Reimagined Graduate Funding Updates

1. Student Funding includes Scholarships (performance-based), Bursaries (need-based) and Employment. 
2. Competitive funding packages are pivotal to recruiting doctoral and thesis-based master’s students. 
3. Competitive funding packages require multi-year commitments that align with minimum times to completion. 
4. Scholarships are essential to recruiting students to course-based master's programs. 
5. Student funding provides access to programs. 
6. Student funding is meant to allow students to focus on their program 
7. Scholarships should reward excellence; there are various ways to define excellence.
8. Scholarships and awards need to keep pace with rising costs, especially tuition. 
9. Competitive funding requires top-ups to external scholarships that track with tuition increases. 
10. Nimble funds are required for recruitment that is offered at the time of admission.
11. Centrally adjudicated scholarships should be more prestigious and therefore competitive, than those allocated to units. 
12. Eligibility for scholarships or funding packages must be transparent. For example, if scholarships and/or Assistantships exclude those working full-time outside the university or in alignment with TriAgency awards categories of university employees (e.g. faculty members) it must be clear for all applicants. 
13. A minimum funding guarantee provides predictability for students and helps to support mental well-being.
14. There is a responsibility for supervisors to financially support students where students provide an intellectual contribution to the research program of their supervisor.
15. Incenting college/department/faculty behaviour through matching schemes must be counterbalanced by both the unit and CGPS administration; while not expecting one funding stream to incentivize too many different things.

Adopted by CGPS stakeholders in the winter of 2021. 

Robust graduate student supports underpin the success of a research-intensive university.  CGPS stewards annually just over $10 million from general operating funds for graduate awards and scholarships as well as funding for graduate teaching assistantships.  

A complex system has evolved over many years and is hybrid in terms of allocating a portion of the funds to eligible units under individual agreements (devolved funding) and several centrally adjudicated scholarships.  There are also many small streams of special-purpose funding, some of which are allocated to Colleges/Schools.  The requirements in terms of eligibility and requirements to match are onerous to administer for both units and CGPS. There is general dissatisfaction due to the complexity of the system and challenges in using the Dean’s Scholarship funds effectively in the recruitment of top students due to timing.  

A working group was formed in 2021 to analyze the existing funding streams and to propose a better and simplified system while retaining the fundamentals desired to provide prestigious scholarships and base support for graduate students.  

Scholarship and Bursaries from endowed funds administered through CGPS and funds administered by Schools and Colleges are not within the scope of this project.