Details on transfer payment programs of $5 million or more 

• SSHRC prepared an Indigenous Research and Reconciliation Action Plan, based on internal, interagency, interdepartmental and stakeholder consultations in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action. In response to Call to Action 65 to establish a national research program, SSHRC identified actions and began planning, including for enhancing its Talent funding opportunities.
• The Tri-agency Institutional Programs Secretariat, on behalf of SSHRC, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR), and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), launched the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan in May 2017 as part of the management response to the Canada Research Chairs Program 15th-Year Evaluation. The action plan includes a number of key measures to increase the accountability and transparency of institutions’ management of their chair allocations.

• SSHRC worked collaboratively with NSERC and CIHR to support the development of the Canada Research Coordinating Committee (CRCC) work plan to address priorities that included the improvement of support to international, multidisciplinary, risky and rapid-response research.
• In recognition of the needs of the research community for more varied funding mechanisms, SSHRC developed Stream A Insight Grants for smaller grants of shorter duration. SSHRC also delivered two rounds of the new Partnership Engage Grants providing small-scale grants on a rapid turnaround to help researchers build collaborations with organizations in various sectors.

• SSHRC saw a strong growth in demand for social sciences and humanities expertise and expanded outreach and engagement with government departments and related partners to inform decision-making and shed light on emerging issues.
• SSHRC organized two major symposiums in 2017. The forum on Knowledge Systems, Experiences and Aspirations of Indigenous Peoples was held in September and the forum on Globalized Society was held in November.
• SSHRC also developed the 2018–21 Implementation Plan for the next stage of the Imagining Canada’s Future initiative, which seeks to identify and address emerging future challenges for Canada, in a global context.

• SSHRC awarded 1,268 master’s scholarships and 430 doctoral scholarships through the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarships funding opportunity.
• Initial consultations on harmonization of the doctoral award portion of the funding opportunity were held with stakeholders during the Canadian Association of Graduate Studies annual meeting in November 2017. CIHR is leading the establishment of a focus group on this harmonization and the tri-agencies approved the group’s terms of reference in January 2018.
• SSHRC led the harmonization of the Michael Smith Foreign Studies Supplement, which was based on an assessment of design elements and an environmental scan. Various elements of this funding opportunity were harmonized across the agencies for the April 2018 competition launch.
• The updated Tri-Agency Research Training Award Holder’s Guide was published in January 2018 with a number of new harmonized post-award policies including updates to and consolidation of various post-award forms.
• In response to the Canada Graduate Scholarships evaluation, work began on a three-year communications strategy with a focus on program branding.

• unused allocations of the master’s award portion by universities that do not have alternate candidates;
• interruptions for paid parental leaves for award holders;
• limit of 2,600 awards (master’s and doctoral) that can be held simultaneously as stated in terms and conditions; and
• future-year impact if more awards were offered.

• The 13 initiatives funded in the second competition were implemented as follows. Start-up visits were taken with five of the initiatives, with the remaining eight planned for early 2018–19. During these visits, institutions have indicated to staff that the award facilitates interdisciplinary and high-impact research and that partnerships with industry and collaborations with national and international researchers have been developed. Commercialization of research discoveries has been accelerated and knowledge mobilization has occurred. This institutional feedback regarding the program will be validated in the next evaluation of the program.
• As a requirement of the program, annual reports were submitted from all five initiatives funded in the first competition, which included self-identification data of all team members. SSHRC is currently analyzing these reports.

• Grants to postsecondary institutions from the Research Support Fund equalled $369.3 million in 2017–18. This funding provided vital support to help offset part of the indirect costs that institutions incur when managing the research funded by the three federal research funding agencies. In 2017–18, the program constituted 96.6 per cent of SSHRC’s grant expenditures under Strategic Outcome 2.
• In January 2018, SSHRC initiated planning for the next program evaluation of the Research Support Fund. By the end of March 2018, the evaluation’s design report was largely completed, which included timelines for the final program evaluation reporting stage in 2018–19.
• Institutions that receive a grant that is greater than $25,000 are required to submit an annual outcomes report. The 2016–17 version of the Research Support Fund grant outcomes report was received from 96 recipient postsecondary institutions in July 2017.
• All 96 institutions met the public accountability and transparency requirements instituted in 2015. These requirements ensure the program remains accountable to stakeholders and the Canadian public regarding who receives support and how funds are used to meet the program’s objectives.

Total grants

340,434,112

368,440,841

369,403,000

368,516,134

368,456,473

(946,527)

Total contributions

0

0

0

0

0

0

Total other types of transfer payments

0

0

0

0

0

0

340,434,112

368,440,841

369,403,000

368,516,134

368,456,473

(946,527)

• The Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) program currently supports nine networks, as well as five Knowledge Mobilization Initiative networks, two International Knowledge Translation Platforms and one India-Canada research centre of excellence.
• An NCE competition was launched in August 2017 with a total budget of $75 million over five years. This competition was open to both new and established networks. The competition resulted in 69 letters of intent and 11 were invited to submit a full application. The results of the competition will be available in fall 2018, with funding to start in March 2019.
• An NCE-Knowledge Mobilization Initiative competition was launched in January 2018 with a total budget of $4.8 million over four years to fund up to three knowledge mobilization networks. The competition resulted in 40 letters of intent and 10 were invited to submit a full application. The results of the competition will be available in fall 2018, with funding to start in March 2019.
• The India-Canada Centre for Innovative Multidisciplinary Partnerships to Accelerate Community Transformation and Sustainability was extended for a three-year term (2018–21) with total funding of $8.28 million. The NCE-Knowledge Mobilization Renewal competition resulted in continued funding for two ongoing knowledge mobilization networks: SERENE-RISC (cybersecurity) and CellCAN (regenerative medicine and cell therapy,) totalling $1.6 million.