Canada’s federal postdoctoral funding landscape looks very different today than it did even two years ago. Between 2024 and 2025, the three federal granting agencies — CIHR, NSERC, and SSHRC — retired their separate individual postdoctoral fellowship programs, and the flagship Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship ran its final competition in 2024, all folded into a single harmonized mechanism: the Canada Postdoctoral Research Award (CPRA). This guide explains what that consolidation means in practice, what the Banting program was and why it no longer accepts applications, and how a postdoctoral researcher or research administrator should navigate the current system.
For the broader structure of how CIHR, NSERC, and SSHRC divide their mandates and jointly administer shared policy, see Canada’s Tri-Agency Research Funding System. For the general definition of a postdoctoral fellowship as a funding mechanism, see Postdoctoral fellowship.
The Canada Postdoctoral Research Award (CPRA): today’s single Tri-Agency mechanism
The CPRA is a jointly administered award, part of the Tri-Agency’s Canada Research Training Awards Suite (CRTAS) — the same restructuring that also consolidated the three councils’ previously separate master’s and doctoral scholarship programs. It replaced NSERC’s, CIHR’s, and SSHRC’s standalone individual postdoctoral fellowship programs, each of which is documented on this site as its own dictionary term for reference: NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship, SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship, and CIHR Postdoctoral Fellowship.
Rather than three differently-shaped programs, applicants now apply to one common award structure, worth $70,000 per year for a 24-month term, with the receiving agency determined by the subject matter of the proposed research — the same mandate-based split that governs which council funds an applicant’s other Tri-Agency proposals (see the Tri-Agency guide for how that determination works). CRTAS was announced in Budget 2024 and the harmonized award opened for applications in summer 2025.
| Home agency | Typical annual deadline | Research area |
|---|---|---|
| CIHR | Mid-September (~Sept 16) | Health research |
| NSERC | Mid-October (~Oct 17) | Natural sciences and engineering |
| SSHRC | Mid-September (~Sept 10) | Social sciences and humanities |
Deadlines and program parameters in this space have moved more than once in the last two years — always confirm the current competition year’s dates and value directly on the relevant agency’s CPRA program page before treating them as fixed for an application.
What happened to the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship
The Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship, named for Sir Frederick Banting, was Canada’s flagship postdoctoral award: a jointly administered, cross-agency program that funded up to 70 new two-year fellowships annually, split roughly evenly across CIHR, NSERC, and SSHRC, at the same $70,000-per-year value that now defines the CPRA. It was explicitly framed as a prestige award — intended to attract and retain top-tier postdoctoral talent, both Canadian and international, and to develop future research leaders — with a more competitive, national-scale review process than a typical agency-specific postdoctoral competition.
The Banting program ran its final competition in 2024 and has since been discontinued as a standalone program, folded into the same harmonized postdoctoral funding model — the CPRA under CRTAS — that absorbed the individual CIHR, NSERC, and SSHRC postdoctoral fellowships. A researcher or administrator encountering “Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship” in older guidance, an institutional postdoc-office page, or a CV should read it as a historical program rather than a currently open competition; the correct current pathway for a comparably prestigious, nationally competitive Tri-Agency postdoctoral award is the CPRA.
Choosing a home agency: CIHR vs. NSERC vs. SSHRC
Because the CPRA is delivered through whichever of the three councils matches the proposed research’s subject matter, the practical first question for an applicant is the same one that applies to any other Tri-Agency competition: which agency’s mandate does this research fall under? Health research goes to CIHR; natural sciences and engineering to NSERC; social sciences and humanities to SSHRC. Genuinely interdisciplinary proposals are adjudicated by whichever agency’s mandate the work most closely matches, sometimes following a formal eligibility determination — see Canada’s Tri-Agency Research Funding System for how that boundary is drawn across the three councils more generally.
Eligibility and application mechanics at a glance
Like other individual postdoctoral fellowships (see the general Postdoctoral fellowship definition), a CPRA award is held by the individual researcher rather than by an institution or a PI’s grant, and is intended for a defined, time-limited period of mentored research training rather than an ongoing staff position. In practice, this means an applicant typically needs to:
- Hold, or be within the eligible window of completing, a PhD, PhD-equivalent, or health-professional degree — the exact eligibility window is set and periodically revised by the Tri-Agency, so check the current competition’s instructions rather than assuming a fixed rule.
- Identify a proposed host institution and supervisor before applying, since the application requires an institutional affiliation and a training/research plan developed with that supervisor, not an open-ended search after the award is made.
- Apply through the home agency matching the research’s subject area, following that agency’s own CPRA application instructions and portal, even though the underlying award structure and value are now shared across all three.
- Budget for the award’s fixed $70,000/year stipend value — CPRA, like its predecessor programs, does not typically flex the award amount by institution, discipline, or cost of living.
Beyond the Tri-Agency: other Canada-specific postdoctoral funding
The federal CPRA is the largest and most broadly applicable Canada-specific postdoctoral mechanism, but it is not the only one. Provincial funding bodies — most notably Quebec’s Fonds de recherche du Québec (FRQNT, FRQSC, and FRQS, covering natural sciences/engineering, social sciences/humanities, and health respectively) — run their own postdoctoral fellowship competitions alongside the federal system, generally restricted to research conducted at a Quebec institution. A number of disease- or mission-specific charities and foundations (for example in the health-research space) also fund named postdoctoral fellowships in their area of focus, operating independently of both the Tri-Agency and provincial systems. A research administrator advising a postdoctoral applicant should treat the federal CPRA as the default starting point, then check for discipline- or institution-specific provincial and foundation programs that may stack with, or serve as an alternative to, the federal award.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship still accepting applications?
No. The Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship ran its final competition in 2024 and has been discontinued as a standalone program. It was folded into the harmonized Canada Postdoctoral Research Award (CPRA) under the Tri-Agency’s Canada Research Training Awards Suite.
What is the current value of a Canada Postdoctoral Research Award?
$70,000 per year for a 24-month term, matching the value both the legacy Banting Fellowship and the individual CIHR/NSERC/SSHRC postdoctoral fellowships used before consolidation. Confirm the figure against the current competition year’s program page before relying on it for a specific application, since Tri-Agency award values are periodically revised.
Do I apply to the CPRA directly, or through CIHR, NSERC, or SSHRC?
Applications still go through whichever of the three agencies matches the proposed research’s subject matter — there is no separate, agency-agnostic CPRA application portal. The award structure and value are now shared across all three councils, but the application process and deadline are set by the home agency.
Is the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship the same thing as a postdoctoral fellowship?
No. Vanier is a doctoral-level scholarship, not a postdoctoral award — it funds PhD students, not researchers who already hold a doctorate. It is a separate, distinct program from the CPRA and from the discontinued Banting Fellowship.
Are international researchers eligible for Canada’s postdoctoral fellowship programs?
The legacy Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship was open to Canadian citizens, permanent residents, and international applicants. Eligibility rules for the current CPRA are set independently by each home agency and can change between competition years, so an international applicant should verify citizenship/residency eligibility directly against the specific agency’s current CPRA instructions rather than assuming the Banting program’s rules carry over unchanged.
For related Tri-Agency programs and definitions, see Canada Research Chair (CRC), Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), and the Grants Management pillar.
