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The Fonds de recherche du Québec (FRQ) is the Quebec provincial government’s umbrella research-funding organization, made up of three sectoral funds — the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Nature et technologies (FRQNT), the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Santé (FRQS), and the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC) — that together fund research and researcher training across every discipline in the province. The three funds were brought under a single administrative structure on July 1, 2011, under Quebec’s Loi 130, which created shared administrative services and the position of Chief Scientist of Québec (a role combined with the FRQ presidency) while leaving each fund’s own mission, scientific director, and board of directors intact.
Not to be confused with: FRQ is a Quebec provincial funder, distinct from Canada’s federal Tri-Agency — the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). A Quebec-based researcher routinely holds funding from both a federal Tri-Agency program and the matching FRQ sectoral fund at the same time; they are separately administered and separately applied for, not alternatives to one another. See CASRAI’s Canada Tri-Agency research funding system guide for the federal side of this picture.
The three sectoral funds
- FRQNT (Nature et technologies) — funds research in the natural sciences, mathematics, and engineering, roughly the provincial counterpart to NSERC’s disciplinary scope.
- FRQS (Santé) — funds health-sciences research, the provincial counterpart to CIHR’s scope. Google’s Knowledge Graph lists FRQS specifically as founded in 2011, matching the sector-wide FRQ reorganization date.
- FRQSC (Société et culture) — funds social sciences, humanities, and arts research, the provincial counterpart to SSHRC’s scope.
Each fund runs its own competitions and eligibility rules for its discipline, but researchers, students, and research offices interact with all three through shared FRQ infrastructure: a common online application portal, a shared results-and-competition calendar, and FRQ-wide policies (for example, open-access and research-data requirements) that apply across all three funds rather than being negotiated separately per sector.
What FRQ funds
Across its three funds, FRQ supports thousands of graduate students, hundreds of research projects, and dozens of research teams, centres, and groups every year, spanning several categories of support:
- Student scholarships — master’s and doctoral research scholarships (bourses), open to students conducting research at a Quebec institution or, for some competitions, Quebec students pursuing eligible research training elsewhere.
- Career awards — salary-support awards for early- and mid-career researchers (the Chercheurs-boursiers programs), comparable in function to a Canada Research Chair or a CIHR/NSERC/SSHRC career award, but funded and administered provincially.
- Project and team grants — funding for individual research projects and for larger research teams, centres, networks, and strategic clusters, including partnership-oriented programs that require or encourage co-funding from industry, community, or public-sector partners.
- Research infrastructure and mobility support — smaller programs supporting equipment, research stays abroad, and knowledge-mobilization activities, which vary by fund and by year.
Eligibility for FRQ competitions generally requires the applicant or the host institution to be based in Quebec, though several programs (student scholarships in particular) admit applications tied to Quebec-based supervisors or institutions even when the trainee’s own citizenship or prior training was elsewhere.
Worked example
A biology PhD student at a Quebec university applies to FRQNT for a doctoral research scholarship to fund their stipend during their thesis research; their supervisor, in parallel, holds an operating grant from NSERC for the same broad research program. The two funding streams are applied for, reviewed, and administered completely separately — FRQNT funds the student’s training award, NSERC funds the supervisor’s research program — even though both ultimately support related work in the same lab.
Counter-example
A postdoctoral researcher in Ontario cannot apply to FRQS for a career award on the strength of an Ontario institution alone; FRQ programs require a genuine Quebec institutional affiliation (as the host institution, the supervisor’s institution, or an equivalent tie specified by the competition), not simply Canadian citizenship or residency. A researcher relocating to a Quebec institution becomes eligible going forward, but affiliation with a non-Quebec institution does not qualify on its own.
Frequently asked questions
Is FRQ a federal or provincial funder?
Provincial. FRQ is a Quebec government research-funding organization reporting through Quebec’s Ministère de l’Économie, de l’Innovation et de l’Énergie, distinct from Canada’s federal Tri-Agency (CIHR, NSERC, SSHRC).
What is the difference between FRQNT, FRQS, and FRQSC?
They are FRQ’s three sectoral funds, split by discipline: FRQNT covers natural sciences and engineering, FRQS covers health sciences, and FRQSC covers social sciences, humanities, and arts. Each has its own mission, scientific director, and board, but shares FRQ’s common administrative services and application infrastructure since the 2011 reorganization.
Can a researcher hold both an FRQ award and a federal Tri-Agency grant?
Yes. Quebec researchers commonly hold FRQ provincial funding (for example, an FRQS career award or an FRQNT team grant) alongside federal CIHR, NSERC, or SSHRC funding for the same broad research program; the two are separately administered and are not mutually exclusive.
Who is eligible for FRQ scholarships and grants?
Eligibility varies by program, but generally requires a genuine tie to a Quebec institution — as the host institution, the supervisor’s institution, or an equivalent affiliation specified by the competition. Many student scholarship competitions admit applicants training at a Quebec institution regardless of the student’s own citizenship.
References
- Fonds de recherche du Québec, “FRQ: Home” (frq.gouv.qc.ca/en)
- Fonds de recherche du Québec – Santé, Google Knowledge Graph entry (founded 2011)
- Wikipédia, “Fonds de recherche du Québec” (fr.wikipedia.org) — July 1, 2011 reorganization under Loi 130
- Wikipédia, “Fonds de recherche du Québec – Nature et technologies” and “Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture” (fr.wikipedia.org)
