Program Updates
November 24, 2011 | Tri-Agency Statement
Consent to Disclosure of Personal Information
Frequently Asked Questions
November 9, 2011 | Interdisciplinary Adjudication Committee
The Interdisciplinary Adjudication Committee met in October 2011 to adjudicate the 2011-1 (April 2011) cycle of Canada Research Chair nominations.
August 26, 2011 | Update to Administrative Guidelines
The guidelines for administering Canada Research Chair and Canada Excellence Research Chair awards have been merged into one comprehensive document. The Chairs Financial Administration Guide offers detailed information about accepting a chair, responsibilities and accountability, the use of grant funds, reporting, and other administrative matters. Please consult the guide for more details.
May 26, 2011 | The Tenth-Year Evaluation of the Canada Research Chairs Program is now available.
May 16, 2011 | The deadline date for Canada Research Chair nominations for the October 2011 cycle (cycle 2011-2) has been changed from October 31, 2011 to October 17, 2011. The new deadline for the receipt of the letters of reference is now October 31, 2011.
May 4, 2011 | The Interdisciplinary Adjudication Committee met in April 2011 to adjudicate the 2010-2 (October 2010) cycle of Canada Research Chair nominations.
April 4, 2011 | The Tier 2 justification pre-screening process is now a permanent feature of the program.
March 29, 2011 | Access to Canada Research Chairs extranet accounts has been restored
The Secretariat would like to thank you for your patience during the recent suspension of access to Chairs accounts to allow for upgrades to our systems. The upgrades have been completed, and all extranet accounts are again available.
As a result of these upgrades, there are changes to the login process for nominees and chairholders. Institutional users and reviewers are not affected at this time.
Please note, for nominees, reviewers and chairholders:
- If you had the login page bookmarked, you will need to refresh your bookmarks because the URL address has changed. The new URLs are available on the Forms page.
- From the login page, all users (existing and new) must select Create a New Account to go to the registration page.
- On the registration page, existing users must enter their current PIN and password in order to link information from their current account to the new registration.
- All users must provide the information requested, and will be required to enter a new password to complete the registration.
If you have any concerns or difficulties, please contact: robert.brown@chairs-chaires.gc.ca
March 22, 2011 | Important notice regarding access to Canada Research Chairs extranet accounts
- The Chairs extranet will be unavailable from 9:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 24 to 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday, March 29.
- Starting Tuesday, March 29, there will be changes to the login process for nominees, reviewers and chairholders.
Planned outage
As part of ongoing improvements to the Chairs extranet and database, a new process is being introduced for nominees, reviewers and chairholders to log in to their Chairs accounts. Bringing these changes online will cause all Chairs accounts to be unavailable from 9:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 24 to 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday, March 28.
What are the changes?
Beginning on Tuesday, March 29, the PIN identifier will no longer be used in the login process for nominees, reviewers and chairholders. Instead, login identification will use a registered email address.
- If you already have an account with a PIN, you will be directed to modify your account to register an email address to use as your login identifier. You will have the option of registering up to three email addresses to be associated with your account. All other account information (contact information, nominations, reviews) will be preserved.
- If you do not already have an account, then you will be directed to create an account and register the email address(es) you will use to log in.
- If you require support to manage your account (for instance, if you forget your password), the new process will include a “self-serve” function for resetting your password.
All nominees, reviewers and chairholders will be required to adopt this new process. Institutional users are not affected at this time.
Why are we doing this?
These improvements will:
- help our online systems to meet current security standards for government websites;
- allow for those users who also have a Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) account to be able to access both systems through one login identifier; and
- give users more direct control over their accounts.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding this change please contact:
robert.brown@chairs-chaires.gc.ca. The Canada Research Chairs Secretariat thanks you for your cooperation as we implement these changes.
January 17, 2011 | Important change regarding the recruitment and nomination process: The program’s Secretariat reserves the right to ask institutions to provide, at any time within the 12 months following a nomination, proof that the process to recruit chairholders was transparent, open and fair. The institution must be able to provide a copy of its open announcement, including a statement regarding its commitment towards equity and the participation of members from designated groups.
November 5, 2010 | The Interdisciplinary Adjudication Committee met in October 2010 to adjudicate the 2010-1 (April 2010) cycle of Canada Research Chair nominations.
September 16, 2010 | Canada Research Chairs 10th-Year Evaluation—Status Update
By creating 2,000 research chairs within universities across Canada through the Canada Research Chairs Program, the Government of Canada invests $300 million per year to attract and retain some of the world's most accomplished and promising minds. The Chairs program, created in 2,000, is currently undergoing its 10th-year evaluation. The consulting group Science-Metrix has been contracted to conduct the evaluation on behalf of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), and the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI). This is a routine program evaluation that is required by the federal government every five years. Given that this is the 10th anniversary of the Chairs program, the main evaluation objectives are to identify the successes of the program to date, to learn from our collective experiences, and to specify areas for improvement in order to ensure the program’s future success.
Data collection phase
The data collection phase of the evaluation process, which took place between March and July 2010, has now been completed. We would like to thank all program stakeholders who participated in the various data collection activities. We appreciate the time that was taken to provide valuable insights into the evaluation of the Chairs program.
Timelines and key deliverables
The final evaluation report and the management response are expected to be released publicly in early 2011.
| Data collection phase |
March to July 2010 |
First draft evaluation report
(presentation to the program’s steering committee)
|
October 2010 |
Final evaluation report and management response
(released publicly) |
March 2011* |
* subject to change
If you have any questions about this evaluation, please contact SSHRC’s Manager, Performance and Evaluation, Hélène Gauthier, by telephone (613-992-5911) or by email (helene.guathier@sshrc-crsh.gc.ca).
August 16, 2010 | The Canada Research Chairs Secretariat has updated the interface and instructions within its online forms in preparation for nominations to be submitted on October 18, 2010.
The main changes are as follows:
- Research Support section in the Curriculum Vitae: Tier 1 renewal nominees may now list research support sources from the previous seven years.
- File attachment in the Curriculum Vitae: presentation format of the research contributions and publications record has now been updated.
- File attachment in the Nomination form:
- page limit of the proposed research program has been updated from 5 to 6 pages.
- the section "Exclusion of potential reviewers" now appears in the online form itself, rather than in the file attachment section.
- Nomination form: the section "Chair Information" now includes a new question asking whether a Tier 2 nominee has held a previous Tier 2 position within another institution.
For the nomination cycle of October 2010, nominations prepared using either version of the forms/instructions will be accepted by the Secretariat.
June 8, 2010 | The program's policy on teaching load reductions has been modified.
April 30, 2010 | The following changes are now in effect:
- The schedule of nomination deadlines has been updated.
- A "Renewal Calendar" is available to help institutions determine the last possible submission date for renewal nominations.
- Regarding letters of reference:
- Letters of reference can now be sent to the Secretariat directly by the nominating institution or by the referee.
- The Secretariat will no longer be systematically verifying letters of reference to ensure that they adhere to the program's conflict of interest policy, as it is the responsibility of the nominating institution to ensure that a conflict of interest does not exist between the nominee and the referee in cases where letters should be "conflict free".
- In instances where a conflict of interest must not be present, the letter must include a statement from the referee declaring that there is no conflict of interest.
- The Secretariat will no longer be editing the evaluations submitted by the College of Reviewers prior to them being sent to institutions.
March 8, 2010 | The Interdisciplinary Adjudication Committee met in November 2009 and in February 2010 to adjudicate the 2009-1 (April 2009) cycle of Canada Research Chair nominations.
January 11, 2010 | As of January 2010, a pre-screening process for Tier 2 justifications is being implemented as a one-year pilot.
January 7, 2010 | Deadline dates for the submission of Chairholder Annual Reports have been updated.
November 25, 2009 | If an initial nomination is not recommended for funding, the university can nominate the same nominee two more times, for a maximum of three nominations, should its chair allocation permit.
November 18, 2009 | The program has introduced the following important change: the effective start date of new Chairs may be no earlier than the first day of the month in which notification of the award occurred.
October 9, 2009 | As of the Spring of 2009, SSHRC is no longer funding research which falls under CIHR’s mandate. Effective immediately, this policy also applies to Canada Research Chairs allocations. Universities nominating researchers in the area of health must ensure that they nominate them under the appropriate agency chair allocation. For guidelines on how to select the appropriate agency allocation for your Canada Research Chairs nominations in the areas of the social sciences and humanities please consult SSHRC’s website.
To minimize the impact of this policy on universities, renewal nominations of researchers in a SSHRC allocation conducting health research which falls under CIHR’s mandate will be ‘grand-fathered’ and allowed to remain in a SSHRC allocation. Universities submitting new nominations in the area of health must ensure that they nominate them to the appropriate agency chair allocation. Universities are encouraged to use the corridor of flexibility to change a SSHRC allocation to a CIHR allocation if necessary.
October 6, 2009 | Information on the Emerging Negative Decision (END) process for renewal nominations that are not recommended for support by the Interdisciplinary Adjudication Committee has now been posted.
October 6, 2009 | A policy regarding chairholders as electoral candidates has been introduced. A university must inform the Secretariat if a chairholder is participating as a candidate in any election (municipal, provincial or federal). If the chairholder is successful in the election, the Chair will be terminated immediately and the phase-out period of six months for the payment of outstanding commitments or new expenditures from the balance in the Chair’s account will apply. If the chairholder is not successful, the leave may be terminated at the request of the university.
August 7, 2009 | SSHRC's Corporate, Performance and Evaluation Division has mandated Science-Metrix to carry out the tenth-year evaluation of the Canada Research Chairs program, in preparation for the renewal of the program’s terms and conditions.
August 7, 2009 | The program has clarified its policy on the duration of Tier 2 Chairs. If a researcher resigns from a Tier 2 Chair position at one university and accepts a Tier 2 Chair at another university, he or she cannot be nominated for a third term, regardless of the number of years in the initial term.
August 4, 2009 | The Secretariat recently updated its conflict of interest policy, which governs the peer review of Chair nominations by the College of Reviewers. Because Chair nominations are not in direct competition with one another, College members nominated in a given cycle may now review nominations from the same cycle.
July 27, 2009 | All nominations that include a Tier 2 justification are peer reviewed by IAC. Note that "administrative errors" (e.g. missing the renewal submission date) will not be accepted as a Tier 2 justification. Nominations that include a justification of that nature will be withdrawn from the nomination cycle by the Secretariat.
July 21, 2009 | The Interdisciplinary Adjudication Committee met in April 2009 and in June 2009 to adjudicate the 2008-2 (November 2008) cycle of Canada Research Chair nominations.
February 5, 2009 | The program has introduced the following important changes:
January 27, 2009 | The Chairs Program now has an open submission process for the nomination of foreign researchers.
January 19, 2009 | The schedule of nomination deadlines has been updated and the anticipated decision and announcement dates were changed.
December 12, 2008 | As per the SRP instructions, the submission of a paper copy of the Strategic Reseach Plan and of its summary is no longer required.
December 5, 2008 | The Chairs program is now operating with only two intake cycles per year.