NSERC Funding opportunities
Funding Prizes About Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada

Funding opportunity

NSERC Awards for Science Promotion

Overview

Closed
Who can apply
  • Researcher
  • Faculty
  • Science promoter
Eligible institution
  • Community Organization
  • Private sector
  • Not-for-profit
Program type
Award/Prize
Supplement of
  • Discovery Grants (individual) program
On this page
  • Description
  • Eligibility
  • Review
  • Award
Description

The NSERC Awards for Science Promotion honour individuals and groups who make an outstanding contribution to the promotion of science in Canada through activities encouraging popular interest in science or developing science abilities. Two recipients (one individual and one group) may be selected for the awards each year.

Call for nominations

Nomination deadline: November 15 before 8:00 p.m. (ET).

If the deadline falls on a weekend or federal holiday, NSERC must receive your nomination before 8:00 p.m. (ET) the next working day.

The NSERC Awards for Science Promotion recognize individuals and groups who inspire others by promoting science to the general public.

Examples of science promotion activities that could be considered for the award include:

  • organizing science camps, fairs, clubs or mentorship programs with youth organizations
  • enhancing equity, diversity and inclusion in existing programs
  • creating new learning materials
  • sharing best practices for science and engineering outreach
  • developing co-op programs or job shadowing opportunities related to science and engineering
  • arranging demonstrations, visits or lectures
  • writing books or articles
  • creating radio or television programs
  • engaging the public through multimedia programs
Eligibility

Candidates must be nominated by a Canadian citizen or permanent resident of Canada. Nominators may include people who have benefited from the nominee’s contributions, such as teachers, parents or community members. However, nominators cannot be individuals from the same organization as the nominee.

For nominations within postsecondary institutions, senior administrators from the same institution may nominate an individual or group, as long as the award does not directly benefit the nominators. NSERC strongly encourages nominators to consider equity, diversity and inclusion in their nomination process.*

Nominees for the individual award must be Canadian citizens or permanent residents of Canada. Nominees for the group award may be registered non-profit organizations, postsecondary institutions, non-federal museums or science centres within Canada. Posthumous nominations or self-nominations will not be accepted. Current NSERC Council members are not eligible for nomination.

All nominees must have made a successful and sustained effort to encourage public interest in, and understanding of, the natural sciences and engineering (including math and technology). As a guideline, nominees have typically been involved in science promotion for at least five years, and their efforts must take place outside the formal education system.

Past winners of an NSERC Award for Science Promotion may be nominated again if at least 10 years have passed since their previous award. Exceptions may be made for individuals or groups linked to an organization that received the award in the past 10 years. To qualify, the nominee’s achievements, whether as a group or an individual, must be clearly different from those that led to the organization’s previous award. Such nominations must include a letter from the organization confirming the distinct nature of the activities.

*NSERC is acting on the evidence 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. This principle informs the commitments described in the Tri-agency statement on equity, diversity and inclusion.

NSERC collects self-identification data from all individual nominees. This data provides information on the diversity of individuals applying for and receiving agency funding. It is also used to monitor the fairness of programs and to inform future measures to increase equity, diversity and inclusion in the research enterprise.

Nominees will be asked to complete a self-identification questionnaire. Each question includes the option “prefer not to answer.” This information will not be seen or used by NSERC peer reviewers.

Review
Nomination process and selection criteria

If you are nominating an individual or a group, your nomination package must include the following:

  1. A completed NSERC Award for Science Promotion nomination form
  2. A document (maximum three pages) that describes:
  3. the nominee’s sustained efforts to inspire public understanding and foster skills development in science and engineering in Canada
  4. the impact and duration of the nominee’s activities (nominators are encouraged to include specific measures of impact)
  5. the content, originality and target audience of the nominee’s activities
  6. Three signed letters of recommendation, dated within six months of the nomination deadline. Letters from individuals with first-hand knowledge of the nominee’s activities, especially participants in the outreach activity, are strongly encouraged. Letters must demonstrate the impact of the activities.
  7. Supporting documentation, such as promotional material, participant feedback, media coverage, publications or awards (maximum four pages)
  8. A terms and conditions form for nominees, signed by the nominee or the representative of the nominated group
  9. A terms and conditions form for nominators, signed by the nominator

The documents described in points 2 and 3 above should not include hyperlinks. All relevant information must be included directly in the nomination documents. Committee members are expected to disregard any hyperlinks.

Nominators are responsible for assembling the required documentation, which must follow the general presentation guidelines. Documents that do not meet these standards may be rejected or may be at a disadvantage compared to documents that meet the standards. Only the documents requested by NSERC will be provided to the selection committee.

Nominations must be submitted electronically through NSERC’s ICSP Secure Submission Site. All parts of the nomination package must be combined into a single Portable Document Format (PDF) file. Do not upload PDF portfolios or zip files.

Save a copy of the submission confirmation generated by the secure site and the automatically generated confirmation email for your records. Note that the secure site cannot determine whether a nomination is complete or incomplete, and NSERC will not contact nominators about missing information.

The nomination package and all supporting materials become the property of NSERC upon submission and will not be returned.

Signatures

Nominee (or representative of the nominated group)

Before submitting documents to the nominator, the nominee (or representative of the nominated group) must read, agree to and sign the terms and conditions form for nominees. It is the nominee’s responsibility to keep a copy of the signed terms and conditions form for their records. Note: For the NSERC Awards for Science Promotion, only the representative of a nominated group is required to complete the form.

Nominator

Before submitting documents to NSERC, the nominator must read, agree to and sign the terms and conditions form for nominators. Only one nominator is required. If more than one nominator is listed on the form, correspondence will be directed solely to the first person named. It is the nominator’s responsibility to keep a copy of the signed terms and conditions form for their records.

Selection committee

Nominations are peer reviewed by the NSERC Awards for Science Promotion Selection Committee. Members are selected from the science and engineering promotion and education communities, based on their expertise and experience, and in accordance with NSERC’s Guidelines governing membership of selection committees.

Committee members must respect the confidentiality of nomination materials and the review process and must declare any real, potential or apparent conflicts of interest. All members are required to sign a declaration of confidentiality and non-disclosure.

Award Notification of results

NSERC will inform all nominators and nominees of the results of the annual competition electronically by the end of February. Each will receive an email with a link to access their notification of decision letter through the NSERC Extranet for Applicants. The names of the award recipients will be announced publicly.