For Professors – Overview – Chairs and Faculty Support Programs

Industrial Research Chairs (IRC)

Duration	Application Deadline	How to Apply
5 years, renewable	Any time	Forms 101, 100 and 183A
Program Contacts

Objective

Industrial Research Chairs (IRC) are intended to:

• assist universities in building on existing strengths to achieve the critical mass required for a major research endeavour in science and engineering of interest to industry; and/or
• assist in the development of research efforts in fields that have not yet been developed in Canadian universities but for which there is an important industrial need.

Description

NSERC offers three types of Industrial Research Chairs:

• Senior Industrial Research Chairs for distinguished senior researchers (five-year appointment, renewable);
• Associate Industrial Research Chairs for early stage researchers demonstrating exceptional promise (five-year appointment, renewable once); and
• Executive Industrial Research Chairs for outstanding R&D professionals (five-year appointment, non-renewable).

An IRC grant provides funding for the salary of the Chairholder, infrastructure, research tools and instruments, and general expenses related to the Chair’s program of research.

Chairholders are expected to focus their activities on conducting research and training highly qualified personnel, while carrying a reduced administrative and teaching load.

IRCs are funded jointly by NSERC and industry. Provincial or federal government departments and agencies can also co-sponsor/support an IRC, but only the industrial contributions are taken into account when NSERC determines its funding level. The industrial supporting organizations will normally contribute at least half the cost, in cash, with NSERC contributing the remainder. In exceptional cases, NSERC may assume a somewhat larger share of the direct costs of research when a company makes a significant in-kind contribution in addition to the cash support. This contribution, in the form of goods or services, must represent an incremental expense that the industrial supporting organization would not incur outside of the Chair program. Furthermore, these contributions of goods and services would have to be purchased with program funds if not donated.

NSERC will not be responsible for any salary increments over the course of the award due to merit, progression through the ranks, or inflation.

Chairholders are eligible to compete for other NSERC grants such as Discovery Grants and other Research Partnerships Projects grants, while they hold an IRC.

Canada Research Chairs may be held concurrently with Industrial Research Chairs. Chair candidates or incumbents who hold or expect to hold a Canada Research Chair under the Canada Research Chairs Program must contact the program officers in the respective programs to ensure that their applications comply with the requirements for concurrent awards. These are outlined in the section titled Concurrent Chair Awards.

Strategic Relevance

The IRC proposal must be in an area of high priority for both the university and the industrial supporting organization. The minimum university commitment to the establishment of an IRC includes tenured (Senior Industrial Research Chair), tenure-track (Associate Industrial Research Chair), or five-year non-tenured term (Executive Industrial Research Chair) appointments, and adequate laboratory and office space for the research group. If the proposed candidate is currently on staff, the university must establish at least one replacement faculty position with the freed-up salary funds. A university financial contribution to the cost of the research program or infrastructure will strengthen the case for support.

Similarly, the industrial supporting organization must demonstrate a strong commitment to a field of research relevant to industrial activity that is important to the Canadian economy.

Senior Industrial Research Chairs

Candidates for Senior Chair positions must be researchers of international stature who can bring an innovative perspective to the university in carrying out and managing research, and training researchers. They must be recognized experts in their field, have extensive research experience, and should have all the qualifications for tenured appointment at the rank of full professor. Appointments are for an initial five-year term, which may be renewed every five years.

Associate Industrial Research Chairs

Associate Chair candidates should be researchers in the early stages of their careers who have demonstrated exceptional promise relative to their peers in their field of research and who are qualified for academic appointment as assistant or associate professors. Appointments must be confirmed as tenured or tenure-track. Associate Chair positions may be established as free-standing appointments or in association with another, more senior Chair. Candidates must have demonstrated the capacity to conduct a significant independent research activity. Appointments are for an initial five-year term, which may be renewed once. Associate Chairs may be converted to Senior Chairs at the renewal stage, if the criteria for Senior Chairs are met.

Executive Industrial Research Chairs

Executive Chairs are designed for candidates with non-academic research backgrounds, from industry or other sectors who:

• have extensive experience and a strong track record in conducting and managing R&D at a senior level but who may have limited teaching experience, or whose current positions do not offer opportunities to publish; or
• have the ability to provide the vision and leadership to build a broad range of partnerships and launch a major research initiative that would allow the university to move forward into new areas of collaborative, industrially relevant research. The role of the Executive Chair must clearly go beyond that of an administrative head of a research centre.

Candidates must demonstrate an understanding of the university milieu and be qualified to supervise graduate students. Appointments are for a five-year term with no requirement for tenure. The appointment is not renewable; however, an Executive Chair may be converted to a Senior Chair, if the criteria for Senior Chairs are met.

Use of freed-up salary funds

Candidates nominated for an Executive Chair must be external. Candidates for Senior Chair and Associate Chair positions can be internal (currently on staff at the host university) or external. In proposing an internal candidate, the university must agree to allocate the released salary funds toward an equivalent salary commitment in the Chair research area, or in one closely related and complementary to it.

An equivalent salary commitment for a Senior Chair requires, at the minimum, the creation of either one tenure-track senior faculty position, or one tenure-track junior faculty position and one non-faculty researcher position for the duration of the Chair. The equivalent salary commitment for an Associate Chair requires a minimum of one tenure-track faculty position. The candidate for a replacement faculty position must have the mandate and qualifications required to conduct independent research and supervise graduate students. The new faculty member is expected to collaborate with the Senior or Associate Chairholder as an independent researcher. A new, non-faculty researcher must work within the Chair program as an integral member of the team.

The university must undertake to fill these positions promptly and to supply NSERC with curricula vitae for the candidates, once selected. Renewal of an Industrial Research Chair will be contingent on confirmation that the university has met all its obligations.

Supporting Organizations

In addition to contributing one half the direct costs of a Chair, the industrial supporting organization(s) must demonstrate a willingness and an ability to collaborate with the Chair and to exploit the research results in Canada.

Industrial cash contributed toward an IRC is eligible regardless of when it was actually provided, as long as the money has not been spent prior to the application being submitted to NSERC. If the supporting organizations choose to contribute to an endowment as a means of supporting the Chair, the recognized contribution will be limited to the amount attributed to industrial sources that are directly allocated to the cost of the Chair over the term of the award.

Note
The Canada Revenue Agency will recognize cash contributions to NSERC Industrial Research Chairs as Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) expenditures under the Income Tax Act. For details, see SR&ED forms and publications available from the Canada Revenue Agency.

Application Procedures

The person submitting an IRC proposal (the “applicant” on Form 101) must hold a senior administrative position in the university, such as department head, dean, vice-president or president, with direct or ultimate management responsibility for the proposed Chairholder. The applicant cannot be the candidate for the Chair.

Applications may be submitted at any time. Applicants are strongly encouraged to contact NSERC program staff before submitting a proposal, and may request comments on drafts. Full applications must identify a candidate for a Senior, Executive, or stand-alone Associate Chair. Only those applications for Associate Chairs, that are part of the application of a named Chair, will be accepted without an identified candidate.

Use Forms 100, 101, and 183A and follow the instructions for preparing an IRC submission. Three letters of reference for each Chair candidate should be sent directly to NSERC.

Review Procedures

All IRC proposals are reviewed by a visiting committee. Applicants will be contacted by NSERC staff regarding the timing of and agenda for site visits. The final recommendation for funding is made by the Advisory Committee on University-Industry Grants; this committee normally meets four times per year: in March, June, September, and December. After receiving the final version of the application, NSERC takes approximately four months to complete its evaluation.

Selection Criteria

IRC applications are evaluated on the basis of the following criteria:

• Excellence of the candidate: the stature, research competence, experience and record of accomplishments of the proposed candidate(s), (commensurate with the type of Chair requested);
• Quality of the proposal: the scientific merit, originality, technical feasibility, and industrial relevance of the proposed program of research;
• Industrial relevance and benefits: the relevance of the research and the benefits that will accrue to the supporting organizations, and to the Canadian economy;
• Training of highly qualified personnel: the opportunities for training of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, research assistants and others (including company personnel) in areas relevant to the industrial needs;
• Benefits to the university: the growth of a sustainable research activity that will generate results of scientific and industrial relevance, enhance training, and stimulate academic collaborations and industrial interactions; and
• Appropriateness of the setting: the adequacy of the physical environment and financial resources to support the Chair.

Awards of Chairs are contingent upon the submission of a research agreement between the university and the company (see the Policy on Intellectual Property in the Program Guide for Professors).

Public Announcements

Refer to the General Guidelines for the Public Announcement of Major NSERC Awards in planning a public announcement of an IRC award. NSERC will approve a public announcement only after the Chairholder has formally accepted the position and after all conditions of the award have been addressed to NSERC's satisfaction.

Reporting

The Chairholder, the university, and the industrial supporting organization(s) must submit progress reports after 24 and 48 months of the first five-year term and of any subsequent five-year term. If the Chair is in its final term, the final report is due within three months of the end date of the Chair. Continued NSERC support for the duration of the term is dependent on favourable reviews of the progress of the Chair research program, and the continued contribution of the industrial supporting organization(s), which must be confirmed annually.

Renewal

Renewal of an IRC provides continued support for the Chair's research program. In the second term only, the maximum NSERC contribution to salary in each successive year will be: 45 per cent, 37.5 per cent, 25 per cent, 12.5 per cent, and five per cent, respectively, of the value of the Chairholder’s salary and fringe benefits at the beginning of the second term. The remainder of the NSERC grant will be contributed to the research program. The industrial supporting organization must contribute an amount equal to or greater than NSERC’s grant. For the calculation of the grant value, NSERC will not recognize any industrial funds allocated to Chairholder salary support that are in excess of NSERC’s salary contribution. The industrial supporting organization(s) must continue to demonstrate a willingness and an ability to collaborate closely with the Chair and to exploit results of the proposed research in Canada.

Renewal of an IRC for the second and each subsequent term is determined by a peer review conducted in the last year of each five-year term. In the case of particularly complex or large proposals, this review may be by site visit. The evaluation will be based on the 48-month progress report, a new detailed research proposal for the next term (use Forms 100, 101 and 183A), a continued commitment from industry, and the support of the university. The Advisory Committee on University-Industry Grants will make the final funding recommendation for those applications requesting $150,000 or more per year from NSERC.

Concurrent Chair Awards

Industrial Research Chair (IRC) awards and Canada Research Chairs (CRC) Program awards may be held concurrently, at any point in an IRC award, as long as the IRC program objectives are respected, and the industrial supporting organizations and the Chairholder are in agreement to do so. Concurrent Chair awards are subject to the following conditions:

1. Salary support for the Chair will be provided entirely from the Canada Research Chairs Program award, or from sources other than the IRC and the industrial supporting organization. If the CRC award does not fully cover the salary and benefits of the Chairholder, the remainder may be paid from the NSERC and industrial contributions to the IRC.
2. The freed-up salary support normally provided by NSERC and the industrial supporting organization, in a first or second five-year term, must be redirected to the research program of the NSERC Industrial Research Chair.
3. The funds normally committed by the university in partial or full support of an IRC Chairholder's salary must be used to enhance capacity in an area of research directly related to the Chair. Creating replacement faculty positions is a requirement for new IRCs with internal candidates.
4. The residual Canada Research Chairs Program funds, after the salary support has been allocated and other expenses eligible under the Canada Research Chairs Program have been deducted, must be provided to the Chairholder for their research program, for use at the Chairholder’s discretion, according to the practice at the university for Canada Research Chairs who do not hold an IRC.
5. The university must provide NSERC with a proposed budget that shows the source and allocation of IRC funding (Canada Research Chairs Program, NSERC, industrial supporting organization and university).

The university must confirm that these conditions have been met before NSERC will consider a request for an IRC renewal for an additional term; specifically, the university must demonstrate that the replacement position or positions will be maintained. Should the start of the Canada Research Chairs Program award not correspond to the start of an IRC or a renewal review, an interim review of the proposed expansion of the Chair research program will be required.