Faculty of Graduate Studies

Home
Tri‑Council CGS‑D

Tri‑Council CGS‑D

Doctoral applications to Tri-Council funding occurs in several separate competitions over the fall of each year, with applications frequently being subject to departmental and/or university-level review.

SSHRC, CIHR and NSERC doctoral competitions each have their own eligibility and application requirements. This may include specific priority research areas for each funding body which may change year-over-year. Interested applicants are strongly encouraged to review funding opportunity announcements, award criteria and application preparation documentation available on each respective site. Links have been provided to the post-graduate funding pages of the respective agencies below.

Submitted applications will be downloaded by FGS from the research portal, evaluated for completeness, and forwarded to departments for ranking. Departments typically have up to one week to complete the review process, and often request for students to provide PDF copies of their applications in advance of the student submission deadline.

Applications are subsequently returned to FGS and then forwarded to university-level review committees, which evaluate submitted applications based on Tri-Council criteria and recommend which applications move forward to the national competition. University-level rankings may also be used to identify prospective candidates for additional internal awards. Applicants intending to pursue studies at Dal are also strongly encouraged to participate in the Harmonized Scholarship Process.

NSERC PGS-D/CGS-D Internal Application Submission/Review Process

Applicants are expected to review NSERC’s application instructions in detail.

NSERC applicants must obtain official hard copies of their transcripts and provide them to FGS.  The scholarship liaison officer in FGS will scan and upload the transcripts to the NSERC application portal. This must be completed before the initial submission deadline. 

Applicants must enter the Scholarship Liaison Officer’s information within the research portal as the designated individual to upload their transcript. For the 2019/2020 competition, the individual is Niki Power (fgs.slo@dal.ca).

CIHR: Doctoral Research Awards (DRA/CGS-D) Internal Application Submission/Review Process

Applicants are expected to review CIHR’s application instructions in detail.

Note that CIHR applicants upload their own official transcripts in accordance with very specific guidelines available on the above noted application instructions site.

SSHRC: Doctoral Fellowship & CGS-D Internal Application Submission/Review Process

Applicants are expected to review SSHRC’s application instructions in detail.

Note that SSHRC applicants upload their own official transcripts in accordance with very specific guidelines available on the above-noted application instructions site.


The following internal deadlines apply for the 2019/2020 academic year for all three Tri-agency Doctoral programs. These timelines are typically consistent year-to-year.

Please note that departments often request applicants to submit PDF copies of their proposal prior to this deadline to simplify review. Please reach out to your prospective department/program to confirm if an earlier department-level deadline exists.

FGS Submission Deadline Department Ranking to FGS FGS Submission to Agency
October 1, 2019 October 7, 2019 November 21, 2019

For more information on available awards and application procedures, please see Funding Opportunities for PhD Students [PDF - 396kb]