Since January 2026, Fonds de recherche du Québec (FRQ) has required its new narrative-style curriculum vitae, the CV-FRQ, for all FRQ funding competitions. The change retires the Canadian Common CV (CCV) as an FRQ requirement and puts Quebec’s three research funds — FRQ Santé, FRQ Nature et technologies, and FRQ Société et culture — ahead of the federal Tri-Agency (CIHR, NSERC, SSHRC) in fully adopting a narrative CV format across an entire funder’s competition slate.
What changed, and when
FRQ phased the CV-FRQ in over roughly a year rather than switching all programs on a single date:
- July 2025: Postdoctoral fellowships and a set of other programs began using the narrative CV, either through FRQnet’s updated application platform or as a PDF attachment, ahead of the wider rollout.
- January 2026: Full mandate takes effect. FRQ discontinued the CCV for its purposes and moved every FRQ competition to the CV-FRQ.
- July 2026: Programs involving research teams (rather than individual applicants) were scheduled to move onto the updated FRQnet platform for CV-FRQ submission.
Applicants and research offices should treat frq.gouv.qc.ca/en/frq-cv as the authoritative source for which specific competition a given deadline falls under, since FRQ has continued to publish instructions and webinar materials alongside the rollout.
What the CV-FRQ actually asks for
Rather than the itemized, module-by-module data entry of the CCV (see CASRAI’s worked CCV example for what that structured format looks like in practice), the CV-FRQ is organized into three narrative sections, and applicants are only expected to complete the sections relevant to their role:
- Background and skills — education, training, and relevant career context.
- Most significant contributions and experience — a self-selected account of the work FRQ should weigh most heavily, rather than an exhaustive publication list.
- Supervisory and mentoring activities — training and mentorship contributions, distinct from research output.
Page limits are five pages for the English-language version and six pages for the French-language version. FRQ has said the format is meant to accommodate a wider range of career paths — including artists and patient-partner applicants, not only conventional academic researchers — whose contributions don’t map cleanly onto a CCV-style structured record.
Why this is part of a bigger shift, not a one-off
FRQ frames the CV-FRQ as aligned with the federal granting agencies’ own move away from the CCV toward a narrative tri-agency CV. That federal transition is real but partial as of mid-2026: CIHR, NSERC, and SSHRC have each introduced their own narrative CV only for specific, named competitions, with the CCV still required everywhere else (see CASRAI’s Tri-Agency Common CV worked example for the CCV format that’s still in use). FRQ’s January 2026 mandate is broader and faster — it applies to every FRQ competition, not a named subset — making Quebec’s provincial funder the first major Canadian research funder to fully retire the CCV rather than run it in parallel with a narrative alternative.
The underlying rationale mirrors the case UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has made for its own Resume for Research and Innovation (R4RI), in place since 2021: a structured, output-counting CV rewards volume and can crowd out evidence of mentorship, data/software contributions, or non-traditional career paths, while a narrative format lets applicants argue directly for the significance of a smaller set of contributions. CASRAI covered UKRI’s own experience with this shift in the case for narrative CVs beyond UKRI. It’s also consistent with the direction of responsible-assessment initiatives such as CoARA and DORA, which discourage journal-level metrics as a proxy for individual contribution.
What this means for applicants and research offices
- Individual FRQ applicants: any FRQ competition deadline from January 2026 onward requires the CV-FRQ, not the CCV. Confirm which of the three narrative sections apply to your application type before drafting.
- Research administrators supporting Quebec-based researchers: researchers who apply to both FRQ and Tri-Agency programs are now maintaining two different narrative-CV formats concurrently (FRQ’s own template, and whichever agency-specific narrative CV applies to a given federal competition), on top of the CCV wherever it’s still required federally. Track which template a given deadline needs; the sections and page limits aren’t identical across formats.
- Institutions building internal guidance: the general skills for writing a narrative CV — picking a defensible small set of contributions, writing for significance rather than completeness — transfer across CV-FRQ, R4RI, and the emerging tri-agency CV, even though the templates themselves differ. See CASRAI’s comparison of narrative-CV formats for how these structures diverge in practice.
Frequently asked questions
Is the CCV still used for any FRQ applications?
As of the January 2026 mandate, FRQ has discontinued the CCV for its own competitions. Researchers applying to federal Tri-Agency programs (CIHR, NSERC, SSHRC) may still need the CCV for competitions that haven’t yet adopted a narrative CV federally — that’s a separate, still-partial transition (see above).
Does the CV-FRQ apply to student and trainee applicants, or only established researchers?
FRQ’s rollout began with postdoctoral fellowships in July 2025 before the January 2026 mandate extended the CV-FRQ to all FRQ competitions, which spans student, trainee, and established-researcher programs across all three funds.
How long is the CV-FRQ allowed to be?
A maximum of five pages for the English-language version, six pages for the French-language version, across the three narrative sections (background/skills; contributions/experience; supervision/mentorship).
Where can I find the official CV-FRQ template and instructions?
Directly from FRQ at frq.gouv.qc.ca/en/frq-cv, which hosts the current template, instructions, and recorded webinar materials FRQ has published alongside the rollout.
This page describes FRQ’s published rollout timeline and CV-FRQ structure as of the CASRAI editorial team’s most recent review of FRQ’s official guidance. Competition-specific requirements can change; always confirm against the current FRQ program page for your specific deadline.
