Use the NSERC Research Portal for the programs that run through it — Discovery Grants, Research Tools and Instruments, Subatomic Physics programs, and the Canada Graduate Research Scholarship – Master's — from creating an application and linking a Canadian Common CV to institutional review, forwarding, and submission to NSERC.
Applies in: CA
NSERC runs more than one online system, and starting in the wrong one wastes the whole application. The Research Portal and the NSERC on-line system are different systems with different instructions, different forms, and different sign-in routes. This guide covers the Research Portal only. It does not describe on-line system steps, and anything in it that sounds like a numbered form belongs to the other system and should be treated as a warning sign, not a step to follow.
The split is stated on NSERC's own pages. Online services lists the On-line System, the Financial Data Submission and Reconciliation System, the Research Portal, and the Convergence Portal as separate entries, and describes the Research Portal as a single point of entry for interactions with applicants, reviewers, committee members, institutions, and partners. Research Portal – Instructions draws the operational line: programs that still use NSERC's Online Services are directed to the PDF Forms and Instructions, while programs that use the Research Portal and the Canadian Common CV (CCV) are listed by audience on that index. If a program's instructions point to PDF forms, an eConsole page, or a numbered form, that program is not a Research Portal program for that competition, whatever a university checklist calls the system. Check the program description first in every competition year, because the index is a finding aid, not a promise that a program will stay on the same system.
Work from the program description, then from the instructions index. The index lists the following routes under Research Portal instructions: for students, the Canada Graduate Research Scholarship – Master's (CGRS M); for professors, the Discovery Grants program (individual), the Research Tools and Instruments Grants Program, and the Subatomic Physics Discovery Grants program (individual), Subatomic Physics Discovery Grants program (project), Subatomic Physics Major Resources Support Grants program, and Subatomic Physics Research Tools and Instruments Grants program. Instructions for research administrators and for reviewers or references (for the Master's program) sit on the same index. Treat that list as the verified scope of this guide. It is not a claim that no other program uses the Portal: the index may list additional routes later, and a program description may direct applicants to the Portal without appearing on the index page. The check that settles it is the funding opportunity itself appearing in the Portal when you sign in, together with instructions that name the Research Portal and the CCV. If the opportunity is not listed, the Research Portal – Frequently Asked Questions say to contact NSERC.
Two route differences inside the Portal list matter at the planning stage. A notification of intent to apply (NOI) is a mandatory gate for the Discovery Grants program: the Discovery Grants instructions state that without a submitted NOI, an applicant cannot create or submit a full application, and the NOI forms the basis of the application when it is created. By contrast, applicants for Subatomic Physics Research Tools and Instruments (Category 1) grants are not required to submit an NOI, according to the Subatomic Physics Research Tools and Instruments Grants program (Category 1) instructions. For the remaining Subatomic Physics routes, the index lists separate NOI instructions, so confirm on the program description whether an NOI is required for the category being applied to, and do not assume the Discovery Grants rule or the Category 1 exception carries across.
Supplements sit inside a Discovery Grants application rather than standing as separate Portal routes. Selecting the Department of National Defence (DND)/NSERC Discovery Grant supplement or the Discovery Grants – Northern Research Supplement (NRS) in the application opens the relevant sections, and the supplement material is used solely for review of the supplement and is not shared with evaluation group members or external reviewers, according to the Discovery Grants instructions. Do not create a second application for a supplement.
The on-line system contrast, stated once and then left alone: the Undergraduate Student Research Awards (Form 202) instructions state that Form 202 must be submitted electronically using NSERC's online system, with applicants logging in to reach an eConsole page and working through Forms management. That vocabulary — eConsole, Forms management, numbered forms, and a personal identification number (PIN) assigned by the online system — belongs to the on-line system. Research Portal instructions instead speak of signing in, selecting a funding opportunity, creating an application, and validating an eligibility profile, with a CCV confirmation number linking the CV. If the steps in front of you mention an eConsole or a PIN, close that route and re-check the program description.
Every person who touches an application needs a Research Portal account of their own, in the role that matches what they will do. Applicants work in the Applicant tab. Administrators sign in with an email address and password and see two tabs, Applicant and Institution (RA), and click Institution (RA) to reach the applications from their institution, according to the Research Portal Information for Research Administrators page. Scholarships liaison officers see Applicant and Institution (SLO) tabs on the equivalent page. No GCKey or Sign-In Partner route is stated on the Research Portal pages, so this guide states none: sign in with the email address and password used to create the Portal account, and do not import sign-in steps from another federal portal.
Account creation itself is described only briefly on the pages. The FAQ answer to creating an account says to go to the Create Your Account Profile page and follow the instructions. That is the full extent of the verified account-creation wording, and it is worth knowing before budgeting time: the heavy lifting is not account creation but the CCV, the self-identification questionnaire, and the eligibility profile. Complete the self-identification questionnaire in the person profile of the Research Portal when applying for funding. The grant instructions require a response to every question for the questionnaire to be marked complete, with "I prefer not to answer" available for each question, and state that self-identification information is not part of the application and is neither accessible to nor shared with external reviewers or selection committee members. Review and update the questionnaire every time an application is made.
Administrator setup is an institutional act, not a self-serve one, and it must happen before applications arrive. Each institution must designate a Master Administrator responsible for assigning privileges to other research administrators depending on their role. The Master Research Administrator is the only role pre-assigned by the agency, and there can only be one at an institution. A newly appointed Master Research Administrator creates an account if needed, then prints, completes, and signs the Registration Form for Master Research Administrators, NSERC and SSHRC Research Portal, which requires the approval and signature of the Vice-president (Research) — or, if the Vice-president (Research) is also the Master Research Administrator, of their administrative superior — and emails a scanned copy to institution@nserc-crsng.gc.ca or institution@sshrc-crsh.gc.ca. The agencies grant the Master role once the form is received. Only the Master Research Administrator can assign or delete roles, and only for a person who is already registered with the Research Portal, using the email address that person used to register, selecting the role and the agency; a person who administers for both NSERC and SSHRC must be added as two users. When a Master Research Administrator is replaced or leaves, NSERC must be informed and a new registration form with the replacement's information and appropriate approval must be submitted. The scholarships side mirrors this: each institution must have a designated master scholarships liaison officer (SLO) with authority to grant access to other SLOs and SLO assistants, registering with a form approved by the dean of graduate studies and emailed to harmonization@cgs-besc.gc.ca. SLO roles, unlike research administrator roles, are not agency-specific, so SLOs see applications for all three agencies.
References and co-applicants also need Portal accounts, and their timing is the applicant's problem. A reference for the Master's program must verify and validate a Research Portal account at least 48 hours in advance of the applicant's deadline, and a co-applicant on a grants application must accept an invitation, complete an eligibility profile, state hours per month, and upload a CCV before the applicant can finish. Build those lead times into the schedule at the start, not the week of the deadline.
The creation sequence is the same across the grant instructions, with the Discovery Grants NOI step as the one variation. Sign in to the Research Portal, select the funding opportunity, and click Create. Complete the eligibility profile and click Validate. Click Continue and Create Application. Under Applications, open the application and click Edit to complete the different sections. For Discovery Grants, select the NOI to apply; it will form the basis of the application, and some fields arrive pre-populated from the NOI and can be edited as needed. Re-validate the eligibility profile inside the application, checking that it accurately reflects the eligible position, entering a position title as free-form text if it does not appear in the drop-down menu, and clicking Save and validate or Save and Validate as labelled on the page.
Identification comes first and repays care, because several choices cannot be undone cleanly later. Select the administering organization that will administer the grant, and the department, selecting "head office" if the department is not listed. Give the application a short, descriptive title, restricting abbreviated forms and avoiding company or trade names, since the title may be used for publication purposes. State the language of the application: the main body must be written in either English or French rather than a mix of both, and NSERC CCVs must be in the same language as the application. Enter the number of hours per month the applicant plans to devote to the proposed research, activity, or use of equipment or facility, excluding hours contributed by others. For the Master's program, the equivalent early choices are the field of research — health, natural sciences and engineering, or social sciences and humanities, with only one selection even for interdisciplinary work — and the proposed host institutions, up to three, each with one department, where the applicant is enrolled full time or will apply for full-time admission by the institution's internal deadline. An application is not automatically sent to the applicant's current institution; that institution must be selected as a proposed host to receive it.
Read the program description before completing the application, and check eligibility on the program description page rather than in this guide. No eligibility test, funding value, or award duration is stated in this guide, because the instruction pages point eligibility, value, and duration questions to the program description and the eligibility pages. The same discipline applies to fees: no application fee is stated on any instruction page, and this guide states none. Confirm fee, eligibility, value, and duration on the program description for the competition year before drafting.
Mandatory fields are marked as "required" in the Portal, and the specific funding opportunity instructions govern what each section needs. Beyond the identification fields, the grant applications ask for a plain-language summary of the proposal, proposed expenditures with a budget justification, activity details including certification requirements for research involving humans, animals, stem cells, or hazardous substances, research subject and area-of-application codes, and the eligibility profile. The Discovery Grants application adds a relationship-to-other-research-support explanation, a highly qualified personnel training plan, most significant contributions to research, and additional information on contributions, each with its own character limit stated in the instructions. The Research Tools and Instruments application adds quotations and a relationship-to-other-research-support explanation tied to the equipment requested. The Master's application adds an outline of proposed research with bibliography, transcripts, a CCV, and two reference assessments. Work through the instructions for the specific program section by section; this guide does not reproduce every field, because the Portal marks what is mandatory and the program instructions carry the limits.
Attachments must meet the Research Portal presentation and attachment standards. Prepare attachments in a word processing program, spell out acronyms and abbreviations on first use, use letter-size or A4 pages, single spacing, 12-point Times New Roman for all text, no condensed fonts, black text only (colour images are acceptable, with a warning that colour increases file size), margins of at least three-quarters of an inch (1.87 cm), and no hyperlinks or bookmarks. Font and size rules do not apply to text within tables and figures, but the font must be clearly legible, and figures and tables count toward page limits. A supporting document in a language other than English or French needs a certified translation. Convert every attachment to PDF before uploading. A PDF filename must not contain special characters or accents and must be 15 characters or less, and the PDF must not carry security settings such as encryption or password protection; the standards page gives a reprint-through-PDF-software method for removing protection. On the Application Overview page, click Attach to include each required document, preview every attachment in the Portal to confirm it uploaded correctly and its content is viewable, and remember that NSERC will not accept corrupted or protected files that cannot be opened or viewed.
Page and file limits are program-specific and are stated here only where an instruction page states them. The Discovery Grants proposal is five pages maximum, the budget justification two pages maximum, and the list of references two pages maximum, with a maximum of four samples of research contributions as separate PDFs of no more than 10 MB each. The Research Tools and Instruments proposal is four pages, the budget justification three pages, and two recent quotations must be provided for any individual item over $40,000 net, in files of no more than 10 MB each, with the application rejected if the quotations or a justification are not submitted. The Subatomic Physics Research Tools and Instruments (Category 1) proposal is four pages, with no page limit on the budget justification and a 10 MB file size limit. The Master's outline of proposed research and bibliography are one page each, and transcripts must be combined into a single PDF of no more than 15 MB. Character limits inside the Portal, such as 3,000 characters for the grant summaries and 1,800 characters for the Master's abstract, are stated in the program instructions and on the Portal screens; follow the limit shown for the field being completed.
Link the CCV last among the preparation steps, then preview it. Enter the CCV confirmation number on the Application Overview page, upload it, and preview it in the Portal to verify it uploaded correctly and contains all records intended for peer review. While the Canadian Common CV website is bilingual, an NSERC CCV can only be saved in one official language at a time, corresponding to the language of the platform signed into, so a French CCV requires signing in through the French platform. For co-applicants on a grants application, each co-applicant completes the same CCV step for their own portion. From the Application Overview page, in the Invitations section, click Manage invitations, provide each co-applicant's email address and last name, and an invitation email is sent with instructions on how to accept. A co-applicant accepts the invitation, completes the eligibility profile, provides hours per month for use of the equipment, uploads a CCV, and clicks Submit to send their part to the applicant, at which point the invitation status changes to Invitation accepted and completed with a green check mark. Include only people who frequently use the equipment as co-applicants. Before the application goes to NSERC, a co-applicant outside the applicant's institution must inform their organization's authorized officer that agreement and signature for their participation will be requested.
For the Master's program, references replace co-applicants as the external dependency. Each application must be accompanied by two reference assessments from people familiar enough with the applicant's research and other abilities to provide meaningful commentary, such as a current or previous academic research supervisor, industrial supervisor, employment or volunteer supervisor, teacher, or thesis advisor. Enter each reference's information and a deadline well before the application deadline in the Invitations section; do not select the application deadline date itself. Once saved, references receive a system-generated email with a link to the reference assessment form, and the applicant cannot submit until both assessments are completed and linked. Contact references at least four weeks before the deadline, follow up personally, and check the invitation status in the Portal, since a missing reference assessment blocks submission with no extension.
Submitting as an applicant does not submit to NSERC. It submits to the institution. The administrator views the application from the Institution Portal, filtered by agency, funding cycle, and funding opportunity, with an application status summary showing total applications by status. To view an application, click the application title to reach the Application Overview page, from which the application, individual attachments, and CCVs can be viewed, and the application and attachments exported to PDF. Use the export function to save a copy for institutional records, since the retention period of applications in the Research Portal is three months after the deadline date.
An administrator with the status Received by administrator can return the application or forward it. Returning sends the application back for revisions: the status changes to Returned and then back to In progress once the applicant opens it, the applicant receives a system-generated email notification, and the cycle repeats as long as changes are required. Because the Return function allows no dialogue, return with enough specificity that the applicant can act without asking a follow-up question through the Portal. Forwarding requires reviewing the content first and, the first time, agreeing to the terms and conditions for the research administrator. Click Forward, and the status changes to Received by agency. After forwarding, the administrator can view the application but can no longer return it. Several or all applications with Received by administrator status can be returned or approved in bulk by selecting checkboxes and choosing a bulk action, and the list can be exported to Excel or CSV based on the last filter or sort. A Co-applicants Report, reached from Institution Administration in the top menu, lists researchers from the institution who are co-applicants on applications from other institutions, covering only applications submitted to the research administrator and forwarded to the agency by the administering organization.
The Master's flow through scholarships liaison officers follows the same shape with different statuses and powers. SLOs view applications in the Institution (SLO) portal, divided into allocations, application status summary, and application status, and the first access requires agreeing to the SLO terms and conditions, with a copy retained. SLOs view, print, or save applications as PDFs, manage the allocation process, and view offer results and notices of award. The Master SLO can set application status to Offered, Alternate, Not offered, Ineligible, or Acceptance withdrawn, delete or assign SLO roles, access the Tri-agency awards extranet and the Financial and award report, and request award payments; SLOs can view applications and set status; SLO assistants can view applications only. The Ineligible button is active during initial eligibility screening, and changing a status to Ineligible immediately generates an automated email to the applicant. Up to five applications at a time can be bulk-downloaded as a zip folder from the Bulk Application Downloads page, and zip folders there are automatically deleted overnight, so download and file them the same day.
No original signatures are required on applications or documents submitted electronically using the Research Portal. User ID and password-based "signatures" allow applicants, supporting organizations, and authorized institutional representatives to sign and submit online. Before submitting or uploading a CCV, an applicant or co-applicant must read and agree to the terms and conditions of applying in a pop-up window and retain a copy. The institutional authorities' signatures certify that the institution will abide by the Agreement on the Administration of Agency Grants and Awards by Research Institutions, including the Tri-Agency Framework: Responsible Conduct of Research and the Tri-agency Guide on Financial Administration, that applicants and co-applicants meet eligibility requirements, that written approval from any other institutions involved was obtained before submission, that Portal information will not be used or disclosed for other purposes, and that the agency may terminate or restrict Portal access at its sole discretion without notice. Treat the forwarding click and the terms acceptance as the signature: do not forward an application that has not been reviewed, and do not accept terms on another person's behalf.
The submission sequence in the Portal ends with an extraction and a terms acceptance, and skipping either step leaves the application unsubmitted. Click Submit at the bottom of the Application Overview page. A pop-up message appears, and the applicant must extract and view the application to ensure it is complete and all relevant attachments extract properly; the CCV will not appear in the extracted application. Save a copy for personal records. Check the confirmation box, click Submit in the pop-up, read and accept the terms and conditions by clicking I Accept, and a confirmation message appears on the web page together with a confirmation email. For the Master's program, the sequence is exporting the application and attachments to PDF, reviewing it — the CCV and reference assessments will not appear in the extracted application, and the Submit button will not appear until extraction is complete — then clicking Submit and accepting the terms and conditions in the pop-up, after which a confirmation email arrives and the status changes to Received by administrator once the institution receives it. All eleven steps in the Master's instructions, including extracting, submitting, and accepting the terms, must be completed before the Portal closes. Verify the status by returning to the home page.
After submission to NSERC, the application is frozen. The grant instructions state that once an application has been submitted to NSERC, it cannot be updated or modified, either before or after the deadline. The Master's instructions state the same rule, with only personal contact information updatable through the Research Portal account Profile tab. Do not plan on a correction window, and do not submit a draft early in the hope of replacing it: submit the version intended for review, after the institution has had its chance to return it. In cases of system interruption, the instructions refer applicants to the Service standards for NSERC and SSHRC's online application systems policy on sustained interruptions; that policy could not be verified on an official page, and no interruption remedy is described here.
Results arrive through the Portal, on the program's own timetable. For the Master's program, offers of awards are made available in the Research Portal as of April 1, alternate offers may be made until January 31 of the next calendar year, and applicants receive a system-generated email inviting them to log in each time the status changes, so the Portal must be checked regularly between April 1 and January 31. An applicant who is Offered an award has 21 days from the date of each offer to accept or decline through the Research Portal; offers not accepted within 21 days automatically change to Declined, only one CGRS M offer may be accepted, and accepting one offer automatically changes all other offers and statuses to Declined. On accepting, the applicant selects an award start date from the three dates shown, representing the three available start dates for activating the award, and an incorrect start date cannot be corrected in the Portal — contact the faculty of graduate studies or equivalent at the institution where the award will be held. For grant programs, the instruction pages describe the Portal's role as managing application and peer review processes, acceptance of awards, notification of results, and reporting, but no results timetable, notification wording, or post-award Portal steps could be verified on the official pages, and none are stated here. Check the program description for results timing and for any reporting or award-acceptance steps after a grant offer.
Practical cautions from the FAQ and the Master's instructions belong in the working routine, not in a troubleshooting appendix. Do not use the browser's Back, Forward, Refresh, or Reload buttons to navigate the Portal, to avoid losing unsaved information; data is saved when moving from one step to the next, but browser navigation is the exception. The Ctrl+V paste function does not work in the Research Portal; the FAQ directs users to click the on-screen paste control instead. For the Master's application, the Portal times out after 60 minutes of inactivity within each section, typing does not count as activity, and the instructions advise saving and validating frequently or entered information will be lost. Resolve formatting issues in advance of the deadline, allow for high-volume delays near the deadline, and contact the helpdesk at least 48 hours before the deadline for technical issues, including accessibility barriers.
Start from the program description, and then check the [Research Portal – Instructions](https://nserc-crsng.canada.ca/en/funding/forms-and-online-application-tools/online-services/research-portal-instructions) index, which draws the line in its opening sentences: programs that still use NSERC's Online Services are directed to the PDF Forms and Instructions, while programs that use the Research Portal and the Canadian Common CV (CCV) are listed by audience on that index. The index lists, for students, the Canada Graduate Research Scholarship – Master's, and for professors, the Discovery Grants program (individual), the Research Tools and Instruments Grants Program, and the Subatomic Physics Discovery Grants (individual and project), Major Resources Support Grants, and Research Tools and Instruments Grants programs. If the funding opportunity you want is not listed in the Research Portal, the [Research Portal – Frequently Asked Questions](https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/researchportal-portailderecherche/faq-faq/researchportal-portailderecherche_eng.asp) say to contact NSERC, and its business hours are Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (ET). Do not work from a form number alone: Form 202 for the Undergraduate Student Research Awards, for example, must be submitted using NSERC's online system, according to its instructions, so a guide or checklist that mentions Form 100, Form 101, Form 202, or an eConsole page is describing the on-line system, not the Research Portal. When the program description and the index point different ways, follow the program description and ask the program contact before creating an application in either system.
Applicants create and complete applications in the Applicant tab. Research administrators work in the Institution (RA) tab of the [Research Portal Information for Research Administrators](https://nserc-crsng.canada.ca/en/research-portal-information-research-administrators) page, where they review grant applications, return them to applicants, and forward them to NSERC or SSHRC. Three research administrator roles exist: the Master Research Administrator, who is the only role pre-assigned by the agency and who can also assign or delete the other two roles; the Research Administrator, who can browse, return, approve, and forward applications; and the Research Administrator (Assistant), who can browse and return applications but cannot approve or forward them. Scholarships liaison officers (SLOs) are the parallel roles for the Canada Graduate Research Scholarship – Master's, described on the [Canada Graduate Research Scholarship – Master's program information and instructions for scholarships liaison officers](https://nserc-crsng.canada.ca/en/canada-graduate-research-scholarship-masters-program-information-and-instructions-scholarships) page: a Master SLO designated by the agency, SLOs who can view applications and set application status, and SLO assistants who can view applications only. A Master Research Administrator registers with a form approved and signed by the institution's Vice-president (Research), emailed as a scanned copy to institution@nserc-crsng.gc.ca or institution@sshrc-crsh.gc.ca, and there can only be one Master Research Administrator at an institution. A Master SLO registers with a form approved by the institution's dean of graduate studies, emailed to harmonization@cgs-besc.gc.ca. In both cases, the person being given a role must already have a Research Portal account, and the email used for the role must match the email used to register.
For the programs covered in this guide, yes, and the CV lives in a separate system. The [Research Portal – Frequently Asked Questions](https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/researchportal-portailderecherche/faq-faq/researchportal-portailderecherche_eng.asp) explain that the Research Portal and the CCV are two separate systems, each with its own portal, adopted concurrently. The Discovery Grants instructions state the rule plainly: complete the application using the Research Portal and also complete and link the NSERC Canadian Common CV to the application. The link depends on matching identity details. To upload a CCV successfully, the first name and family name used for the CCV site account must be identical to those used for the Research Portal account, and the email address used for the Research Portal account must be identical to at least one email listed on the CCV site, according to the [Research Tools and Instruments grants program instructions](https://nserc-crsng.canada.ca/en/research-tools-and-instruments-grants-program-instructions-completing-application). On the Application Overview page, click Attach, enter the CCV confirmation number, click Upload, and then preview the CCV in the Research Portal to verify it uploaded correctly and contains every record intended for peer review. The CCV must be in the same language as the application. For the Canada Graduate Research Scholarship – Master's, select CGRS-Master's from both the Funding source and CV type drop-down menus, since other CCV templates cannot be attached to a CGRS M application. Start the CCV early, since it must be complete and linked before the application can be finished, and a CCV saved in the wrong language or with mismatched identity details will not link.
For grant applications, no: submitting sends the application to the institution first. The [Research Tools and Instruments grants program instructions](https://nserc-crsng.canada.ca/en/research-tools-and-instruments-grants-program-instructions-completing-application) state that when you submit, the application is sent to the research administrator for approval and submission to NSERC, the status changes to Received by administrator, and once the administrator has approved and forwarded it, the status changes to Received by agency. The [Research Portal Information for Research Administrators](https://nserc-crsng.canada.ca/en/research-portal-information-research-administrators) page sets out the statuses an administrator works with: In progress while the applicant is creating or updating the application; Received by administrator once the applicant has submitted it to the administrator; Returned when the administrator sends it back for changes, with a system-generated email to the applicant, after which the status returns to In progress once the applicant opens it; and Received by agency once the administrator has approved and forwarded it, after which the administrator can view it but can no longer return it. The return step is one-way: administrators and applicants cannot hold a dialogue through the Return function, so any explanation of what must change has to travel outside the Portal or be clear enough to act on without a reply. Forwarding carries legal weight. All applications must be approved and forwarded by the Master Research Administrator or a research administrator, the act of forwarding constitutes the institution's electronic approval or signature, and it replaces the administrator's handwritten signature. For the Canada Graduate Research Scholarship – Master's, the equivalent flow runs through scholarships liaison officers, who set statuses including Offered, Alternate, Not offered, and Ineligible, and offers are made available in the Research Portal as of April 1.
Two clocks run on every application, and only one of them is NSERC's. The program instructions for Discovery Grants, Research Tools and Instruments, and Subatomic Physics Research Tools and Instruments (Category 1) all state the same pattern: the application must be received at the institution's research grants office by its internal deadline date, which you must get from that office, and it must be received at NSERC by 8:00 p.m. (ET) on the deadline date shown on the program description page. For the Canada Graduate Research Scholarship – Master's, the [scholarships liaison officers' instructions](https://nserc-crsng.canada.ca/en/canada-graduate-research-scholarship-masters-program-information-and-instructions-scholarships) state the program deadline as December 1 before 8:00 p.m. (ET), moving to the following business day at the same time if December 1 falls on a weekend or a federal holiday. Three further timing rules are easy to miss. First, once an application has been submitted to NSERC, it cannot be updated or modified, either before or after the deadline, according to the grant program instructions. Second, applications are retained in the Research Portal for three months after the deadline date, so export the application and attachments to PDF and save a copy before that period ends. Third, the Portal is generally unavailable on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. (ET) and on the second Wednesday of each month from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. (ET), according to the [Research Portal – Frequently Asked Questions](https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/researchportal-portailderecherche/faq-faq/researchportal-portailderecherche_eng.asp). For the Master's competition, references must verify and validate their Research Portal accounts at least 48 hours in advance of the deadline, help desk contact for technical issues is recommended at least 48 hours in advance, and the application platform opens within five business days of the launch of the competition.
Both helpdesk phone wordings on NSERC pages are preserved here, because the pages do not agree. The [Discovery Grants instructions](https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ResearchPortal-PortailDeRecherche/Instructions-Instructions/DG-SD_eng.asp) and the [Research Tools and Instruments grants program instructions](https://nserc-crsng.canada.ca/en/research-tools-and-instruments-grants-program-instructions-completing-application) give the online services helpdesk as webapp@nserc-crsng.gc.ca or 1-855-275-2861, while the Subatomic Physics Research Tools and Instruments (Category 1) instructions give the same email address with the phone number 613-995-4273. Use the number on the instructions page for the program you are applying to, and use the email address, which is the same on both wordings, if the number does not answer. The [Research Portal – Frequently Asked Questions](https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/researchportal-portailderecherche/faq-faq/researchportal-portailderecherche_eng.asp) handle account trouble in one line each: if password recovery fails, contact NSERC, and if an account is locked, contact NSERC, in both cases during business hours Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (ET). One oddity in that FAQ is preserved rather than smoothed over: the question headed 'How do I change my email address?' is answered with instructions to sign in, click Profile, and select Change Password, which describes a password change rather than an email change, so do not rely on that answer for changing an email address and instead contact the helpdesk. For program questions rather than technical ones, the grant instructions direct applicants to resgrant@nserc-crsng.gc.ca, the Subatomic Physics instructions direct applicants to Subatomic@nserc-crsng.gc.ca, and Master's applicants are directed first to the faculty of graduate studies at the institution where they intend to hold the award.
No direct Research Portal login address, application fee, eligibility test, funding value, award duration, reviewer workflow beyond the Master's reference process, or Government of Canada service directory listing is stated in this guide, because none could be verified on an official page. Figures and claims not stated in this guide: specific competition dates for Discovery Grants, Research Tools and Instruments, and Subatomic Physics deadlines beyond the 8:00 p.m. (ET) receipt rule and the Master's December 1 deadline, which could not be verified on program description pages; Discovery Grants NOI and full-application dates, which could not be verified on an official page; Research Tools and Instruments grant values and the $7,001 to $250,000 net-cost range, which could not be verified on an official page; Canada Graduate Research Scholarship – Master's award values and supplement values, which could not be verified on an official page; Alliance grants and other Form 101 routes as on-line system examples, since no Alliance instruction page could be verified on an official page; Convergence Portal program coverage, beyond the Online services page description; the sustained-interruption remedy, since no remedy could be verified on an official page; and any GCKey, Sign-In Partner, or password-reset steps for the Research Portal, since the Portal pages state email and password sign-in only. The two helpdesk phone numbers are carried as both wordings rather than reconciled, the FAQ browser list naming older browsers is carried as dated FAQ wording rather than current advice, and the FAQ email-address answer describing a password change is preserved as written. Recheck the program description and the Research Portal instructions index in the competition year before applying, since program-to-system assignments and deadlines are set there.