Suggested Timelines for Tri-Council Grant Applications

One year prior to the deadline

For a major tri-council grant, ideally you want to identify the opportunity for which you want to apply roughly a year in advance. Doing so gives you time to do an in depth review of any pertinent literature, apply for seed grants to advance your proposal (like the seed funds offered by the University of Saskatchewan like President's SSHRC or Proposal Development Assistance , and, if applicable, assemble a team of committed co-applicants and collaborators. If you need help identifying a funding opportunity, acquiring seed money, or building a research team, this is a good time to contact a research facilitator.

Six months prior to the deadline

At this stage, it is a good idea to strategize and think through some of the key components of the grant. How, for instance, will you incorporate graduate student training into your grant? What plans do you have to meet the requirements for knowledge translation and mobilization? It is also a good idea to begin drafting the Description of Activity at this stage and to seek out feedback from colleagues and/or a research facilitator about the specifics of your work.

Three months prior to the deadline

At this stage it is a good idea to start pulling together and drafting the rest of the application so that you can take full advantage of the internal review processes offered by the university.

Two months prior to the deadline

At this stage, having a rough full draft of the application is advisable. Internal review deadlines vary from year to year, but they generally fall about two months before the deadline. Once you have submitted your grant for internal review, this is an excellent time to finalize your CV and address some other aspects of the application - like certain forms - that you haven't dealt with yet.

One month prior to the deadline

You will receive feedback from the internal review process one month prior to the competition deadline. It is a good idea to allow sufficient time to address the concerns of your reviewers. At this stage of the application process you should be finalizing the key aspects of your application.

Two weeks prior to the deadline

Submit a full draft of your proposal to the research facilitator for review. The facilitator can make recommendations for improving the grant, edit, and help ensure that the grant is effective and readable.

One week prior to the deadline

In this final week, submit the grant to your Department Head and Associate Dean of Research to sign (signature form). Once the signatures have been obtained, fill in the required Research Services Intake form, hit submit on the tri-council website, and walk a hard copy of your grant over to the Research Services Office