February 27th, 2024 at 05:36 am

Study In Canada: Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024

If you are interested, the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships award is now available for students to apply for financial assistance to pursue studies in their chosen subjects. We have carefully prepared this post to outline the qualifications and guidelines for applying for the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships this year.

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) administers the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships program and is in charge of distributing grants following the guidelines of the Tri-Agency Research Training Award Holder’s Guide. Banting postdoctoral researchers are allowed to travel and carry out field research, but they are required to remain affiliated with their host institution. The Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships are worth $70,000 annually and are subject to taxation.

Eligibility of applicants

Citizenship and host institution’s location

• Canadian citizens, permanent residents of Canada, and foreign citizens can apply if they match the specified criteria.
• Non-Canadian nationals or permanent residents can only conduct their Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship at a Canadian institution.
• Canadian nationals or permanent residents who earned their Ph.D., PhD-equivalent, or health professional degree from a foreign university can only have their Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship at a Canadian institution.
• Canadian citizens or permanent residents who earned their PhD, PhD-equivalent, or health professional degree from a Canadian university can have their Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship at a Canadian or foreign institution.

Degree completion eligibility period

• Applicants for the 2023–24 Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships program must have completed all requirements for a PhD, PhD-equivalent, or health professional degree.
• From September 15, 2020, to September 30, 2024 (inclusive), and before the commencement of their award.
• Applicants must provide documentation of meeting all degree requirements by October 15, 2024, if they have not done so at the time of application.
• The eligibility window only applies to the most recent degree that applicants with multiple PhDs, PhD-equivalent degrees, or health professional degrees have earned.

Permissible extensions to the eligibility period

• If the applicant experienced career interruptions due to various extenuating circumstances like parental leave, illness, mandatory military service, war, civil conflicts, natural disasters, socio-economic reasons, lack of research opportunities, or pandemics, the window of eligibility could be extended by up to three years. The extension will only be for the duration of the eligible delay(s) or interruption(s).
• A “career interruption” is a period during which the candidate was not employed (either full-time or part-time) and their research productivity was entirely halted.
• The length of post-degree clinical training, such as a residency, might extend the eligibility window for health professionals.
• Please contact the Vanier-Banting Secretariat to see if an extension to the eligibility timeframe is permitted for vocations that need post-degree training for certification by a professional body.
• Interruptions that can extend the timeframe for completing your degree must have taken place after you have met all the prerequisites for your degree and before the deadline for submitting your application.
• Justification is required in the Special Circumstances attachment.

The phrase “fulfilled all requirements of the degree” indicates the date when the applicant completed all necessary steps to earn their degree. These requirements typically involve thesis defense revisions and thesis deposition, which may vary depending on the institution and type of degree. Convocation is not a mandatory degree prerequisite.

Eligibility of host institution

Qualified institutions for hosting a Banting postdoctoral researcher are Canadian and overseas universities, connected research hospitals, colleges, and not-for-profit organizations with a robust research focus and capability.

Canadian governments at all levels and for-profit companies are ineligible to be host institutions.

Additional eligibility limitations

Applicants who have received CIHR, NSERC, or SSHRC postdoctoral fellowships can apply for the 2023–24 Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships if their funding officially ends on or before September 30, 2024, and before the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship begins. Ending the agency-specific postdoctoral award prematurely to apply for the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships program is not allowed.

Applicants are allowed to simultaneously apply for the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships program and other agency-specific postdoctoral fellowship programs, as long as the proposed research in each application aligns with the mandate of the federal granting agency to which it is being submitted. For further details, please consult the section labeled “Identify area of research.”

Successful applicants in both categories will need to decide which award to take.

Applicants must not currently have a tenure-track or tenured academic job, or be on leave from such a position. Tenure or tenure track typically denotes a permanent academic job that allows the individual to establish a research team, seek external funding for research projects as a principal investigator, and engage in teaching. (If you are uncertain, please reach out to the Vanier-Banting Secretariat.)

A Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship is rarely offered to a candidate who remains at the institution or research environment where they earned their Ph.D., PhD-equivalent, or health professional degree.

Applicants must provide a strong justification in the Special Circumstances attachment if they choose to apply to the same institution or research environment where they earned their Ph.D. or equivalent degree.

Each applicant is limited to submitting a single application per competition year for the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships program.

Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships are always available.

• are only valid at the institution that sponsored the initial program application;
• Must be initiated between April 1st and October 1st in the year following the application.
• last for two years;
• Cannot be simultaneously held with another tri-agency training award and can only be held once in a lifetime.

Applying for Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships

Applicants must adhere to the following steps:

1. Confirm eligibility
2. Contact your desired host institution/supervisor
3. Register for Canadian Common CV (CCV) account, ResearchNet account, and complete the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Self-Identification Questionnaire
4. Create CCV (Vanier-Banting academic template) and link to ResearchNet application
5. Start a ResearchNet application
6. Identify area of research
7. Identify participants
8. Identify referees
9. Enter degree information
10. Enter proposal information and supporting documents
11. Preview application materials
12. Consent and submit application
13. Ensure attached documents meet presentation standards

How can one apply?

CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE

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