The Canada Excellence Research Chairs (CERC) program is a Government of Canada Tri-Agency initiative that funds a small number of large, single-investigator research chairs at Canadian universities, aimed at attracting world-renowned researchers and their teams. Launched in 2008, CERC is jointly funded and administered by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), with day-to-day administration handled by the Tri-agency Institutional Programs Secretariat (TIPS), housed within SSHRC — the same body that administers the Canada Research Chairs (CRC) program. See CASRAI’s broader Tri-Agency research funding system guide for how CIHR, NSERC, and SSHRC relate to one another.
CERC is easy to confuse with the much larger, better-known Canada Research Chairs program because of the overlapping name, shared administering secretariat, and similar chair terminology — but the two are structurally distinct programs with different funding scale, nomination models, and terms. This guide covers CERC’s structure, funding, eligibility, nomination process, and how it compares directly to CRC.
What CERC funds
CERC provides participating universities with an award of either $8 million or $4 million, distributed over an eight-year term (roughly $1 million per year for the $8 million award). Funding supports compensation for the chairholder and their research team, and research-related activities and infrastructure needed to establish the chairholder’s program at the host institution; institutions may also apply up to 25% of direct research costs toward the indirect costs of the research. Unlike CRC, a CERC term is not renewable — the eight years is a single, fixed window in which the chairholder is expected to build a self-sustaining research program at the host university.
CERC is not a personal-application program. Universities themselves apply to compete for a chair allocation, and only successful institutions then nominate a candidate researcher to fill it, following a competitive and rigorous selection process overseen by an independent Selection Board and international Review Panel. Competitions are run periodically (not continuously), typically tied to the Government of Canada’s science, technology and innovation priority areas, and are open to disciplines across the natural sciences and engineering, health and related sciences, and social sciences and humanities.
Who can hold a CERC chair
CERC chairs are intended for “world-renowned researchers” — established scholars with an international-caliber track record capable of building an ambitious, high-impact research program essentially from scratch at the host institution. The program explicitly welcomes both Canadian and international researchers; unlike some Tri-Agency training or early-career mechanisms, there is no early-career eligibility band — CERC sits at the most senior end of the researcher career spectrum, well beyond the professorial-rank thresholds used for CRC Tier 1 or Tier 2. Because nomination flows through the host university rather than the researcher, an individual cannot apply to CERC directly; a university must first win a chair allocation through the institutional competition, then recruit and nominate a candidate against it.
How CERC differs from the Canada Research Chairs program
Both programs are Tri-Agency initiatives administered through the same secretariat (TIPS/SSHRC), and both use the word “chair” to describe the position — which is the source of most of the confusion. The structural differences are significant:
- Scale of funding: CRC Tier 1 chairs receive $200,000/year to the institution over a (renewable) seven-year term; CRC Tier 2 chairs receive $100,000/year (plus a $20,000/year stipend in the first term) over a five-year term. CERC provides $4 million or $8 million over eight years — roughly four to ten times the annual value of even a Tier 1 CRC.
- Number of chairs: CRC supports roughly 2,000 active chairs at any given time across participating institutions nationwide. CERC funds a small number of chairs per competition round — a handful to a few dozen nationally, not an ongoing annual allocation.
- Allocation model: CRC allocates chairs to institutions on a formula tied to the federal research funding (from CIHR/NSERC/SSHRC) their researchers have already secured, and institutions nominate against that standing allocation on their own timeline within program rules. CERC allocates chairs through discrete, competitive, discipline-themed competition rounds that institutions must first win before they can nominate anyone.
- Term and renewability: CRC Tier 1 (7 years) and Tier 2 (5 years) chairs are each renewable once. CERC’s 8-year term is not renewable.
- Career stage: CRC Tier 2 explicitly targets “exceptional emerging researchers”; CRC Tier 1 targets full professors or those about to be promoted to that rank. CERC targets only the most senior, world-renowned researchers — there is no emerging-researcher tier.
In short: CRC is a broad-based, institution-allocated program supporting roughly 2,000 chairs of varying seniority across the country on an ongoing basis; CERC is a much smaller, competition-based program that concentrates very large individual awards on a handful of the most senior researchers globally, tied to specific national research priorities. See CASRAI’s Canada Research Chair (CRC) dictionary entry for the full detail on CRC’s tiers and nomination rules.
Relationship to other Tri-Agency and federal research-funding mechanisms
A CERC award funds people and the research program itself; it does not fund the capital infrastructure (labs, major equipment) a chairholder’s program may also need. Institutions typically pair a CERC nomination with a separate, coordinated application to the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the arm’s-length corporation that funds research infrastructure — the two are complementary, separately administered programs commonly used together for the same research program rather than one substituting for the other.
CERC competitions are also one of the specific opportunities where the Tri-Agency’s newer narrative-style CV format applies rather than the standard Canadian Common CV (CCV) — see CASRAI’s Tri-Agency Common CV worked example for how that application document differs from the older CCV format still used for most other Tri-Agency competitions.
Frequently asked questions
How much funding does a CERC chair provide?
Institutions receive either $8 million or $4 million, paid out over an eight-year term (roughly $1 million per year for the larger award). Funds cover chairholder and research-team compensation plus research activities, with up to 25% of direct research costs allowable toward indirect costs.
Can a researcher apply directly for a CERC chair?
No. Universities compete for a chair allocation first; only a university that wins an allocation in a given competition round can then nominate a candidate researcher. There is no individual-application pathway, the same institution-nominated structure the Canada Research Chairs program uses, though the two run on entirely separate competition cycles and allocation rules.
Is a CERC appointment renewable?
No. The eight-year CERC term is fixed and not renewable, unlike CRC Tier 1 and Tier 2 chairs, which can each be renewed once.
How is CERC different from the Canada Research Chairs program?
CERC and CRC are both Tri-Agency programs administered by the same secretariat, but CERC is a small, competition-based program awarding $4-8 million over eight non-renewable years to a handful of the most senior, world-renowned researchers per round, while CRC is a much larger, ongoing, institution-allocated program supporting roughly 2,000 chairs at a time across two seniority tiers with smaller annual awards. See the comparison table above for the full breakdown.
Who administers the CERC program?
CERC is a joint Tri-Agency initiative of CIHR, NSERC, and SSHRC, with day-to-day administration by the Tri-agency Institutional Programs Secretariat (TIPS), based at SSHRC — the same secretariat that administers the Canada Research Chairs program.
Related CASRAI resources
- Canada Research Chair (CRC) — the related, much larger Tri-Agency chairs program CERC is most often confused with.
- Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) — the complementary infrastructure-funding corporation often paired with a CERC or CRC nomination.
- Canada’s Tri-Agency Research Funding System — how CIHR, NSERC, and SSHRC jointly govern programs like CERC and CRC.
- Tri-Agency Common CV Worked Example — covers the narrative CV format used for CERC and other named Tri-Agency competitions.
- Canada Graduate Research Scholarship (CGRS) — the Tri-Agency’s flagship graduate-level award, for comparison across career stages.
- Grants Management — CASRAI’s full grants-management topic hub.
