Sponsor
Ontario Centres of Excellence
Description
Update: Upcoming VIP-Engage Deadlines for NSERC
As you may know from previous years, the NSERC award system closes in mid-March to let its staff conduct end-of-year financial reconciliations before its new fiscal year begins on April 1. This has significance for Engage Grant applicants, including those pursuing VIP1-Engage funding, because most of them will be attempting to secure their one-per-year Engage Grant allocation before the NSERC fiscal year ends. Many of these applicants will be mistakenly assuming that the deadline for application submission is March 31. This is not the case. To meet the end-of-fiscal-year cut-off, NSERC recommends that regular (non-VIP1) Engage applications be submitted and in their system by no later than February 3.
For VIP1- Engage projects, applications will need to be ready for external review — that is, all revisions completed and the OCE funding agreement signed — by no later than January 27, 2017 to permit the dual evaluation, review, and conditional approval processes of OCE and NSERC to take place in February.
Additionally, any VIP1-Engage projects that do win approval in February must be activated — that is, the industry partner's cash contribution paid in full — by no later than March 2, 2017 if the Engage award is to be allocated to NSERC's 2016-2017 fiscal year. PIs applying for VIP1-Engage who wish the Engage part of their award to be assigned to the current NSERC fiscal year are therefore encouraged to work with their OCE Business Development Manager to submit their applications as soon as possible.