Four Year Doctoral Fellowship (4YF)
Quick Facts
The Four Year Doctoral Fellowship (4YF) program will ensure UBC's best PhD students are provided with financial support of at least $16,000 per year plus tuition for the first four years of their PhD studies. This program allows UBC to continue to attract and support outstanding domestic and international PhD students, and provide those students with stable, base-level funding for the first four years of their PhD studies and research.
Check with prospective graduate program.
Eligibility
Four Year Fellowships may be held by domestic and international students. In general, the fellowships are offered to students beginning their first year of PhD studies, but may be offered to continuing PhD students. In all cases, funding is offered until the end of the fourth year of PhD studies, subject to satisfactory academic progress.
Students holding the following Tri-Agency awards automatically become 4YF designates: Vanier Scholarships, Doctoral Canada Graduate Scholarships (CGSD), CIHR Doctoral Research Awards, NSERC Doctoral Postgraduate Scholarships (PGSD), and SSHRC Doctoral Fellowships. Doctoral students who obtain Tri-Agency scholarships may be eligible for 4YF tuition coverage and will receive 4YF stipend and tuition support once their external scholarship funding ends, to the end of the fourth year of PhD studies.
Other major external scholarship winners who are selected as 4YF designates may be eligible for 4YF tuition coverage and will receive 4YF stipend and tuition support once their external scholarship funding ends, to the end of the fourth year of PhD studies.
Evaluation Criteria
Selection based on academic excellence, upon the recommendation of the graduate program.
Procedures
To be considered for Four Year Fellowship funding, students submit an application for admission to the appropriate graduate program at UBC. For information about admission procedures and requirements visit the Application & Admission page. All PhD applicants offered admission are automatically considered for 4YF funding.
Each graduate program is allocated a number of Four Year Fellowships each year. Graduate programs review their incoming and continuing students and offer Four Year Fellowships to their very best students, with priority given to incoming students.
Graduate programs notify the Faculty of Graduate Studies which students have been chosen to receive a Four Year Fellowship by submitting a signed University Award Recommendation Form, listing award number 6456. It is not necessary to list an award amount. Recommendation forms should be submitted at least six weeks before the requested 4YF start date.
4YF holders are required to apply for other funding to maintain their eligibility for 4YF funding.
(a) 4YF holders who are Canadian citizens or permanent residents are required to apply each year for Tri-Agency funding, if they are eligible. If they do not, they will forfeit their remaining 4YF funding.
(b) 4YF holders who are international students are required to submit an application to the competition for UBC Affiliated Fellowships in the fall term after the award offer is made. If they do not, they will forfeit their remaining 4YF funding.
Further Information
The 4YF Guidelines document is currently being revised to reflect recent changes to the program. The document below is an older version of 4YF guidelines, provided here for reference until the new version is available.
