The Vanier CGS scholarship aims to attract and retain world-class doctoral students by supporting students who demonstrate both leadership skills and a high standard of scholarly achievement in graduate studies in social sciences and humanities, natural sciences and engineering, or health. It is jointly administered by SSHRC, NSERC, and CIHR.
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Overview and Application Guidelines
Purpose
The objective of the Canada Graduate Scholarships-Master’s (CGS M) Program is to help develop research skills and assist in the training of highly qualified personnel by supporting students who demonstrate a high standard of achievement in undergraduate and early graduate studies. The Tri-council allocates CGS-M awards to universities specifying the number of awards that each may offer to their students annually. CGS M awards can only be offered to students pursing graduate studies at eligible Canadian Universities and the award must be held at the university that has made the offer.
Eligibility to Apply
Please refer to the Vanier Wesbite for complete eligibility requirements.
To be considered for a Vanier CGS in the Faculty of Information, applicants must:
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- Be intending to pursue their first doctoral degree full-time at the Faculty of Information in September 2023;
- Have completed no more than 20 months of doctoral studies as of May 1, 2024;
- Have achieved a first-class average (A-), in each of the last two years of full-time study or equivalent;
- Not hold or have held a doctoral-level scholarship or fellowship from SSHRC, NSERC, or CIHR to undertake or complete a doctoral program (or combined MA / PhD or MD / PhD); and
- Be nominated by only one Canadian university.
NOTE: Applicants may apply to both the Vanier CGS program and another doctoral-level scholarship/fellowship program (e.g. PGS-D) under the same or different federal granting agency in the same academic year, provided that the research proposed in each application falls within the mandate of the federal granting agency to which the application is submitted. Applicants being considered for a Vanier CGS may not apply for a CGS Master’s award in the same year.
Award Value & Duration
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- $50000 CAD per year, for three years during doctoral studies.
SGS Graduate Award Information Sessions for Students
Graduate Award Information sessions are available to students interested in applying for Federal and / or Provincial awards (to start award in 2024-25 academic year). NOTE: international students are only eligible to apply for Vanier and OGS out of the sessions being offered.
Additional Resources
To access the videos, enter your utoronto email address when prompted to sign-in, then login using UTORid credentials.
How to Apply
Applicants should refer to the Vanier website for step-by-step application / nomination instructions.
Applicants must complete the entire application process by the Faculty of Information deadline to be eligible for consideration. This includes:
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- 1. Let us know of your intent to take part in this competition. Please direct your email to awards.ischool@utoronto.ca;
- 2. Submit a completed Vanier CGS application via ResearchNet;
- 3. Send all original official transcripts to the Faculty of Information (to awards.ischool@utoronto.ca).
- All non-Canadian transcripts submitted by the applicant should be accompanied by a grade legend.
- New official transcripts are required for this competition—even if we already have copies of your transcripts in your file—as we must send these forward.
- Reminder: Institutions will be required to include an evaluation/summary of all foreign transcripts. In order to assist with this task, foreign transcripts submitted by the applicant should be accompanied by a grade legend).
- New (Optional): If a nominee has international transcripts, they may attach a 250-word summary to describe the variations in the grading system from the country of the transcript and the Canadian level equivalents, and / or explain international credentials and equivalencies. The summary should be a PDF document attached at the beginning of their transcripts.
- Please send all transcripts to the following address:
- Vanier CGS c/o Awards Committee
- Faculty of Information
- University of Toronto
- 140 St. George Street
- Toronto, ON M5S 3G6
- Canada
- Email: awards.ischool@utoronto.ca
- 4. Reminder: When applicable, Vanier encourages applicants to systematically examine how differences in identity factors (such as sex, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, age and mental or physical disability) affect the outcomes of research and the impacts of research findings. Applicants are now encouraged to take SGBA+ principles into account in their proposed research (see Application / Nomination instruction – Task 10 for more details).
- 5. New: Applicants who would like to self-identify as Indigenous to be considered beyond their institutions quota must complete the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship (Vanier CGS): Voluntary Self-Identification Form for Indigenous Applicants (PDF). Once completed, the form must then be uploaded as a single PDF document (unprotected) not to exceed 300 MB under “Other” in the “Attach Application Materials” Task 11.
Important Reminders
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- Students are strongly encouraged to complete the “Identify Referee” task on ResearchNet well in advance as referee assessments must be completed and submitted by the referee before the student can complete the submission by the graduate unit deadline. New this year, applicants will be able to determine individual deadlines for their referees on ResearchNet. As a result, there will no longer be a single deadline for all referees.
- Applicants are required to upload two (2) leadership reference letters as separate PDF attachments under the same task (the ability to upload the second letter will appear after the first one has been uploaded). In addition, two (2) confidential academic assessments will be requested and submitted through ResearchNet. Note: Vanier recommends that each of these come from four individuals but letters from the same sources will not be declared ineligible.
- Updated: All information about interruptions to a student’s academic career, choice of nominating institution, and mobility must be included the Personal Leadership Statement or Research Proposal instead of part of the “special circumstances” document, which now should be used only to describe part-time PhD studies.
- The students’ proposed research project and doctoral program of study must be eligible within the mandate of the agency to which the nomination will be submitted. If there is any doubt (especially for those applying to SSHRC or NSERC whose subject matter touches upon health in any capacity), students are urged to email the granting agency directly with a one page summary of their research to seek written confirmation in advance of submitting their application. Complete guidelines on selecting the appropriate federal granting agency are available at the science.gc.ca website.
Deadline to Apply
All application materials must be complete and submitted to the Faculty of Information by the end of day on September 8, 2023.
No late applications will be accepted.
Contacts & Resources
For more information, visit the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship website, and / or the SGS Vanier CGS page.
If you have questions regarding the Vanier Awards competition, please contact Vanier directly at info@vanier.gc.ca.
Vanier Program Information
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- 613-943-7777
- info@vanier.gc.ca
ResearchNet Technical Support
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- 613-941-9080
- support@researchnet-recherchenet.ca
