Take Action

TAKE ACTION!

Join us for an important town hall meeting on July 22nd, hosted by Support Our Science (SOS). We are excited to share our new vision following a significant federal commitment to science in April 2024. While this is a promising start, we recognize that more support is needed for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows across Canada. Sign up here for more details and to be part of the conversation!

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Ask #1: Index to inflation the value of federal graduate student scholarships and postdoctoral fellowships

Inflation reduces the purchasing power of the fixed dollar value of federal scholarships and fellowships each year. The recent increase in federal scholarships to $40,000 has restored (or exceeded) the real value of federal awards. However, without indexing these scholarships and fellowships to inflation their value with be eroded.

We are calling for all federal scholarships and fellowships to be automatically increased annually by the consumer price index of the previous year.

Figure 1: The real value of NSERC scholarships for doctoral students. In 2024 the CGS-D ($35,000) and PGS-D ($21,000) scholarships were replaced with the new CCRS-D ($40,000)

Ask #2: Create a national minimum net stipend

There is a huge variation between the minimum stipends offered to graduate researchers at different universities and in different faculties and departments within those universities. Not all departments even guarantee a minimum level of financial support. Where they do this minimum is almost always insufficient, with net stipends (after including tuition and other mandatory university fees) fall well below the poverty line

We are calling for the federal government (through the research councils) to set a minimum stipend value for graduate students supported by federal research grants and to increase the value of the research grants to allow for this to be implemented. This minimum stipend should be net of tuition and other mandatory fees and be above the inflation adjusted MBM poverty threshold for a single person.

Ask #3: Better support graduate students and postdoctoral researchers from research grants

Following the announcements in Budget 2024, significant new money will be invested in research grants. Most of these increases will be coming over the next few years, providing opportunities for research group leaders to increase the value of the stipends and salaries they provide from them. However, without a change in incentives, many may use the increased finding envelope to recruit more graduate students in the chase of more research performed.

We are calling for:

Trainee pay to be an explicit criterion used to evaluate grant applications
The tri-councils to implement policies to ensure that a large share of upcoming increases research grant funding makes its way to graduate students and postdoctoral scholars
University departments to use the increase to the funding envelope of research grants to raise their minimum stipend levels.

Figure 2: The funding allocated towards research grants is set to increase substantially over the next few years.

Ask #4: Appoint graduate student and postdoctoral scholars as representatives at decision making bodies

The voices and experiences of graduate students and postdoctoral scholars are often underrepresented when decisions about research funding are made – from the federal to the departmental level. This lack of representation helped contribute to the slide of Canadian stipends and fellowships to non competitive levels (until the recent moves to address this issue in Budget 2024).

We are calling for a graduate student and postdoctoral representative in any consultative body of the tri-agencies or the new capstone agency and for provinces, universities, faculties and departments to engage graduate student and postdoctoral fellows in their discussions about research funding.