Using Your Funds
Grant Holder's Guide
Grants to Institutions
This section contains regulations that apply to grants from the Aid to
Small Universities and SSHRC Institutional Grants programs.
Dates to Remember
Basic Terms and Conditions
Financial Administration
Related SSHRC Policies
Contact Us
Dates to Remember
Institutions Dates to Remember
| Program |
Grant payment |
Annual
statement of account |
Final
statement of account |
Activity report |
|
Aid to Small Universities
|
May
|
June 30
|
June 30 of the final year of the grant
|
June 30 of the final year of the grant
|
|
SSHRC Institutional Grants
|
Four equal installments in May, July, September and
November
|
June 30
|
June 30 of the final year of the grant
|
June 30 of the final year of the grant
|
Basic Terms and Conditions
What is the period of tenure?
Your Notice of Award specifies the period of tenure for your grant.
Aid to Small Universities and SSHRC Institutional Grants are awarded for
three years. The grant begins April 1 and ends March 31 of the final year
of the grant.
Can the grant be transferred?
Grants for institutions may not be transferred from one institution
to another.
What if our plans change?
Aid to Small Universities: Since your grant was awarded directly
on the basis of an approved development plan for your institution, SSHRC
must be informed in writing of any change to that development plan.
Financial Administration
When are the grants paid?
See Institutions Dates to Remember.
What signatures are required on which documents?
Statements of Account must be signed by a university finance officer.
Are our grant expenditures verified by SSHRC?
Review and Investigation Officers from SSHRC's Finance Division visit
universities every year. These visits allow the team to:
-
assess whether researchers are well supported and have the tools
necessary to properly and effectively manage their research funds;
-
review the effectiveness of policies, controls and systems in place
at the university to ensure that SSHRC policies and regulations are followed
and that funds are well managed;
-
review the expenditures of researchers to ensure that these were
made in accordance with the Council's policies, regulations and guidelines
and for the purposes intended;
- share and disseminate information on guidelines and expectations
for
financial and scientific accountability and integrity.
You must keep all accounts and records of monies received and expenditures,
with supporting receipts and vouchers, for two years after the termination
of the grant. These accounts and records must be made available to SSHRC
or its agent on request.
Can we transfer account balances from one year to the next?
For multi-year grants, if the total funds awarded for a particular year
are not spent in that year, you may transfer the balance to the next fiscal
year of the grant.
Can we transfer money left over at the end of the grant term to a new
grant?
Residual funds cannot be transferred to a new grant. However, SSHRC
will allow residual funds from prior years to be kept by the university
under certain conditions determined by SSHRC's Finance Division. Such
funds may be authorized for transfer to a General Research Fund Account.
This special SSHRC account is held in trust by the university president
for the broad purpose of enhancing the quality of research in the social
sciences and humanities in accordance with SSHRC policies on the use of
funds.
What activities and materials can we support with grant funds?
Aid to Small Universities: Your grant must be used to develop your institution's
research capacity in the area(s) identified in your university's three-year
development plan. You may use your grant funds to complement support from
other SSHRC programs, if your institute's development plan so requires.
However, the ASU program is not intended to provide sustaining support
to institutions nor is it intended as an alternative to SSHRC's national
programs. Therefore, SSHRC limits support for research infrastructure,
such as centres and institutes, to six years.
Provided they are directly related to your institution's development
plan, the following may be supported with the grant funds:
-
Research projects or programs.
-
Seed funding for collaborative research or the development of partnerships.
-
Travel by faculty or visiting scholars for research, consultation,
collaborative work or research dissemination.
-
Travel costs of graduate students to attend scholarly conferences.
-
Organization of conferences, colloquia or symposia.
-
Workshops, seminars, agenda-setting seminars, sessions on research.
-
Start-up costs/partial funding of research centres.
-
Infrastructure costs. (This is a very restricted category: contact
a SSHRC Awards Administration officer for details.)
-
Journals support must be limited to seed funding to avoid the proliferation
of journals of limited scientific merit. (Journals may be supported
only until the next competition of the Aid to Research and Transfer
Journals program.) Journals that were unsuccessful in the latest Aid
to Research and Transfer Journals competition cannot be supported
with ASU funds.
-
Graduate student fellowships and research assistantships. Those
doctoral students who qualified for the institution's A List, but
who were unsuccessful in the national SSHRC competition, may be awarded
fellowships with a maximum value of $12,000. Research assistantships
may be funded through research grants. Recipients must meet all of
SSHRC's eligibility criteria for doctoral fellowships, and their studies
must directly relate to the areas of focus identified in the development
plan.
-
Completion of PhD thesis research for faculty whose research is
directly related to the area(s) targeted by the institution's development
plan.
-
Acquisition of library research materials clearly linked to the
university's research development focus. (ASU funds may be used for
the general development of specialized collections since funding for
this purpose is no longer available through SSHRC's Specialized Research
Collections program.)
- Development of research databases clearly linked to the research
area(s) targeted by the development plan.
SSHRC Institutional Grants: These grants are to be used by the institution
to award individual grants of up to $7,000 per year through its own competitive
process.
The institution determines the number of competitions to be held annually,
in order to establish deadlines that best suit the needs of the researchers
and to define the academic and administrative criteria that regulate the
competition. SSHRC prefers that the competition be based on peer evaluation,
meaning that, at the very least, faculty members participate on the selection
committees.
Grant funds may be used to support the following types of activities:
- Short-term research projects
- Research-related conference travel (including international travel)
- Small seminars
For specific eligible expenses under each of these activities, consult
this guide for the program that most closely resembles the type of grant
you are awarding.
Will we have to provide receipts for all our eligible expenses?
You are required to provide supporting documentation for all eligible
expenses including internal expense allocations and shared expenses. This
documentation must include original receipts or invoices and a statement
justifying the expenses. The documentation you submit must be in compliance
with university guidelines.
What costs are ineligible?
For a list of ineligible costs consult the guidelines for the SSHRC
program that most closely resembles the type of grant you are awarding.
Note that a Research Time Stipend is not an eligible expense.
What reports will we be required to submit?
See Institutions Dates to Remember.
Can we submit computerized statements of account?
SSHRC accepts computerized statements as long as you use the categories
on the Tri-Council
Statement of Account form.
Can we get additional funding?
There is no commitment of support beyond the three-year term of the
grant. To request further funding you must submit a new application on
the appropriate form.
Should I acknowledge SSHRC when communicating my research findings?
As a recipient of Canadian government funds, it is important for you
to let Canadians know how their tax money is being spent. Therefore, you should acknowledge the assistance of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council in all workshop and conference materials, publications
and media coverage of activities funded through SSHRC grants.
Please see the SSHRC Research Data Archiving
Policy and the guidelines on the use of SSHRC's logo.
Related SSHRC Policies
Integrity in Research and Scholarship
Non-Discrimination Policy
Tri-Council Policy
Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans
Contact Us
For grant information, contact an awards administration officer from SSHRC's Finance Division by telephone at 613-995-2694 or by E-mail at awdad@sshrc-crsh.gc.ca.
Or you can write to us at:
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
350 Albert Street
P.O. Box 1610
Ottawa, Ontario
K1P 6G4
Fax: 613-996-0458