Funding, News and Announcements

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC)’s Collaborative Research and Training Experience (CREATE) program has recently undergone a renewal process aiming to simplify the program and the application procedures. These changes apply for the 2025 competition year and beyond, and are as follows:

• University Letter of Intent (LOI) quota is now three (3) for all eligible institutions. In recent years, Dalhousie’s quota has been six (6) LOIs.
• The LOI stage is now non-competitive, meaning that the LOIs are not adjudicated by the selection committee and proceed directly to the application stage.
• LOI submissions are still required by the May 1 deadline, but the information to be provided is reduced.
• The Industrial stream has been eliminated. Industrial participation in CREATE initiatives is encouraged, but the extent and nature of industrial participation is determined by the applicants and their industrial partners.
• Mobility experiences are now mandatory for all M.Sc. and Ph.D. trainees, with a minimum duration of 1 month for M.Sc. and 2 months for Ph.D.

The changes to the LOI instructions and other program elements will be communicated in more detail at an information session for potential applicants, which NSERC will hold during the first week of February 2024. These changes will also be reflected on the CREATE website when the updates for the 2025 competition year are posted in early March 2024.

Please stay tuned to the Office of Research Service’s (ORS) newsletter.  ORS will soon release further details that will describe the internal procedure for submitting an LOI to this year’s competition.