Funding, News and Announcements

The Canada Research Chairs program has launched the inaugural Robbins-Ollivier Award for Excellence in Equity.

The objectives of the Robbins-Ollivier Award for Excellence in Equity are to:

• fund bold and potentially game-changing projects that will challenge the status quo, spark change and take action to address persistent systemic barriers in the research ecosystem and academia;
• recognize faculty members who contribute their time, expertise and lived experience to help address inequities in their institution, the research ecosystem and academia; and
• provide opportunities for students and trainees to contribute to this important work.

The award provides a total of $100,000 over one year to a faculty member or a team of faculty members nominated by an eligible institution, to fund the implementation of bold and potentially game-changing research led by the nominated individual or team that:

• contributes to the understanding of the persistence of systemic barriers in the nominating institution and/or the research ecosystem and academia more broadly; and
• identifies innovative measures that could be implemented to change the status quo and break down those barriers in the long term.

To be eligible for nomination, the faculty member(s) must:

• be eligible to receive grant funding from the agencies;
• be holding a full-time academic appointment at the institution at the time of nomination and for the duration of the award; and
• be in good standing with CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC (e.g., they cannot have eligibility limits placed on them due to not meeting grant reporting requirements for the CRCP or have sanctions in place tied to the agencies’ responsible conduct of research policy).

Each institution may only submit one nomination, due July 29, 2022. To support an open and transparent internal nomination process, an internal competition will be held. Interested researchers are encouraged to contact their Faculty or Shelley Brown for more information and for a copy of the proposal form.

A committee will be formed to review the proposals and select one to move forward for nomination.

Proposals will be reviewed according to the Assessment Process outlined on the CRCP website:

• Proposed research project (60%)
• Leadership and commitment to equity (20%)
• Faculty nomination process and support for the initiative (20%)

Deadlines

Internal: May 11, 2022 at 4:30pm

Funder: July 29, 2022 at 9pm AST