SSHRC Talent Award

Deadline

Likely in February 2025

Annual Value

$50,000

Citizenship

Canadian
Permanent Resident

Degree Level

Doctoral
 

The SSHRC Talent Award recognizes outstanding achievement by an individual who, on 1 April 2024, holds a SSHRC doctoral or postdoctoral fellowship or scholarship.  This includes, but is not limited to, a Canada Graduate Scholarship, Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship or Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship.

The Talent Award is given to an individual who maintains academic excellence, has a talent for research and knowledge mobilization, and has demonstrated clear potential to be a future leader within and/or outside the academic sector.

UBC can nominate one applicant to the national competition, from which one Talent Award will be awarded by SSHRC from the nominations submitted by Canadian universities.

The Talent Award can either be:

  • taken up as a fellowship to fund the recipient’s doctoral or postdoctoral research over a one-year period; or  
  • used within one year of receiving the award as a grant to support research, knowledge mobilization or other research-related activities.

At least 10% of the award funds must be used to promote the recipient’s research achievements.

 

Eligibility

Complete eligibility criteria can be found on the SSHRC website.

Evaluation Criteria

Complete selection criteria can be found on the SSHRC website.

Nomination Procedures

Departments should set an internal application deadline several weeks before the nomination deadline to gauge interest from their department's students and determine the department's one doctoral and one postdoctoral nominee for which the department will prepare the required nomination materials noted below.

Note to graduate programs: UBC can nominate one applicant to the national stage of the competition.  One Talent Award is awarded annually by SSHRC from the nominations submitted by Canadian universities.  Departments should therefore nominate applicants who they believe will be competitive with the top nominees Canada-wide.

Each graduate program or academic department may forward a maximum of one doctoral nomination and one postdoctoral nomination. Complete nomination packages must be received by the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies by 4:00 pm PT on 23 February 2024.

For each nomination package, the following components must be included. Please see the Application Instructions on the SSHRC website ​for detailed instructions on preparing items #2-7 below.

  1. SSHRC Talent Award nomination form - document prepared by nominating department
  2. ‘Institutional nomination process’ (one page maximum) - document prepared by nominating department
  3. ‘Institutional nomination letter and rationale’ (three pages maximum) - document prepared by nominating department
  4. ‘Information supporting the nomination’ (two pages maximum, optional) - document prepared by nominating department
  5. ‘Career interruptions and special circumstances’ (one page maximum, optional) - document prepared by nominee
  6. SSHRC CV and consent forms (required for nominee only, “team members” not applicable) - documents prepared by nominee
  7. Letters of support from three referees (two pages maximum each) - coordinated by nominee

Equity, diversity and inclusion: SSHRC indicates that achieving a more equitable, diverse and inclusive Canadian research enterprise is essential to creating the excellent, innovative and impactful research necessary to advance knowledge and understanding, and to respond to local, national and global challenges.  Departments crafting nomination materials, and referees writing letters of support, are encouraged to review SSHRC's information on limiting unconscious bias.

Presentation standards: All free-from documents (except letters), must be presented in portrait orientation; start on a new page; and use 12-point Times New Roman or comparable font.

Signatures required: On consent forms and the letters of support.  Electronic signatures are acceptable.

Submitting Nominations

Electronic documents must be presentable copies (ideally PDFs generated from source files, rather than scans). Nomination packages should be uploaded as a single PDF file to the graduate program’s UBC SharePoint folder (named FACULTY CODE - DEPT CODE).  Please have the nomination documents arranged in the order they are listed above.

The naming convention to be used for electronic files is: 'SSHRC-TALENT_PROGRAM_LastName_FirstName'. For example, an application file for Elizabeth Smith from PSYC would be called 'SSHRC-TALENT_PSYC_Smith_Elizabeth'.

Adjudication Procedures

Nomination files will be reviewed and ranked by a committee of UBC faculty members. UBC can nominate one candidate to SSHRC for the national-level competition.

Further Information

Questions about this funding opportunity should be directed to graduate.awards@ubc.ca.

The Talent Award is among a suite of Impact Awards being offered by SSHRC. Complete information about the Impact Awards program can be found on the SSHRC website

 
 

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