-criteria to be considered for funding. For applicants invited to apply for an award of up to $500,000 over five years, the description should be a maximum of 12 pages. Write this description in clear, plain language. Avoid jargon, acronyms and highly technical terms. Using the criterion (i.e., Value added, Training, etc.) as headings and following the order listed below, describe the proposed activities in sufficient detail to allow the review committee members to make an informed assessment. Ensure that the information provided in the metrics table is consistent with the description of the proposed initiatives.
The brief instructions below are meant to provide some guidance on the contents of the application and are not meant to be exhaustive for all TACs. The proposed centre activities can vary greatly among colleges and will depend on the specific TAC context. Use your best judgement when determining the information to include. In some cases, similar information can be placed under more than one heading. If that is the case, use the limited space strategically to avoid repetition.
For TACs that are renewing for an additional five-year term, include under the appropriate heading any significant changes to the activities of the TAC planned in the new five-year term. What factors, such as recent emerging opportunities or challenges, led to a change in direction and planned strategy? Minimize any repetition of information that can be found in the renewal progress report by referring to the relevant section of that report.
If the application is a request for funds to expand the activities of an existing centre or existing centres, focus on describing the additional activities that the grant would allow to set up (while providing context about the existing TAC and activities).
Value added
Training
Organization structure and delivery plan
Market opportunity
Applied research competence
References
You may include one additional page for literature references. Use this section to provide a list of the most relevant literature references. Do not refer readers to websites for additional information on your proposal. Do not introduce hyperlinks in the list of references.
In a maximum of five pages, provide an explanation and justification for each budget item identified in the budget table. If applicable, describe any expected cash support from the college and supporting organizations. Also indicate cash anticipated to be received from clients and public funders. Provide sufficient information for reviewers to assess whether the resources requested are appropriate. These pages should contain only information pertinent to the budget.
Note: Because TAC grants are designed to support the core activities of the centre, including administration and overhead expenditures, these expenditures should be detailed in their appropriate budget categories, and not placed under a generic overhead and administration category, as is common practice in most CCI grants.
Salaries and benefits
Give the names (if known), categories of employment, and proposed salaries (including non-discretionary benefits) of those in each of the positions listed below. Briefly describe the responsibilities for each position and indicate the amount of time they will spend on the center’s activities in support of clients’ innovation needs over the term of this initiative.
Operating expenses and supplies
Miscellaneous
You may include other expenses attributable to specific projects or activities, as follows.
Other expenditures
If applicable, add any other expenditures not listed above in this section. You may add headings to indicate the type of expenditure.
Cash support from the college for the operations of the centre
Indicate the amount the college will directly invest to fund the operational requirements of the TAC. The cash must go into an account that the college uses for the purposes of the grant, as set out in the budget of the grant application. Use of the cash contribution should be carefully accounted and recorded, as NSERC may request that the college complete a form 301 to confirm that the cash was provided and that the funds were used for the purposes of the grant.
Cash contributions from supporting organizations for the operations of the centre
Indicate the amount of cash committed by key local/regional organizations (e.g., municipal, regional, provincial and/or federal organizations, as well as key business associations and companies) to fund the operational requirements of the TAC. These organizations are not considered clients and therefore will not receive innovation support and research services in exchange for their contributions toward the operations of the TAC.
Cash received from clients for delivered innovation support and research services
Indicate the amount of cash paid by client organizations for innovation support and research services provided by the centre.
Cash received from public funders (granting agencies)
Indicate the amount of grants and contributions received from NSERC and other granting organizations (include only grants and contributions that fall fully under the responsibility and control of the TAC management).
Note: If the contributions provided to the TAC are derived from multiple sources of funding, the funding must be separated and placed into the correct budget category, above. As an example, if an NSERC Applied Research and Development (ARD) grant were provided to the TAC to complete a $75,000 project, with NSERC contributing $50,000 and the client organization contributing $25,000, then the $50,000 would be placed under “Cash received from public funders” and the $25,000 would be placed under “Cash received from clients for delivered innovation support and research services.”
Include two letters of support (one-page maximum each) from a senior representative of a regional, provincial and/or local supporting organization.
Note: If the organization is making contributions and receiving services in return, then this organization should be considered a client, rather than a supporting organization; see the Letters from clients section below.
Each letter should include the following information:
If you have identified several organizations who wish to provide a letter of support, consider providing a letter from one organization that summarizes the input anticipated from the other organizations.
Include three letters of support (one page maximum each) from a senior representative of a past, present or future client.
Each letter should:
This section collects information on specific TAC metrics. Read the guidelines below carefully before completing the table. The application also allows you to add a metric description attachment (two-page maximum) to explain any assumptions and provide context for the metrics.
Download the metrics table template and provide the estimated metrics of the TAC’s future activities. The data provided should support the future goals as described in the description of the proposed or renewal initiative. NSERC recognizes that the future metrics provided in the table are best estimates based on the anticipated future direction of the centre.
The Current Year column is intended to collect baseline performance information for the metrics prior to the commencement of the new five-year term and should represent the realistically anticipated performance information in the year prior to the commencement of the five-year TAC grant.
Sign at the bottom, save the completed table and upload it to Convergence. Once it is signed, the completed metrics table will be locked and cannot be changed. If you wish to make additional changes, remove the signature, edit the table and re-sign when the table is finalized.
Sources of revenue, student training, faculty release
Use up to two pages to explain important assumptions or factors associated with any metrics reported in the Metrics table. Please include the following information, as well as any other information that you feel is relevant and that the review committee should consider when assessing your application.
For a renewal TAC, NSERC will send the applicant an email containing a link and instructions to access and complete an online renewal progress report. When it is completed, submit the renewal progress report to NSERC. After the grant application deadline, NSERC will save the report as a PDF document and attach it to the corresponding submitted application.
The applicant must review the application to ensure that it is complete.
In the Finalize and submit section, follow the prompts to submit your application to your research grants officer (RGO).
After you accept the terms and conditions, the status of your submission will change to Received by Administrator. If you want to make any changes at this point, you may request that your RGO return the application to you.
Once your RGO has approved and submitted your application, the status will change to Received by Agency. No changes can be made after that point.
When you (as the RGO) receive an application submitted by an applicant at your institution, you will be asked to approve the application and submit it. By submitting it, you are confirming that:
By submitting the application, you, on behalf of your institution, are also certifying that the applicant: