Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024: What You Need to Know

The Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships program provides financial support for highly qualified postdoctoral candidates from around the world who will help advance the country’s economy, society, and research. The program awards 70 fellowships each year, with approximately 140 fellows actively participating at any given time.

The scholarships are evenly distributed among three research councils: the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

The fellowships are valued at $70,000 a year (taxable) and have a length of two years. The program’s distinctive characteristic is its focus on the synergy between the applicant’s individual excellence and potential for a successful research-intensive career, and the host institution’s commitment to the research program and alignment with its strategic aims. Applicants must complete their application in full coordination with the potential host institution. If further funds become available, new scholarships may be given.

Eligibility

The Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships program is open to Canadian citizens, permanent residents of Canada, and foreign citizens who meet certain conditions. Applicants must hold their fellowship at a Canadian institution or obtain their PhD, PhD-equivalent, or health professional degree from a foreign university. For applicants who have completed more than one degree, the eligibility window applies to the most recent one.

1. The eligibility window can be extended by a cumulative maximum of three years if the applicant’s career interrupted for extenuating circumstances such as parental leave, illness, health-related family responsibilities, mandatory military service, disruptions due to war, civil conflicts, natural disasters in the country of residence, socio-economic reasons/lack of research opportunities, pandemic-related reasons, etc. The interruptions must have occurred after the fulfillment of the degree requirements and before the application submission deadline.
2. Institutions eligible to host a Banting postdoctoral researcher include Canadian and foreign universities, affiliated research hospitals, colleges, and not-for-profit organizations with a strong research mandate and capacity. Canadian governments (federal, provincial, municipal), and all for-profit organizations are not eligible to participate as host institutions. Questions regarding institutional eligibility should be directed to the Vanier-Banting Secretariat well in advance of the submission deadline.
3. Other eligibility restrictions apply to applicants who currently hold or have held CIHR, NSERC, SSHRC postdoctoral fellowships only if the term of that funding officially ends on or before September 30, 2024 and prior to the start of the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship. Early termination of the agency-specific postdoctoral award for the purpose of application to the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships program is not permitted.
4. Applicants can apply for both the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships program and other agency-specific postdoctoral fellowships programs at the same time, provided that the research proposed in each application falls within the mandate of the federal granting agency to which the application is submitted. Successful applicants will have to choose which award to accept.
5. Applicants must not hold a tenure-track or tenured faculty position, nor can they be on leave from such a position. Only in rare circumstances will a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship be awarded to an applicant who is staying at the same institution or within the same research environment where they completed their PhD, PhD-equivalent, or health professional degree. If an applicant chooses to apply in collaboration with the same institution or within the same research environment from which they obtained their degree, a solid justification must be provided in the Special circumstances attachment.
6. Applicants can submit only one application per competition year to the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships program. Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships are tenable only at the institution that supported the original application for the program, must be taken up no earlier than April 1st and no later than October 1st following the year of application, are for two years, cannot be held concurrently with another tri-agency training award, and can only be held once in a lifetime.