Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A recent PhD in sociology applies for Tri-Agency postdoctoral funding through SSHRC's competition deadline under the Canada Postdoctoral Research Award rather than the discontinued standalone SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship -- the application route and general award structure carry over from the legacy program, but the award is now issued as a CPRA, not an 'SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship.'
- Is an instance
A researcher who held an SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship under the legacy program before it closed continues to list it by its original name on a CV or Canadian Common CV (CCV) entry for that award year, even though a new applicant today would apply for and receive a Canada Postdoctoral Research Award instead.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A current applicant submitting a fresh application in SSHRC's live competition is not applying for an 'SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship' in the strict programmatic sense -- the standalone program has been discontinued, and the live award is the jointly administered Canada Postdoctoral Research Award, even though SSHRC remains the agency through which a social-sciences-and-humanities applicant applies.
- Not an instance
A postdoc paid a salary directly from a principal investigator's SSHRC Insight Grant is not holding an SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship (or a CPRA) -- they are institutional staff funded from the grant's personnel budget, not an individually competed, individually held fellowship recipient.
Editorial commentary
The SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship was the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada’s own individually held postdoctoral award — competed for and held directly by the researcher, not paid to them as staff out of a principal investigator’s grant. As of the most recent competition cycle, SSHRC no longer runs this program as a standalone award: it has been consolidated, together with the equivalent individual postdoctoral programs previously run separately by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), into a single jointly administered award: the Canada Postdoctoral Research Award (CPRA).
What the legacy SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship funded
Under the discontinued standalone program, an SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship provided:
- A two-year term. Awards funded 24 months of mentored postdoctoral research in the social sciences and humanities, not a renewable multi-year appointment.
- An annual stipend. The award’s value was increased to $70,000 per year effective September 2024, portable to an eligible host institution in Canada or abroad, similar in structure to the individually held fellowships described on CASRAI’s general postdoctoral fellowship entry.
- Early-career eligibility windows. Applicants needed to hold, or be near completion of, a doctorate in an SSHRC-eligible field, within a defined number of years of finishing their degree, and could not already hold another postdoctoral award from SSHRC, NSERC, or CIHR (including a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship).
What replaced it: the Canada Postdoctoral Research Award (CPRA)
The CPRA is part of the Tri-Agency’s new Canada Research Training Awards Suite (CRTAS), which also consolidates the three councils’ previously separate master’s and doctoral scholarship programs into common, jointly administered awards. Rather than applying to a program branded specifically ‘SSHRC,’ ‘NSERC,’ or ‘CIHR’ Postdoctoral Fellowship, a current applicant applies for the CPRA through whichever agency’s mandate best matches their proposed research — SSHRC for social sciences and humanities, NSERC for natural sciences and engineering, CIHR for health research — with each agency running its own deadline within the shared program.
The CPRA’s headline terms track the harmonized value now common across all three legacy programs: a $70,000 annual stipend for a 24-month term. Eligibility criteria include holding or expecting to hold a doctoral or professional degree completed within a defined window before the application date, and a restriction against holding a tenure-track or tenured faculty appointment while receiving the award; specific residency and degree-location conditions apply and vary by applicant category, so eligibility should always be confirmed against the current program page rather than assumed to exactly mirror the discontinued program.
Why the naming matters operationally
For anyone doing research-administration work — verifying a CV entry, budgeting a fellow’s stipend against a current program, or advising a prospective applicant — the distinction matters in two directions:
- Historical awards keep their original name. A researcher who held an SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship in a past competition year correctly continues to list it by that name on a CV, biosketch, or Canadian Common CV (CCV) entry; the program’s discontinuation does not retroactively rename past awards.
- New applicants apply for the CPRA, not the legacy program. Search traffic and institutional web pages referring to ‘the SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship’ as a currently open competition should be understood as pointing to the CPRA in practice — SSHRC’s own site no longer hosts a standalone SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship program page; applicants are directed to the consolidated Canada Postdoctoral Research Award listing instead.
How this differs from an SSHRC operating grant
An SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship (or its CPRA successor) is an individually held training award for the postdoctoral researcher themselves. It is a different funding mechanism entirely from an investigator-held operating grant such as an SSHRC Insight Grant, which funds an established researcher’s ongoing program of research; an Insight Grant holder may employ and supervise postdocs as part of their research team, but paying a postdoc from an operating grant’s personnel budget is a staff appointment, not a postdoctoral fellowship award held by the postdoc themselves. See CASRAI’s postdoctoral fellowship entry, and its NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship counterpart, for how individually held fellowships differ from grant-funded staff positions and institutional training-grant slots across Canada’s Tri-Agency funders.
Frequently asked questions
Is the SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship still accepting applications?
No. SSHRC has discontinued the standalone Postdoctoral Fellowship program. Applicants seeking equivalent Tri-Agency postdoctoral funding now apply for the Canada Postdoctoral Research Award (CPRA), applied for through SSHRC, NSERC, or CIHR depending on research area.
What is the value and duration of the program that replaced it?
The Canada Postdoctoral Research Award provides $70,000 per year for a 24-month term — matching the legacy SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship’s most recently published value and duration, though eligibility details and deadlines differ by agency and should be confirmed directly on SSHRC’s, NSERC’s, or CIHR’s current program pages.
Does an old SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship award need to be relisted as a CPRA on a CV?
No. An award held under the discontinued program correctly retains its original name for any competition year in which it was actually awarded; only new applications go through the CPRA.
Who administers the Canada Postdoctoral Research Award?
SSHRC, NSERC, and CIHR jointly administer the CPRA as part of the Canada Research Training Awards Suite (CRTAS), with each agency running its own application deadline for applicants in its respective research areas.
Program status, funding values, deadlines, and eligibility criteria for Tri-Agency postdoctoral funding change; always confirm current details directly on SSHRC’s, NSERC’s, or CIHR’s own program pages before relying on them for an application.
Also known as
SSHRC PDF · SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowships Program
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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