The Canada Excellence Research Chairs (CERC) Program is a tri-agency initiative of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. It is administered by the Tri-agency Institutional Programs Secretariat (TIPS), which is housed within SSHRC.
Important: To be eligible to apply, nominating institutions must submit their registration using the Convergence Portal by 9:00 p.m. (eastern), January 21, 2026.
These instructions are to be used in conjunction with the information in the 2026 Canada Excellence Research Chairs (CERC) funding opportunity.
The nominating institution must publicly advertise all CERC positions on its public accountability webpage for a minimum duration of 30 calendar days prior to the competition’s registration deadline. This applies to all nominations. For more information, see the Requirements for recruiting and nominating Canada Excellence Research Chairs.
Convergence Portal roles and invitations
Various people may take part in preparing the application in the Convergence Portal. TIPS will communicate with nominating institutions to identify the institutional representatives (senior official and delegates) for this program. Once identified, the proposed senior official and delegates will receive an email with instructions to access the portal.
Senior official: The designated representative with the institutional authority to create and sign off on registrations and applications (for example, the provost or vice-president, Research, depending on the institution). The senior official has both read and write privileges in the Convergence Portal. Nominating institutions must take all necessary measures to ensure that the senior official is available to complete the attestation and submission of registrations and applications by the due date and time.
Delegate(s): The designated employee(s) at the nominating institution who has (have) a role in the CERC registration and application process. The institution can name as many delegates as needed. Delegates have both read and write privileges in the Convergence Portal.
Nominee: The person who is nominated for a CERC. Once the nominee is invited by the nominating institution, they will have, with some restrictions, read and write privileges in the Convergence Portal. See the Invite nominee section for information on the steps the nominee will need to take to complete their profile.
Summary of privileges by role
The following table describes the read and write privileges in the Convergence Portal.
How to create and complete a registration
Overview
Nominating institutions and nominees must complete the registration using the Convergence Portal. All individuals taking part in preparing the registration must have a Convergence Portal account. They may choose either of the official languages (English or French) to submit documents and information related to this competition.
The nominating institution is responsible for creating the registration and submitting it once it is complete. The nominating institution must create and submit separate registrations for each nomination. No registrations will be accepted after the deadline outlined above and no extensions to the deadline will be provided. After the registration deadline, no changes can be made to the registration.
The Convergence Portal is supported only on the latest versions of Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Apple Safari and Mozilla Firefox. Use of an unsupported browser is strongly discouraged.
1. Getting started
Senior officials can create registrations in the Research Administrator dashboard. Senior officials can only create as many registrations as their institutional limits allow (see Institutional application limits).
Note: The Research Administrator dashboard can only be viewed by the senior official and delegates, not by nominees.
Once the senior official has created a registration in the Research Administrator dashboard, it can be accessed in the Institutional Applications tab. Once a nominee has been invited to a registration, they can access the registration in their Applications tab.
The following modules must be completed in Convergence before finalizing and submitting a registration.
Once a registration has been submitted, all entries other than the nominee may be modified in the application.
2. Application details
To complete this module, provide the following required information:
- Proposed Chair title: The Chair title should include the full program name, i.e. “Canada Excellence Research Chair in …”. It should be descriptive and should not include symbols or abbreviations. For example, use “and” instead of “&”. The title should also be short and in language plain enough for a lay audience and members of the media to understand and use it.
- Language of the application: Indicate which official language (English or French) will be used for the application.
- Expected chairholder appointment date: Enter the anticipated date that the nominee will take up their chairholder appointment at the host institution. Chairholders will be required to take up their appointment no later than 12 months after the award is accepted. TIPS will contact successful institutions after award acceptance to confirm whether any changes need to be made to the expected date of appointment specified in the application.
- Alignment with federal research funding agency: Based on the mandates of the three federal research funding agencies and the research area(s) of the Chair, select the agency with which this Chair primarily aligns. This selection is used by TIPS for financial and reporting purposes and should not be viewed as directing interdisciplinary research programs to shift their focus or align primarily with a particular agency’s mandate.
- Indigenous research: Indicate whether the proposal involves Indigenous research as defined by SSHRC. If the application involves Indigenous research, it will be peer reviewed in the context of SSHRC’s Indigenous Research Statement of Principles and the Guidelines for the Merit Review of Indigenous Research.
3. Invite nominee
For nominees to access and complete the registration, the nominating institution must invite the nominee. The Convergence Portal platform will then send an email to the nominee, who can accept or decline the invitation.
Upon accepting the invitation, the nominee will log into the Convergence Portal (or create an account) to complete their enrolment and update their profile. During enrolment, the nominee will be asked to confirm that they are the nominee for only one CERC application in this competition.
3.1 Self-identification form
As part of the invitation process, the nominee will be asked to fill out a self-identification form in the Convergence Portal. The self-identification form is a mandatory component for a complete CERC nomination package. All nominees are encouraged to self-identify in all groups that apply to them. This ensures that the program will have accurate representation data of nominees and awardees for monitoring and reporting purposes. The form includes an option to indicate “prefer not to say” in response to the questions. The nominee can modify their self-identification information at any time by updating the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion section of their account profile.
The self-identification form is not part of the application, and is neither accessible to, nor shared with, the nominating institution (senior official or delegates), external reviewers and/or selection committee members.
The self-identification information will be stored electronically in the nominee’s account profile, and access is limited to agency staff on a need-to-know basis. TIPS staff will use this information for administrative and statistical purposes. It may also be used to report to government or the public, where it will be reported in a form (e.g., aggregate) that ensures protection of the identity of any individual.
Further information about the collection of self-identification information can be found on the Canada Research Chairs Program’s Frequently asked questions webpage.
4. Nominee
The name, title and current affiliation of the nominee invited in the preceding module will appear in the “Nominee” module. This information is required by TIPS to ensure potential reviewers are not in a conflict of interest with the nominee.
5. Socioeconomic objectives
Select two socioeconomic objectives, one of which needs to be indicated as primary.
The Canadian Research and Development Classification (CRDC) was jointly developed by the three federal research funding agencies, along with the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Statistics Canada. The Convergence Portal contains Socioeconomic Objective (SEO) - CRDC 2020 Version 1.0. If you have any questions or would like to provide feedback, email R&D-Classification@sshrc-crsh.gc.ca.
6. Science, technology and innovation (ST&I) research priority areas
Chairs will be awarded in alignment with the Government of Canada’s Science, Technology and Innovation Priorities for the Canada Excellence Research Chairs Program and the Canada First Research Excellence Fund. Applications are invited from a broad range of disciplines in the social sciences and humanities, natural sciences and engineering, and health and related sciences.
In this module, using the ST&I priorities linked above, select the challenge(s) and area(s) of focus that are relevant to the application. Select at least one challenge. There is no limit to the number of challenges or areas of focus that can be selected.
7. Fields of research
Select two fields of research from the CRDC codes that relate to the proposed research, one of which must be indicated as primary.
8. Keywords
List between five and 10 keywords to describe the proposed research program.
9. Summary of proposed program
Provide a summary (maximum 2,500 characters), written in lay language, describing the proposed CERC’s importance and appropriateness.
The summary of proposal must:
- state the proposed research program’s objectives;
- summarize the research approach; and
- highlight the work’s novelty and expected significance.
This summary will be used in the application peer review process, and, in the event of an award, for promotional and communications purposes. This summary may be modified at the full application stage.
10. Canada Foundation for Innovation
In this module, select “yes” or “no” in answer to the question, “Is a request for infrastructure support from the Canada Foundation for Innovation included with this Chair nomination?”.
For more information on CFI support requests, see the 2026 Canada Excellence Research Chairs Competition webpage. The CFI portion must be submitted via the CFI’s contribution management system.
11. Suggested reviewers
Suggest 10 reviewers who could provide an independent assessment of the full application. Nominating institutions are encouraged to suggest a diverse list of potential reviewers with appropriate expertise to review and comment on the proposal. Suggested reviewers should:
- be a mix of Canadian and international experts from academic and research institutions, not-for-profit and philanthropic organizations, private sector enterprises, and the public sector;
- include individuals from underrepresented, equity-seeking and rights-seeking groups (e.g., women, persons with disabilities, Indigenous Peoples and racialized individuals, and members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community);
- have the required expertise to review and comment on the proposal;
- not be from the nominating institution or the nominee’s current institution;
- be capable of reviewing the application in the language in which it is written; and
- not be in a conflict of interest with any individuals who are expected to eventually participate in the CERC, either as members of the chairholder’s team, as collaborators, or in some other capacity. See the Conflict of Interest and Confidentiality Policy of the Federal Research Funding Organizations.
The final selection of reviewers is made by TIPS and is not limited to the suggested reviewers provided by the nominating institution.
Note: Do not contact external reviewers in advance.
12. Reviewer exclusions
Indicate the name and affiliation of reviewers who should not be invited as an external reviewer, due to professional or personal conflicts that may potentially bias the evaluation process, along with comments specifying the reason for their exclusion. TIPS reserves the right to make the final selection of reviewers.
13. Attestation
Only the senior official has access to this module. The senior official must answer questions related to the nominee’s recruitment to attest that the nominating institution has followed the Requirements for recruiting and nominating Canada Excellence Research Chairs.
In particular, the senior official must attest that they discussed this nomination with the nominee to ensure that they understand the nature of Canadian federal research funding and the specific parameters of the CERC program (its objectives, priorities, and relevant administration policies and responsibilities). The senior official must also attest that the nominee is not being nominated by another institution in the current CERC competition. Multiple nominations of the same nominee will result in the rejection of all nominations associated to this nominee.
They must also attest that the nomination aligns with the program’s commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion, and with the nominating institution’s equity, diversity and inclusion policies and practices.
If the answer is “yes” to the question “Does the nominee hold a full-time academic appointment at a Canadian institution?”, the nominating institution will be required to submit a supporting document at the application stage to demonstrate the net benefit to the country in moving the researcher from one Canadian institution to another.
The Tri-agency Institutional Programs Secretariat reserves the right to ask institutions to provide, at any time within 48 months of submission, all documentation that demonstrates the requirements for the recruitment process were followed.
Where results of a monitoring exercise find that the program’s requirements have not been followed for the nomination, the program reserves the right to withdraw the nomination, suspend future payments or terminate the award of an already active Chair.
14. Finalize and submit
After all registration modules have been completed successfully, the senior official must read and accept the Terms and Conditions to finalize and submit the registration to the CERC program. After the senior official accepts the terms and conditions, the registration status will change to “Received by Agency”.
If you have questions: