The New Frontiers in Research Fund has launched a rapid response competition: the 2021 Innovative Approaches to Research in the Pandemic. All competition documents are available on the NFRF website, and the Convergence Portal is open.
The goal of this rapid response call is to accelerate the exploration of new approaches and the development and testing of new directions in research methodologies. It is expected that this call will predominately support new ways of conducting community and field-based research, since the pandemic has had the greatest impact on researchers’ ability to collect data and conduct this type of research.
Rapid response grants will support projects to continue work that was interrupted or stalled by the pandemic and that trial and test a novel and innovative research approach with the potential to benefit Canada and the world. Proposals must be time sensitive and demonstrate a new way of doing research in situations where conventional or established research methods cannot be used due to COVID-19-related restrictions.
Applications to this call may be submitted by either a nominated principal investigator (NPI) alone or by a team, which may include up to one co-principal investigator (co-PI) and any number of co-applicants and/or collaborators. Individuals may participate in only one application to this competition, in any role.
The maximum budget for the direct costs of the research project is $200,000. Awards are one-year grants and are eligible for an automatic one-year extension. Indirect costs must be included in the requested budget at the maximum allowable rate, which is 25% of the direct costs. Indirect costs funding must be used only to pay for eligible expenses as outlined on the Research Support Fund website.
The competition has 2 stages:
1) Notification of Intent to Apply (NOI) stage with a deadline of September 21, 2021
2) Full Application stage with a deadline of October 26, 2021
Each stage must be submitted by Research Services; therefore, applicants must follow the UPEI process below.
UPEI Application Process:
Stage 1 (NOI)
Applicants must submit their NOI using the UPEI Romeo Researcher Portal for internal review and approval by September 14, 2021 and ensure that it reaches Research Services for review by September 16, 2021.
Deadline for applicants to submit the NOI in the Convergence Portal: September 20, 2021.
Stage 2 (Full Application)
Applicants must submit their application using the UPEI Romeo Researcher Portal for internal review and approval by October 19, 2021 and ensure that it reaches Research Services for review by October 21, 2021.
Deadline for applicants to submit the application in the Convergence Portal: October 25, 2021.
NOI Stage Webinars
French session:
Date: August 12, 2021
Time: 11:00am – 1:00 PM (Atlantic Time)
Meeting link – Event password: pbVE336Nmpy
English session:
Date: August 12, 2021
Time: 2:00 – 4:00 PM (Atlantic Time)
Meeting link – Event password: CPmZji4aJ23
Webinars will be recorded and distributed to Research Offices after the session. If you would like a copy of the recording and presentation slides, please email lcudmore@upei.ca.
