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Message from the Tri-Agencies

The federal funding agencies have received a few questions about eligible expenses during this unprecedented time, so we wanted to take this opportunity to clarify a few things.

First and foremost, we would like to be clear about the agencies’ perspective on paying personnel with existing grant funds: Any members of the research team eligible to be paid from an agency grant continue to be eligible (and should continue to be paid) in the current context. This is our perspective, regardless whether those members of the research team are currently able to work directly on the originally planned project(s).

Given the ever-evolving circumstances caused by the pandemic, we also recognize that grant recipients and/or research team members may continue to incur ongoing research costs, as well as incremental costs that would not normally be incurred (for example, compensation and travel) related to agency- funded research activities. The agencies would like to remain as flexible as possible to support grant recipients during this time and acknowledge that some of these costs may be eligible to be paid from agency grant funds. The agencies will therefore defer to administering institutions to determine if incremental costs are consistent with the principles and directives set out in the (and if they are, then those expenses will still be eligible to be paid from grant funds).

We hope this information is helpful. We plan to post this information online shortly, as well.

Take care,

Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)