End Date (year)
2021

Funding Organization

Announcement Type
Funding

Research Category

Internal Deadline
Body

NSERC is launching a pilot funding opportunity to support investigator-initiated individual and team projects that broadly integrate or transcend disciplines to advance knowledge in the natural sciences and engineering (NSE). Full applications submitted to this NSERC program will be reviewed by a tri-agency interdisciplinary peer review committee.

In partnership with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), NSERC is piloting this new interdisciplinary peer review mechanism.

The Discovery Horizons program provides NSERC’s entry-point to the tri-agency interdisciplinary peer-review mechanism. It supports Discovery research projects that would significantly benefit from being assessed by a tri-agency interdisciplinary peer review committee, and aims to 

  1. answer NSE research questions that are best addressed through interdisciplinary approaches
  2. advance NSE disciplines through cross fertilization and new ways of thinking about research questions, ideas and frameworks; approaches and methods; platforms, tools and infrastructure; people, partners and trainees
  3. provide leading-edge NSE training for highly qualified personnel (HQP) in interdisciplinary research environments
Discovery Horizons grants are expected to be between $50,000 and $100,000 per year.  For this pilot year, NSERC is expecting to award 10 to 20 grants. 
 
A limited number of applicants will be invited to submit a full application based on a relevance review of their LOI.
 
UPEI Application Process for Letter of Intent (LOI) stage:
1) Complete your LOI using the Convergence Portal.  
2) Generate a PDF view of the LOI and submit it for UPEI approval using the Researcher Portal and selecting the "Research Funding Administrative Approvals Form for GRANT Applications (rev Dec 2020)".  Instructions for using the Researcher Portal can be found here.  Applicants are requested to submit by June 8, 2021, ensuring that the application is received by Research Services by June 10, 2021.
3) Upon receipt of UPEI approvals, you will be notified to proceed with the submission of your LOI in the Convergence Portal.  The deadline for submission is June 15, 2021.