Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship

Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships are jointly administered by Canada’s three federal granting agencies: the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). Each award is valued at $70,000 CAD per year for a period of two years. This highly competitive program distributes 70 fellowships globally per annum. Please be aware that Queen’s implements an internal review of applications with deadlines preceding those of Banting.

Banting fellowships seek to attract and retain top-tier candidates whose leadership potential positions these fellows for success as future research innovators. Full eligibility requirements and application details can be found on Banting’s website.

2023-2024 deadlines and information below.

Eligibility window extensions (to a cumulative maximum of three years) may be granted if the applicant had their career interrupted for the following reasons:

  • Parental leave
  • Illness
  • Health-related family responsibilities
  • Mandatory military service
  • Disruptions due to war, civil conflicts, and/or natural disasters in the country of residence
  • Socioeconomic reasons

Additionally, for health professionals who have engaged in post-degree non-research related clinical training (e.g., residency), the eligibility window can be extended by the duration of this training.

No other exceptions will be allowed. Interruptions used to extend the eligibility window for degree completion must have occurred after the fulfilment of your degree requirements and before the application submission deadline.

Queen’s Internal Procedure

June 23, 11:59 p.m. EDT: Letter of intent (LOI) package must be submitted to the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs. LOI package contains:

  • Applicant’s Vanier-Banting Academic CV (via Canadian Common CV, see below for instructions)
  • 1 page statement of proposed research + 1 page max. references/bibliography (developed with supervisor). No lay abstract is required, but keep in mind that your LOI will be read by non-specialists. Please use the Banting guidelines for Research Proposals as a reference
  • 1 page supervisor statement: use the Banting Application Guide as a reference
  • Applicants planning to stay in the same research environment as their PhD must also submit a brief letter of justification in accordance with Banting eligibility requirements
  • Submit LOI packages in PDF form (single file) to Nenagh Hathaway at postdoc@queensu.ca

Please note that we cannot accept late submissions.

Review Timeline for Competition - All dates below are for 2023

Date Item
June 23 (5:00 PM EDT) Letter of Intent package must be submitted to the School of Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs
June 26 - July 14 Internal committee (consisting of Associate Deans of Research or delegates) selects candidates to be endorsed.
July 17 Applicants are informed of committee decisions.
July 18 - August 16 (4:00 PM EDT) Selected candidates finalize application packages and submit full materials to the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs no later than August 16, 2023 at 4:00 PM EDT. Please submit the full application package as a single PDF document to postdoc@queensu.ca.
August 17 - September 8 Final review of full applications. Applications may be deemed to be non-endorsable at this stage if the full application is deemed uncompetitive. 
September 12 Dean of Queen’s School of Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs provides institutional letter of endorsement if final application meets all requirements.
September 20 (10:00 PM EDT) Candidate submits final application via ResearchNet and confirms submission to postdoc@queensu.ca.

Instructions for Vanier-Banting Academic CV

  • Follow instructions in the Banting Application Guide to set up a Canadian Common CV account
  • To access the Banting CV template after logging in, select “Funding” from the “CV” dropdown menu, then select “Vanier-Banting” as the Funding Source and “Vanier-Banting Academic” as the CT type.
  • To save a draft PDF version of your Vanier-Banting Academic CV, which is required for the Queen’s internal selection process, click the “Preview" button. (Note: If you press “Submit”, this will generate a final PDF version of your CV which can be accessed by clicking the “History” tab at the top of the page. This version is acceptable, but not necessary, for internal submission.)
  • There may be several places to enter the same information. Choose the most logical section and enter the information only once

Ensure attached documents meet presentation standards

For questions about this process, please email Nenagh Hathaway, Office of Postdoctoral Affairs at postdoc@queensu.ca You can also download a PDF of Banting Application Tips (293KB).