• General information
  • About the program
  • Who can complete the application?
  • Application deadlines
  • Help
• Completing the Application for a Grant — Form 101
  • Application profile
  • Areas of research
  • Certifications/requirements
  • Partnership/conflict of interest
  • Sensitive technology research areas
  • Cover letter (optional)
  • Co-applicants
  • Collaborators and collaborator biographical sketches
  • Summary of proposal
  • Proposal
  • Proposed expenditures and Budget justification
  • Partner organization contributions
  • Justification for in-kind contributions, if applicable
  • Other documents
  • Impact assessment form (Appendix A)
  • National Security Guidelines for Research Partnerships’ Risk Assessment Form
  • Policy on Sensitive Technology Research and Affiliations of Concern (STRAC) attestation attachment
  • Reviewer suggestions
  • Reviewer exclusions
  • Personal information
• Signatures

Learn more about Plastics Science and Innovation for a Cleaner and More Sustainable Future.

See the program description and Who can apply? to determine whether you are eligible to apply.

Submit your application through NSERC’s Online System. The application includes:

• Proposal: Complete an Application for a Grant (Form 101)
  • Select the appropriate form from your portfolio (Form 101 – ECCC – Plastics created at the Letter of Intent (LOI) stage)
• National Security Guidelines for Research Partnerships’ Risk Assessment Form: complete the risk assessment questionnaire and the risk mitigation plan (when applicable) when your research partnership involves one or more partner organizations from the private sector (including industrial associations and/or producer groups and/or when they participate alongside other partner organizations from the public and/or not-for-profit sectors)
• Applicant: Complete a Personal Data Form with CCV Attachment (Form 100A), and ask any co-applicants to complete one as well
• Partner organizations (if applicable): ask the representative at each partner organization to complete the Partner organization section; other funders and post-secondary institutions do not complete this section

Your application must be received at your institution’s research grants office by their internal deadline date; contact your research grants office for those deadlines.

Your application must be received at NSERC before 8:00 p.m. (ET) on the deadline date. If it is not received by the deadline, it will be considered late and will be rejected. The application deadline is indicated in the program description and on the Notice of decision.

Material or updates received under separate cover (before or after the deadline date) will not be accepted.

If you have questions about the program:

• Email RP-Initiatives-PR@nserc-crsng.gc.ca.

If you have questions about the NSERC Online System:

• Check the Frequently Asked Questions on how to use the Online System;
• Contact the On-line Services Helpdesk. Send an email to webapp@nserc-crsng.gc.ca or call 613-995-4273. Include your email address and telephone number.

The instructions below will guide you through the modules listed in NSERC’s Online System.

Title of proposal

Provide a title that describes the subject of the research in language that the public can understand. Spell out scientific symbols and acronyms. Do not include a company or trade name. The title will be made available to the public if your proposal is funded.

Research subject codes

Select a primary research subject code. You may add a secondary research code (optional).

• Consult the NSERC Code Tables.

Area of application codes

Select a primary area of application code. You may add a secondary area of application code (optional).

• Consult the NSERC Code Tables.

Key words

Provide a maximum of 10 key words that describe the proposal (e.g., nuclear physics, geochemistry, etc.).

Before completing this section, consult the Requirements for Certain Types of Research.

Research involving humans: If you select Yes, you must provide your institution's administration with the appropriate certification indicating that research involving humans has been reviewed and has received the required approval.

Research involving human pluripotent stem cells: If you select Yes, or if through peer review the application is found to fall into this category and is recommended for funding, it will be forwarded, with your consent, to CIHR’s Stem Cell Oversight Committee (SCOC) to ensure compliance with Chapter 12, Section F of the Tri-council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS 2). The SCOC review is in addition to the normal review by local research ethics boards (REBs). Funding will not be released until approval has been obtained from the SCOC.

Research involving human pluripotent and/or totipotent stem cells: If you select Yes, or if through peer review the application is found to fall into this category and is recommended for funding, it will be forwarded, with your consent, to CIHR’s Stem Cell Oversight Committee (SCOC) to ensure compliance with Chapter 12, Section F of the Tri-council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS 2). The SCOC review is in addition to the normal review by local research ethics boards (REBs). Funding will not be released until approval has been obtained from the SCOC.

Research involving the use of animals: If you select Yes, you must provide your institution's administration with the certification from the animal care committee at the institution that the experimental procedures proposed have been approved and that the care and treatment of animals is in accordance with the principles outlined in the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC) guide.

Research involving hazardous substances: If you select Yes, you must provide your institution's administration with the certification from the biosafety committee at the institution that the laboratory procedures being used comply with the safety precautions necessary for the level of containment required by the research.

Environmental impact: The Impact Assessment Form (Appendix A) may be required. For more information, consult NSERC’s Guidelines on Impact Assessment.

National Security Guidelines for Research Partnerships’ Risk Assessment Form

In accordance with the National Security Guidelines for Research Partnerships, applications involving at least one partner organization from the private sector (including industrial associations and/or producer groups) are required to be submitted with a risk assessment form. You must select “yes” or “no” to indicate whether your application includes at least one partner organization from the private sector.

If you answer “yes,” you must complete and attach the Risk Assessment Form (please review the instructions).

Compliance with institutional conflict of interest policies

All researchers and their institutions must adhere to the Tri-agency Framework: Responsible Conduct of Research (2021). Adherence to the Framework includes appropriately identifying and addressing any real, potential or perceived conflicts of interest, in accordance with all participating institutions’ policies on conflicts of interest in research. You must attest on behalf of you, your co-applicants and all other members of the research team that this collaboration complies with the conflict of interest policies of all participating institutions.

In accordance with the Policy on Sensitive Technology Research and Affiliations of Concern (STRAC Policy), the applicant must indicate whether research activities supported by this grant will aim to advance any listed Sensitive Technology Research Area (STRA).

• The listed STRAs include technologies at various stages of development, notably where the concern is the advancement of a STRA during the course of the research
• Research that will merely use an existing specific application of technology is not considered as advancing any of the listed areas
• Research areas outside of the listed sub-categories are not considered sensitive for the purposes of this policy

You must select “yes” or “no” to indicate whether research activities supported by this grant will aim to advance any of the listed STRAs.

If you answer “yes,” you must complete and attach the STRAC attestation form(s) to your grant application – in the STRAC attestation attachment section – to comply with the policy.

For more information, please read the Tri-agency guidance on the STRAC Policy.

Attach a cover letter if you wish to provide NSERC with information that will not be shared with external reviewers. Include in your cover letter your name, the NSERC program to which you are applying, and the title of your application.

• Consult the NSERC Online Presentation and Attachment Standards.

Indicate co-applicants who will participate in your application. Co-applicants will automatically be invited to provide their Personal Data Form with CCV Attachment (Form 100A).

• To determine whether a potential co-applicant is eligible to participate, consult the Eligibility Criteria for Faculty.

Enter the email address and family name of the co-applicant, as these should appear in the co-applicant’s Form 100A. This allows the co-applicants access to your application. When you select Save, an automated email message will be sent to the co-applicants, informing them that they have been invited to participate in your application. The status of their participation will appear as Not Linked.

When co-applicants link a Personal Data Form with CCV Attachment (Form 100A) to the application, their personal information will appear on the Co-applicant page, and the status will change to Linked.

Advise co-applicants outside your institution that the authorized officer of their institution must agree to their participation. NSERC will confirm this agreement directly with the authorized officer.

Indicate any collaborators — Examples of collaborators are: government scientists, academic researchers or company staff members. Collaborators contribute to the overall intellectual direction of the research project and bring their own resources to the collaboration. The collaborator will not have access to the grant funds and must be qualified to undertake research independently.

• For the definition of a collaborator, consult the Eligibility Criteria for Faculty.

On behalf of your collaborators, you may attach a biographical sketch or CV for collaborators and key staff of partner organizations (if applicable) whose role in the project is similar to that of a co-applicant. In a maximum of two pages for each person, provide the individual’s name/affiliation, education/training, employment/affiliations, research funding, and up to five significant contributions related to the project.

Note: For upload purposes, all collaborator biographical sketches or CVs must be saved as a single PDF file.

Write a summary of the proposed research, intended to explain the proposal in language that the public can understand.

Using simple terms, briefly describe the nature of the work. Indicate why and to whom the research is important, and describe the anticipated outcomes and advancements that will result, and how the field and Canada will benefit.

This plain-language summary will be made available to the public if your proposal is funded. The summary can be submitted in one official language or both official languages, at the applicant’s discretion.

The summary must fit in the field provided in Application for a Grant - Form 101.

Complete the Proposal template. The maximum number of pages is 12 (this limit does not include references). If you choose not to use the template, you must include the section headings and the text of the bullets from the proposal template. You must also respect the page limits and the guidelines outlined in the NSERC Online Presentation and Attachment Standards.

Pages exceeding the maximum or documents not requested by NSERC (e.g., letters of support) will be removed and will not be taken into account in the assessment of the application. NSERC reserves the right to reject applications exceeding the maximum number of pages.

In preparing your proposal, address the evaluation criteria that will be considered when evaluating the application.

In preparing your proposal, refer to Alliance grants: Equity, diversity and inclusion in your training plan and the NSERC guide on integrating equity, diversity and inclusion considerations in research.

If relevant to your research, consult NSERC’s Guidelines for the Preparation and Review of Applications in Interdisciplinary Research and/or Guidelines on the assessment of contributions to research, training and mentoring.

To complete these sections:

Consult the Tri-agency Guide on Financial Administration for information about the eligibility of expenditures for the direct costs of research and the regulations governing the use of grant funds.

The funds from NSERC and any partner organization must be paid to eligible universities and cannot be used to buy equipment, products or services from any partner organization or to cover any part of the travel and travel-related subsistence expenditures for partner organization personnel.

In the Proposed expenditures section, enter the planned spending in each budget category for each year of the project.

For the Budget justification section, prepare a separate document that provides a breakdown of each category and a detailed justification for spending in each category. Provide sufficient information to allow reviewers to assess whether the resources requested are appropriate. Attach the document in the budget justification section. This section should only contain information that is pertinent to the budget.

The categories are as follows:

Salaries and benefits

Give the names (if known), categories of employment, proposed salaries, and non-discretionary benefits of students, postdoctoral fellows, research staff such as technical/professional assistants and the project manager. Briefly describe the responsibilities of each position and indicate the percentage of time they will be spending on this project over its life span. Do not include salaries of faculty in project costs.

Consult Form 100A instructions for information on obtaining consent to name individuals in your proposal.

Equipment or facility

Give a breakdown of the items requested. Provide details on models, manufacturers, prices and applicable taxes. Justify the need for each item requested. Describe any fees for the use of equipment or a facility (e.g., hours and rate).

If your total expected equipment cost (including operation and maintenance) exceeds $200,000 over your project’s duration, you should apply for an alternate source of funding, such as the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) John R. Evans Leaders Fund.

Materials and supplies

Provide details of materials and explain major items. Equipment and materials obtained from the partner organizations must be provided as in-kind contributions.

Travel

Explain briefly how each planned travel activity relates to the proposed research. Please note that funding recipients could be asked to participate in ECCC’s Plastics Science Symposium in Ottawa, ON, and should build travel costs into their proposal.

Dissemination and knowledge mobilization

Provide details of publication costs, user workshops or other activities that support collaboration and knowledge mobilization related to the project.

Technology transfer activities

List the expenditure for field trials, prototypes, scale-up costs, demonstration projects, workshops and other activities to develop and grow the research collaborations.

Use this page to provide the contributions committed by partner organizations to the research project and to invite the partner organizations to complete a Partner Organization Form. The invitation will be sent to the authorized contact.

Provide information required for each partner organization. For each organization, you must select one of four categories (Note: Although there is no cost-sharing requirement under the Plastics Science and Innovation for a Cleaner and More Sustainable Future funding opportunity, you must still select one of the four categories):

• Partner organization recognized for cost sharing
• Partner organization not recognized for cost sharing
• Other funder (not involved in the research)
• Post-secondary institution

To determine the appropriate category for partner organizations (recognized or not recognized for cost sharing), refer to Alliance Advantage: Partners.

Select the organization from the list or enter the name if not available.

List the resources the partner organization will provide for proposed research, including:

• Cash contributions (if any) from your partner organizations paid to your institution for the direct costs of your research project (not including overhead); this amount will be transferred to the appropriate line on the Proposed expenditures page
• In-kind contributions (staff time and donations of services, materials and equipment)
• Amounts paid to your institution for overhead

After you have created, completed and saved the Contributions page in Form 101 for a given partner organization, click on the Lock/Invite button to automatically email a link to the partner organization representative. Upon clicking the link, the partner organization representative will be directed to a webpage where they can navigate the required questions using the tabs on the left-hand menu. As part of this process, the representative for the partner organization will be able to preview the application and the partner form as it will appear in the submitted application. After completing the required sections and clicking “Verify Form” in the Confirm and Submit tab to validate completeness, the partner organization representative must click “Submit.” They will then be prompted to accept the partner Terms and Conditions.

You can monitor the status of the partner form in the Contributions section of Form 101. The status will change from “Invitation sent” to “Invitation accepted” to “Completed by partner.”

Note: If changes are required after the partner organization representative has submitted the partner organization form, you can release it for changes by using the Edit, Save, Lock/Invite buttons to modify the content.

Important: You must upload a “Justification for in-kind contributions” attachment. While the inclusion of partners and in-kind contributions are optional for this call, the system may not allow you to submit your application without this attachment. If in-kind contributions are being provided, please describe them as outlined in the instructions. If there are no in-kind contributions being provided, you must upload a blank document.

Provide a detailed explanation of all in-kind contributions, including:

• Salaries for scientific and technical staff: list the name of each staff member, their role at the partner organization and their specific expertise, details as to what they will be providing to the project (link to milestones if possible), the number of hours they will devote to the project, and their hourly rate.
• Salaries of managerial and administrative staff: list the name of each staff member, their role at the partner organization, details as to what they will be providing to the project, the number of hours they will devote to the project, and their hourly rate.
• Donation of equipment, software: list each item of equipment and/or software being donated to the project, explaining how it will be used and its importance to the success of the project; provide details on how the cost of the equipment/software was calculated.
• Other contributions: describe the contribution to be provided, its importance to the project, and how the cost was calculated.

Note: For upload purposes, explanations of contributions from all partner organizations must be saved as a single PDF file.

Use this section if you need to provide other documents requested by NSERC.

Upload your data management plan as a PDF attachment to the Other documents section of the Form 101.

Note: For upload purposes, all other documents must be saved as a single PDF file.

An Impact Assessment Form (Appendix A) must be completed and uploaded to the Environmental impact page, as required.

You must use this section to provide your completed National Security Guidelines for Research Partnerships’ Risk Assessment Form in the case where your partnership involves one or more partner organizations from the private sector (including industrial associations and producer groups and/or when they participate alongside other partner organizations from the public and/or not-for-profit sectors).

For resources to assist in completing the Risk Assessment Form, please consult the array of Guidelines and Tools to Implement Research Security and Research Security Training Courses available on the Safeguarding Your Research portal.

If your application includes a Data Management Plan (DMP) and your Risk Assessment Form identifies risks related to data that will be mitigated — in part or in whole — by your DMP, then the risk mitigation plan section of your Risk Assessment Form must also describe how your DMP will address those data-related risks.

Before you attach the completed Risk Assessment Form to your application, you must convert it from a fillable to a read-only PDF format. For this purpose, one option is to click on Print in the form, select the PDF format as the printer, and save the file.

In accordance with the Policy on Sensitive Technology Research and Affiliations of Concern, all researchers involved in the activities supported by a research grant that aims to advance a Sensitive Technology Research Area (STRA) must review the list of Named Research Organizations.

If you selected “yes” in the Sensitive Technology Research Areas section, you must use this section to provide a completed Attestation for Research Aiming to Advance Sensitive Technology Research Areas form(s) for the applicant, co-applicant(s), and collaborator(s), if applicable, certifying that they have read, understood, and are compliant with this policy. Should the application be successful, they and their research team(s) will also be required to comply with the policy for the duration of the grant.

The applicant must collect and compile all the completed attestation forms and save them as a single PDF file. Before you attach the file, you must convert it from a fillable to a read-only PDF. For this purpose, one option is to click on Print in the form, select the PDF format as the printer, and save the file.

For more information, please read the Tri-agency guidance on the STRAC Policy.

To complete this section, suggest the names of five independent experts competent to assess the technical aspects of the proposal. This list should include experts from the academic community and non-academic community such as the government sector and the industrial sector. Also include reviewers competent to assess any research aspects outside the natural sciences and engineering. This list should also take into consideration equity, diversity and inclusion; for example, the list should include women.

Give the name, address, telephone number, email address and the area(s) of expertise of potential external reviewers.

External reviewers should be able to review the proposal in the language in which it is written.

Suggested external reviewers should not be in a conflict of interest. Refer to the Conflict of Interest and Confidentiality Policy of the Federal Research Funding Organizations for more information. In addition, reviewers must sign the undefined before they access the application material.

You can request that an individual, a group of individuals, or a specific non-academic organization not be involved in the review of your application (optional). Specify a general reason for this request (e.g., perceived conflict of interest, prior disputes, school of thought bias, professional or personal association not specified in the Conflict of Interest Policy). You may include in this list any exclusions requested by the partner organizations.

While NSERC cannot be bound by this information, it will take it into consideration in the selection of reviewers. NSERC may also exclude reviewers because of conflict of interest, as described in the Conflict of Interest and Confidentiality Policy of the Federal Research Funding Organizations.

Note: Information concerning exclusions may be accessible to those individuals named in this section, under the Privacy Act.

The collection, use and disclosure of personal information provided to NSERC are outlined in the following policy statements:

• the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act (including the Use and Disclosure of Personal Information Provided to NSERC)
• Data Retention Information
• Privacy Notice

The information you provide in your application is collected under the authority of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Act. Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) and NSERC are subject to the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act. The information you provide is stored in a series of NSERC data banks described in Information about programs and information holdings. You must ensure that others listed in the application have agreed to be included.

Personnel from ECCC will have access to relevant data and records for the purposes consistent with program objectives.

NSERC does not require original signatures on applications or other documents submitted electronically through its Online System. The electronic submission of applications through this system represents approval and replaces the traditional "physical" or "wet" signatures. Refer to the Frequently Asked Questions in the Program Guide for Professors for more details.

For applicants and co-applicants

Before you, as an applicant or co-applicant, can submit your application to NSERC or link your Personal Data Form with CCV Attachment to an application, you must read and agree to the Terms and Conditions of Applying that appear in a pop-up window during the submission process.

The signature of the institutional authority certifies that:

• the institution will abide by the roles and responsibilities as set out in the Agreement on the Administration of Agency Grants and Awards by Research Institutions with the three federal granting agencies, including the Tri-Agency Framework: Responsible Conduct of Research
• the applicant and co-applicant(s) have met, or will meet, the eligibility requirements
• prior to submission of this application, the institution has obtained written approval from any other institutions involved in the application process

For partner organizations

Before you, as the authorized representative of the partner organization, submit information as part of an application to NSERC, you must read and agree to the Terms and Conditions of Applying that appear in a pop-up window during the submission process.