Competition

* Unless explicitly noted, all times indicated for deadlines are for the appropriate NL timezone (NST or NDT)

Partnership Development Grants are expected to respond to the objectives of the Insight and/or the Connection program.

They provide support over one to three years to teams/partnerships, led by a project director, to:

• develop research and/or related activities in the social sciences and humanities, including knowledge mobilization and the meaningful involvement of students and emerging scholars, by fostering new partnerships with existing and/or potential partners; or
  
• design and test new partnership approaches for research and/or related activities that may result in best practices or models that either can be adapted by others or have the potential to be scaled up to a regional, national or international level.
  

Partnership funding is intended for teams working in formal partnership between postsecondary institutions and/or organizations of various types. For more information, see the definitions for formal partnership and partner organization.

The quality of training, mentoring and employability plans for students and emerging scholars will be evaluated as an important part of the proposed initiative. Please see SSHRC’s Guidelines for Effective Research Training for more information on how students and emerging scholars can meaningfully participate in proposed initiatives.

The intellectual leadership and governance for the creation of a formal partnership may come from within the research community and/or from partner organizations from the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. However, only an eligible institution may administer the grant funding, once awarded (see Eligibility).

SSHRC invites applicants and their partner organizations who wish to propose formal disciplinary, interdisciplinary, interinstitutional, international and/or cross-sector partnership arrangements to apply for support through this funding opportunity. Funds are available to support a variety of formal partnership development initiatives in all of the disciplines and themes eligible for funding at SSHRC.

For tools and resources to assist with the planning and implementation of your partnership, please see SSHRC’s Partnerships Tool-Kit.

There are two categories of partnerships that may request support:

• Existing partnerships: Support to foster new research and/or research-related partnership activities that are distinct from the partnership’s previous/ongoing partnership activities.
  
• New partnerships: Support to foster new research and/or research-related partnership activities that are undertaken by partnerships in their initial stages.
  

Following is a list of possible formal partnership approaches. Applicants are in no way limited to these approaches, and are welcome to combine some of the features described below.

• Disciplinary and interdisciplinary research partnerships: Interinstitutional research initiatives designed to make a significant contribution to advancing knowledge and understanding in the humanities and/or social sciences. While SSHRC welcomes proposals for interdisciplinary research partnerships involving natural sciences, engineering and/or health partner organizations, partnerships of this nature must follow SSHRC’s policy regarding the eligibility of subject matter.
  
• Cross-sector co-creation of knowledge and understanding: Partnerships to foster innovative research, training and the co-creation of new knowledge on critical issues of intellectual, social, economic and cultural significance.
  
• Networks for research and/or related activities: Networks designed to advance the innovative co-creation of knowledge, as well as training and mobilization of research, on critical issues of intellectual, social, economic and cultural significance.
  
• Partnered knowledge mobilization: Partnerships designed to synthesize, apply and mobilize new and existing social sciences research knowledge in accessible ways to build institutional capacity and to increase the national and international impact and stature of Canadian research.
  

SSHRC welcomes applications involving Indigenous research, as well as those involving research-creation.

HSS Requests for Advanced Draft Feedback (optional): Memorial applicants may request detailed feedback on full draft applications or on application components. Normally, HSS Research Support Services would require draft applications to be submitted a minimum of 45 business days ahead of the internal HSS deadline (see below for all deadlines - Advanced Draft Feedback deadlines may vary depending on the workflow of the HSS Research Support Services office). If you wish to request this service, please contact Heather C. O’Brien (HSSResearchAdmin@mun.ca or 864-8603) or Matthew Milner (HSSResearchGrants@mun.ca or 864-8050) as soon as possible.

Note: Because additional SSHRC Partnership program proposal submission steps are involved, applicants are advised to pursue partnerships at the earliest opportunity. Applications require issuing invitations through the SSHRC portal to partners and receipt of Letters of Support - for the Partnership Development program this also includes Memorial University. Partners must accept Invitations in the SSHRC portal and upload Letters of Support to the SSHRC portal prior to the internal HSS Deadline.

Faculty of HSS Submission Procedures (mandatory): In addition to the external funding agency’s submission procedures, this opportunity must also be submitted for Departmental, HSS Faculty, and Research Initiatives and Services (RIS) institutional reviews and approvals via Memorial's Researcher Portal (RP). In order to facilitate the HSS Faculty’s administrative review, please ensure "Heather C. O'Brien (Grants Facilitator)" and “Matthew Milner (Grants Facilitator)” are added as "Team Members" on your RP file. 

In accordance with University-wide approval protocols, all tabs of the RP file must be completed, the completed application must be uploaded to the “Attachments” tab, all supporting documentation including support for cash and in-kind commitments and/or letters of support must also be uploaded, and “Submit” must be pressed prior to the HSS internal deadline listed below. HSS cannot guarantee completion of an administrative review for application files that are incomplete and/or are submitted after the HSS deadline. For more detailed submission instructions and information, please consult the HSS Research Support Services website.

If you plan to apply for any of these or other funding opportunities, e-mail an HSS Grants Facilitator: Heather C. O’Brien (HSSResearchAdmin@mun.ca or 864-8603) or Matthew Milner (HSSResearchGrants@mun.ca or 864-8050) to notify the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of your intent to apply. E-mailing the intent to apply as early as possible will help to facilitate an efficient review. A Grants Facilitator can answer any questions you may have about internal or external submission procedures.