Funding, News and Announcements

The Government of Canada announced, in March 2013, through the development of a World Class Tanker Safety System, new measures to safeguard Canada’s marine environment, and to protect communities and Canadians from the harmful effects of ship-source oil pollution spills.

On May 13, 2014, the Government of Canada announced it would further strengthen Canada’s tanker safety system with additional measures based on recommendations from the Tanker Safety Expert Panel and other studies.

The tanker safety improvements are based on three main principles: preventing oil spills in the first place, cleaning them up quickly if they do occur, and making sure polluters pay.  

The actions being taken to strengthen prevention, such as more advanced navigation systems and increased tanker inspections, are reducing the already low risk of an incident. In the unlikely event of a spill, the Government is undertaking research to understand the behavior of heavy oil products in a marine environment and to look at new and improved response measures for cleanup.

The Oil Spill Response Science Program
To support the Government of Canada’s initiative to implement a World-Class Tanker Safety System, Natural Resources Canada is re-issuing the Oil Spill Response Science (OSRS) Program.  The re-issued OSRS Program is a conditionally repayable contribution program that will provide $3.6 million over two years (2017-2019) for research, development and demonstration (RD&D) projects focused on improving recovery technologies and processes for the cleanup of heavy oil products spilled in marine environments.

NRCan invites you to submit a RD&D project through a proposal process.
Projects could be up to two years in duration, terminating no later than March 31, 2019.  The maximum amount payable by the OSRS Program over the entire course of a project will be one million dollars.  

The OSRS Program is a cost-shared initiative so applicants are encouraged to develop partnerships and consortia with preference going to project proposals with higher funding leverages.

Full Project Proposals must be submitted by email on the proposal form (pdf) by 23:59 EST January 25, 2017.  NRCan will not accept any proposals submitted after that deadline. The applicant guidelines are available here (pdf).

If you have any questions, or wish to contact us for any reason, please send an email to  nrcan.oilspillrespsciprog-oilspillrespsciprog.rncan@canada.ca