2020 Horizon Global Platform: Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, as long as you still fit within the eligibility criteria and the institution supports your application and submits it to the agency.

A researcher who is a nominated principal investigator (NPI), co-principal investigator (co-PI) or co-applicant on an NFRF grant cannot be paid from both CFREF and NFRF grant funds. If a CFREF-funded researcher becomes a grant holder or co-grant holder of an NFRF grant, they must be paid from another source as of the start date of the NFRF grant. It is not possible to defer the start date of the NFRF grant to maintain CFREF salary support (or for any other reason).

Individuals indirectly employed by a federal, provincial or municipal government are eligible to be co-applicants. Their eligible expenses would be limited to those that are related to the execution of the project that are not within the mandate of the individual’s organization of employment.

A federal government employee who is formally affiliated with a Canadian academic institution as an adjunct professor is eligible to be a collaborator. In the case where students, registered at an academic institution and formally supervised by the adjunct professor, are participating in the research project, the adjunct professor is eligible to be a co-applicant. However, the use of funds by the adjunct professor is limited to salaries or stipends and travel costs for the students under their supervision. Adjunct professors are also eligible to be a co-PI or co-applicant in exceptional cases where their planned contributions to the project do not fall within the mandate of their federal organization and will not be performed in their employer’s facilities or with their employer’s resources. In such cases, there are no restrictions on the adjunct professor’s use of funds.

All eligible leaves that occurred after your first academic appointment will be considered, as long as they adhered to the requirements of your institution. The amount of time deducted for eligible leaves will be doubled, prolonging the period for which you remain eligible as an ECR.

For example, if the date used for calculating ECR eligibility for the NFRF 2020 Horizon Global Platform competition is January 1, 2020, your first academic appointment was on September 1, 2013, and in 2014 you began a  parental leave for a period of one year, your calculation for ECR eligibility would be as follows:

Since the maximum allowable duration to have ECR status since your first academic appointment is five years (or 60 months), you would, in the above example, be eligible to apply to this funding opportunity as an ECR.

Note that professional leaves (administrative, training and sabbatical) are not credited.

The agencies defer to institutional policy on what is considered a part-time appointment. Please contact the institution where the appointment is or was held to confirm whether it was part- or full-time.

An academic appointment is one in which an individual holds a position at a postsecondary institution (either in Canada or internationally) that allows them to be an independent researcher. It does not include positions where the individual is under the supervision of another person. This definition includes part-time positions, contract positions, adjuncts and sessional instructors.

While it may be the policy of certain institutions to consider a postdoctoral fellowship an academic appointment, for the 2020 Horizon Global Platform competition, it is not considered to be one.

Funding decisions will be communicated to applicants through Notifications of Decision, accessible through the Convergence Portal.

Information about the FRQ provisional grant should be incorporated in the budget justification submitted at the application stage. Do not include the FRQ amounts in the NFRF Horizon Global Platform budget table.

The reviewers will be provided with the following sections of the application:

• summary (from the registration)
• gender-based analysis plus (GBA+) section
• equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) section
• early career researchers (ECRs) section
• description of the potential outcomes of the project, including the benefits to Canada
• Horizon 2020 research proposal
• budget justification

They will evaluate the application according to the high reward, feasibility and EDI and ECR selection criteria.

No, there are no quotas or limits to the number of applications from one institution, but research administrators are expected to only submit applications that comply with eligibility requirements and fit the program.

The list of registrations and applications a research administrator can view is based on the affiliation the NPI selected in their eligibility profile. Before contacting the Helpdesk, please confirm with the NPI that they selected your institution as their primary affiliation in the Participant Eligibility section.

If the status of the registration or application is:

• in progress, there is no need to return it, as the NPI has not yet submitted it to the research administrator;
• received by administrator, you can return the application by clicking Return to applicant;
• received by agency, it can no longer be returned to the applicant, as it has already been forwarded it to the agencies.

Options include:

• contacting the co-PI for the necessary information; or
• asking the co-PI’s research administrator to confirm the individual’s ECR status.

In the Convergence Portal, the Terms and Conditions for Research Administrators state that, “prior to submission of the application, the institution has obtained written approval from any other institutions involved in the application process.” What do we need to do?

The same terms and conditions are used in the Research Portal. There is no formal mechanism for notifying institutions if any of their employees are co-PIs or co-applicants in an application. An NPI’s research administrator is responsible for informing the institutions. Each institution can develop their own processes to address this clause. No copies of the written approval will be requested from the agencies for submission.

The NFRF program uses the Tri-Agency Guide on Financial Administration as its guidelines for eligibility of expenses and use of funds related to the direct costs of research. Exceptions to these for the Horizon Global grants are listed in the competition overview.

Yes, the NFRF program follows CIHR’s Considerations when paying patient partners in research.

Indirect costs can equal up to 25% of the direct costs of the proposed research. For more information, please refer to the indirect costs section of the Tri-Agency Guide on Financial Administration, and the Research Support Fund’s list of eligible and ineligible expenditures.

A breakdown of the indirect costs is not required, but these costs must be included as an amount in the budget table. The NPI’s research administrator will need to confirm that the indirect costs are appropriate before they forward the application.

The indirect costs amount claimed is allocated to the NPI’s primary affiliation (the administering organization) to offset the indirect costs of proposed research. It is not possible to increase the amount of direct costs requested by reducing the amount of indirect costs.

Indirect costs are incurred where the research is done. Accordingly, indirect costs are expected to be shared among applicants in the same proportion that the direct costs would be shared (if applicable). The administering organization (the NPI’s primary affiliation) will administer the process.

The NPI, the co-PI and co-applicants only have authority to expend the funds supporting the direct costs of research. The host institution has the authority to expend the funds for the indirect costs. It is expected that the host institution may distribute a portion of these costs to the institutions of the co-PIs and/or co-applicants.

The Statement of Account Form (Form 300) is to be used to report the annual financial expenditures for NFRF grants. Two accounts must be created at the host institution for each grant: one to track expenditures related to the direct costs of research, and another to track expenditures related to the indirect costs of research. The indirect funds received for a NFRF grant must not be transferred to the Research Support Fund account at the institution.

Only one Statement of Account Form (Form 300) per grant is required to report expenditures. The expenditures of indirect funds, therefore, must be included. This is to be captured on line item 11 (Other Expenditures) as a single value. A breakdown of expenditures is not required for indirect costs. It is expected that the expenditure of indirect funds will be proportional to the expenditure of direct research funds, as reflected in the application.

For example, if an NPI was awarded $100,000 for direct costs and $25,000 for indirect costs in Year 1 and they only spent $50,000 for direct costs, the amount charged for indirect costs would be: ($25,000 ÷ $100,000) × $50,000 = $12,500.

Email NFRF-FNFR@chairs-chaires.gc.ca, copying the individuals you wish to add and providing an explanation for their inclusion in the project, and their affiliation status. Potential applicants will also need to complete an eligibility profile (which Tri-agency Institutional Programs Secretariat staff will send to them), and a user profile in the Convergence Portal. The request will be reviewed and a decision made on the inclusion of additional participants.

In cases where the NPI’s new primary affiliation is with a Canadian institution currently holding full institutional eligibility with one of the agencies (see the list of eligible institutions for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council or the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council), the NPI would retain their grant and it would follow them to the new institution.

In cases where the NPI’s new primary affiliation is not with a Canadian institution currently holding full institutional eligibility with one of the agencies, it is expected that the NPI will continue to be involved in the project as a co-PI or co-applicant, insofar as this is possible, to continue to provide the expertise needed to complete the project (note international co-applicants are eligible to access and use grant funds).

If there is:

• a co-PI who meets the eligibility requirements to be the NPI, the grant can be transferred to the co-PI (the co-PI becomes the NPI, and the original NPI becomes a co-PI or co-applicant, if eligible);
• no eligible co-PI, the grant cannot be transferred and will be terminated.

In all cases, the co-PI must have been named as such in the original application; they cannot have been added after the grant was awarded. The team must also demonstrate that the required expertise is still available, address the question of project leadership, and explain how the planned work will be completed.

We value our community’s feedback, and it helps us shape future competitions. Direct your feedback to NFRF-FNFR@chairs-chaires.gc.ca.