Killam Research Fellowships
My purpose in establishing the Killam Trust is to help in the building of Canada's future by encouraging advanced studies. Thereby I hope to increase the scientific and scholastic attainments of Canadians, to develop and expand the work of Canadian universities and to promote sympathetic understanding between Canadians and the people of other countries.
From the will of Dorothy J. Killam
d. 27 July 1965
The Killam Program offers two categories of awards:
- Killam Research Fellowships
- Killam Prizes (which have a separate information sheet).
These awards, which are administered by the Canada Council for the Arts, provide support to scholars of exceptional ability who are engaged in research projects of broad significance and widespread interest. The awards honour the memory and exceptional achievements of Mrs. Dorothy J. Killam’s husband, Izaak Walton Killam.
The Killam Research Fellowships are funded through lifetime and testamentary gifts to the Canada Council from Mrs. Killam.
Purpose
The Killam Research Fellowships are awarded annually, on a competitive basis, to support scholars doing research in any of the following fields:
- humanities
- social sciences
- natural sciences
- health sciences
- engineering
- studies linking any of the disciplines within these fields.
The Canada Council for the Arts does not wish to specify priorities or to exclude any areas of research at this time.
Killam Research Fellowships provide two years of release time from teaching and administrative duties to individual scholars who wish to pursue independent research. The fellowships are awarded to individuals, but the funds are paid to and administered by universities or research institutes.
Eligibility
Applications must be made by individuals rather than by an institution or organization.
Eligible Candidates
Killam Research Fellowships are intended for established scholars who have demonstrated outstanding research ability and who have published the results of their research in substantial publications in their field. Typically, the winner of a Killam Research Fellowship is a full professor in a Canadian university. Researchers not employed by a university may qualify if they demonstrate outstanding ability and their proposed project meets generally accepted standards of scholarly merit.
Killam Research Fellows are expected to continue contributing to the Canadian research community after they have completed their fellowship project. Accordingly, the fellowships are offered only to Canadian citizens and permanent residents of Canada, as defined by Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
The fellowships are accessible to Aboriginal people and those from diverse cultural and regional communities who meet the eligibility requirements.
Ineligible Candidates
Applicants who are retired are not eligible.
Candidates are not eligible for the competition if they have failed to submit a final report or financial accounting for a previous Canada Council grant, award or prize.
No individual may be awarded a fellowship from the Killam Program more than once. No exceptions are made to this restriction, which has been in effect since 1997.
Other Restrictions
Applicants must present a coherent project with a clearly stated objective and well-defined plan for reaching that objective. The award is not intended as a subsidy for the overall research or teaching program of a department, institute or centre, and it is not offered for work undertaken as part of a degree program.
Canadian citizens who receive Killam Research Fellowships may conduct their research in Canada and elsewhere. Permanent residents may use their fellowships only in Canada.
The research should be conducted within a university or research institute that shows adequate interest in the applicant’s project, including its willingness to provide basic facilities and other forms of assistance.
The Canadian university or research institute employing the fellow must agree to accept and administer the Killam Research Fellowship funds, under the terms set out by the Killam Program.
Deadline
15 May 2007
Fellowship applications, including all required support documentation submitted electronically, must be received before or on the deadline. Hard copy support material must be postmarked before or on the deadline.
The Canada Council will not accept late submissions or those missing any of the required information or support documentation. Only the documents indicated below (in the How to Apply section) will be accepted in hard copy format, and they will not be accepted by fax or email.
Award Period and Amount
A Killam Research Fellowship provides two full years of release time, beginning no later than 1 January following notification of the fellowship (applicants may not request less than the full two-year fellowship period). However, support for the second year is offered by the Killam Program only if the Killam Selection Committee approves the fellow’s interim report.
These awards are valued at $70,000 per year. Fellowship recipients must obtain support for research and laboratory costs from other sources.
The fellowship funds are paid to the university or research institute that employs the fellow, and this institution is expected to relieve him or her of all teaching and administrative responsibilities, and to continue paying the fellow’s full salary and benefits during the entire period of the fellowship. The Killam Research Fellowship funds assist the scholar’s institution to cover the costs of replacing the fellow (while still paying his or her regular salary and benefits) during the two-year fellowship period.
How to Apply
There are no hard copy application forms: applicants must submit their requests through the Canada Council’s online application system (http://killam.canadacouncil.ca). To gain access to the Internet form, applicants must send an email to the Killam Program (to killam@canadacouncil.ca) requesting a user name, password and personal identification number (PIN). (The Killam Program has the right to verify a potential applicant’s eligibility before issuing a user name, password and PIN.)
Support Documentation
Applicants must submit their curriculum vitae through the Common CV website (www.commoncv.net). Applicants will be guided through this process when using the Killam Program online application system.
The Canada Council will not accept hard copies of letters of support, letters from editors or publishers, and (or) briefs. Nor will copies of a previous year’s application form be accepted. Only the following items will be accepted in hard copy format:
- Proof of applicants’ Canadian citizenship or permanent resident status, as defined by Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
- For permanent residents only, evidence of their intention to stay in Canada after the period covered by the award. Permanent resident applicants who are faculty members of Canadian universities must present a confirmation from their university that they have a firm appointment.
- Copies of figures or diagrams that are difficult to reproduce faithfully. More information is provided in the online application instructions.
The support documentation must be letter-sized (8 ½ x 11 inches) and loose-leaf. The Canada Council will not accept bound materials (for example, stapled, cerlox bound or spiral bound) because they are difficult to copy and mail to selection committee members.
The Canada Council will not return support documentation to applicants.
Institution’s Authorization
The head of research administration at the applicant’s institution or another authorized delegate must approve the final submission to confirm the institution’s awareness of the proposed research and its willingness to administer the award according to the terms set out by the Killam Program. The online application instructions include detailed information about the requirements and process related to institutional authorization.
Applicants should note that many institutions have special requirements and an internal deadline before the Canada Council’s deadline. It is the applicant’s responsibility to comply with both deadlines.
Selection Procedure
The Killam Research Fellowships are awarded by the interdisciplinary Killam Selection Committee, which is made up of 15 distinguished scholars. The Canada Council for the Arts appoints the committee members, taking into account the recommendations of specialists in the Canadian and international academic and research communities. The committee members are also chosen to ensure fair representation of gender, Canada’s two official languages, the various regions and cultures of Canada, and various artistic and scholarly disciplines.
The Canada Council sends the applications for critical assessment to specialists chosen for their expertise in the areas of research presented in the proposals. Then the Killam Selection Committee examines the applications and assessments, and evaluates the applications on their merit, compared with each other in a national context.
Fellowships are offered to those applicants considered outstanding by the committee, and 10 new fellowships will likely be awarded in 2007.
Selection Criteria
Both the specialists consulted by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Killam Selection Committee will assess each proposal based on the following criteria.
Assessment Criteria for the Project
- Scholarly significance.
- Creativity, originality and potential contribution to the advancement of knowledge.
- Appropriateness and clarity of the theoretical approach, formulation of hypotheses and statement of problems.
- Appropriateness of the research plans and methods, considering the objectives of the project.
- Appropriateness of the proposed schedule for carrying out the research.
- Accessibility of the required data.
- Where this applies, the social relevance and (or) practical importance of the project.
Assessment Criteria for the Applicant
- Qualifications and achievements.
- Experience in areas related to the proposal.
Notification of Results
The Canada Council will announce the results by early March 2008. Results are not released over the telephone or by email.
Confidentiality of Information
The Privacy Act protects the personal information of individuals and provides them with a right of access to such information about themselves. The Canada Council maintains personal information in Personal Information Bank CAC PPU 025. All other information may be accessible under the Access to Information Act.
On a confidential basis, the Canada Council for the Arts may share information related to applications and awards with officials in other arts and cultural industry funding agencies, to assist with program planning and application evaluation.
Reporting Requirements
All fellows must submit an interim report, in the form of a letter that is two or three pages in length.
Fellows who start their research project by 15 November of the year they receive their notification must submit their interim report by 15 December of the same year. The reports will be reviewed at the January meeting of the committee.
Fellows who start their project after 15 November must submit their interim report by 15 October of the year after they receive their notification. The report will be reviewed at the November meeting of the committee.
Fellowship recipients must submit a final report within three months of the end of the fellowship period. In addition, at the end of the fellowship term, the university or research institute that employs the fellow must sign a letter stating that:
- the fellow was released from all teaching and administrative duties
- the university or research institute continued to pay the fellow’s full salary and benefits during that fellowship term.
Grant recipients are not eligible to apply for funding from other Canada Council programs until they have submitted their final report for this award.
Payment of the Fellowship
The Canada Council will pay the fellowship, in three instalments per year, to the university or research institute that employees the fellow. The last instalment will be released when the Canada Council has received and approved the fellow’s final report and the confirmation letter (as described immediately above) from the university or research institute that employs the fellow.
Killam Research Fellows for 2006
New Research Fellows
After considering 82 applications, the Killam Selection Committee chose the following 10 researchers as new Killam Research Fellows for 2006:
Anthropology
Regna Darnell, University of Western Ontario: Nomadic Legacies: Rethinking Contemporary First Nations Residence and Resource Exploitation
Chemistry
R. Stan Brown, Queen’s University: Metal-Ion Catalyzed Alcoholysis Reactions for the Decomposition of Neutral Organophosphorus Acetylcholinesterase Inhibitors. The Development of Practical Methods for the Controlled Decomposition of Organophosphorus Pesticides and CW Agents
Michael D. Fryzuk, University of British Columbia: New Strategies for the Activation of Molecular Nitrogen
Richard T. Oakley, University of Waterloo: Molecular Radicals as Functional Conducting Materials
Earth and Ocean Sciences
Claude Hillaire-Marcel, Université du Québec à Montréal: The Arctic-North Atlantic Climate-Ocean System under a Warmer Planet: Insights from the Past
Geological Sciences and Engineering
Kurt Kyser, Queen’s University: Tracing Element Migration in the Near-Surface Environment
Law
C. Kent McNeil, York University: Indigenous Sovereignty and European Colonization of Western North America: Implications for Self-government
Mathematics
Niky Kamran, McGill University: Wave Equations in Curved Space-Time
Roland Speicher, Queen’s University: Second Order Freeness and Fluctuations of Random Matrices
Women's Studies
Joan I. Sangster, Trent University: Transforming Labour: Women and Paid Work in Post-World War II Canada
Research Fellows Renewed for a Second Year
The following 11 Killam Research Fellows were approved for a second year of support.
Biological Sciences
Bernard Crespi, Simon Fraser University: Comparative Social Evolution: Convergent and Divergent Patterns in the Phylogenesis of Cooperation
Chemistry
Axel D. Becke, Queen’s University: Density Functional Quantum Chemistry: A New Approach
East Asian Studies
Kenneth Dean, McGill University: Irrigation and Individuation: Regional Ritual Networks in Southeast China
English Literature
Ian Lancashire, University of Toronto: The Making of the Early Modern English Lexicon, 1480-1700
History
Sarah Carter, University of Calgary: Clarifying and Crossing Boundaries: Great Plains Women of Canada and the U.S., 1874-1930: Comparisons, Connections and Discontinuities
Brian Young, McGill University: Patrician Families in Lower Canada/Quebec, 1760-1840
Linguistics
Denis Bouchard, Université du Québec à Montréal: Au-delà du descriptivisme : l'exaptation dans le language
Literary Studies
Bernard Andrès, Université du Québec à Montréal: Histoire littéraire des canadiens au XVIIIè siècle
Medieval Studies
Virginia Brown, University of Toronto: Writing Centres in the Lands of St. Benedict (Medieval Southern Italy) ca. 750-1550
Physics
Hong Guo, McGill University: Multi-Scale Modeling for Nanoelectronic Devices
Clifford Burgess, McGill University, McMaster University and the Perimeter Institute: String Cosmology
General Information
The Canada Council for the Arts
The Canada Council for the Arts was created by an act of Parliament in 1957. Under the terms of the Canada Council Act, the mandate of the Canada Council is “to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts.” To fulfill this mandate, the Canada Council offers a broad range of grants and services to professional artists and arts organizations. The Council also maintains the secretariat for the Canadian Commission for UNESCO and the Public Lending Right Commission.
In addition to its principal role of fostering and promoting the arts in Canada, the Canada Council administers and awards a number of distinguished prizes in the arts, humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, health sciences and engineering. Among these are the Killam Prizes, the Canada Council for the Arts Molson Prizes, the Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts, the Saidye Bronfman Award, the Governor General’s Literary Awards, and the Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts.
Annual grants from Parliament are the Canada Council’s main source of funds. These grants are supplemented by income from an endowment fund that was established by Parliament in 1957. The Council also receives private donations and bequests, and it uses the income generated by them for the purposes specified in the deeds of these gifts. The Killam Fund is the largest; it totalled approximately $64.7 million as of 31 March 2006.
The Killams
Izaak Walton Killam was born to modest circumstances, in 1885, in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. He began his business career, at the age of 18, as a junior clerk in the Yarmouth branch of the Union Bank of Halifax. He was soon transferred to the bank’s head office, in Halifax, where his talent and reputation caught the attention of Maxwell Aitken (who later became Lord Beaverbrook), who was in the process of setting up the Royal Securities Corporation. In 1904, Mr. Aitken persuaded the younger man to join Royal Securities, and this move became the foundation of his remarkable financial career.
By 1914, Mr. Killam had replaced Lord Beaverbrook as president of Royal Securities, and shortly after that he acquired the former president’s shares in the firm. Mr. Killam remained president of Royal Securities for the next 40 years. In that time, the company became one of Canada’s most influential investment houses, and Izaak Walton Killam established himself as one of the outstanding figures in Canadian financial history.
Recognizing the great potential of Canada’s forest and hydro industries and public utilities services, Mr. Killam played an active role in organizing and modernizing many companies in these fields. The various Royal Securities holdings included power companies in Alberta, Ontario, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, as well as pulp and paper companies in British Columbia and Nova Scotia. He had interests in other companies as well, such as Moirs Limited of Halifax, which became one of the best-known chocolate companies in Canada after he had completely overhauled it.
Despite his impressive professional accomplishments, Izaak Walton Killam was a reserved man who avoided publicity and was virtually unknown outside his small circle of close acquaintances. Characteristically, the substantial contributions he made to charities throughout his lifetime were always made anonymously.
In his private life, he was a keen salmon fisher, and he shared with his wife, Dorothy, a passion for baseball, especially for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Dorothy Killam was born Dorothy Brooks Johnston in St. Louis, Missouri in 1899. Her parents were moderately affluent, and she was well schooled, athletic and widely travelled, with a good knowledge of French and German. Unlike her husband, Dorothy Killam was an extrovert who loved company and people generally. After she and Mr. Killam were married in 1922, they lived in Montreal, the centre of the Killam financial empire.
Izaak Walton Killam died suddenly and unexpectedly of heart failure in 1955, at his Quebec fishing lodge. He left all of his substantial estate to his wife, who demonstrated her own sound financial judgement by vastly increasing the fortune over the next 10 years. When Mrs. Killam died in 1965, after several years of poor health, her will set in motion the plans that she and her husband had discussed frequently in the later years of his life. While Mrs. Killam’s will generally reflected the intentions of her husband, it also included a substantial bequest to build a children’s hospital in Halifax as a memorial to him.
The Killam Trusts
In all, Dorothy Killam’s lifetime and testamentary gifts amounted to some $100 million and were given to the following institutions:
- The Canada Council for the Arts
- Dalhousie University
- The Montreal Neurological Institute
- The University of Alberta*
- The University of British Columbia.
*In 1978, part of the bequest to the University of Alberta was transferred to the University of Calgary, after the latter institution had obtained its own charter.
The Killam Trustees
George T.H. Cooper, C.M., Q.C., L.L.D., Halifax
John H. Matthews, Toronto
M. Ann McCaig, C.M., A.O.E., L.L.D.,Calgary
W. Robert Wyman, C.M., L.L.D., Vancouver
Further Information
The Canada Council for the Arts reserves the right, in case of uncertainty, to interpret the provisions of this information sheet. For further information about the Killam Research Fellowships, please contact:
Nathalie Lauzon
Administrative Assistant
Killam Program
Canada Council for the Arts
350 Albert Street, P.O. Box 1047
Ottawa ON K1P 5V8
Telephone: 1-800-263-5588 (toll-free) or 613-566-4308, ext. 4083
TTY (TDD) machine, for hearing-impaired callers: (613) 565-5194
Fax: (613) 566-4430
Email: killam@canadacouncil.ca
August 2006