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NSERC, CIHR & SSHRC Undergraduate Summer Research Award (USRA) 2025

Undergraduate Student Research Awards (USRAs) are meant to nurture your interest and fully develop your potential for a research career in health, natural sciences, engineering, social sciences or humanities. These awards are also meant to encourage you to undertake graduate studies by providing research work experience that complements your studies in an academic setting.

The duration of the USRA award is 14 to 16 weeks on a full-time basis.

The Tri-Agency provides a stipend of $6,000 per award. This must be supplemented by the Western USRA supervisor.

The selection process is done by the institution based on the following three criteria:

1. Academic record;
2. Research aptitude; and
3. Expected quality of the training to be received.

Tri-Agency support for underrepresented groups: Black student researchers funding

• Via a “pilot” initiative to support targeted scholarships and fellowships for promising Black students USRA program is supporting additional NSERC USRAs,  CIHR USRAs, and SSHRC USRAs.

For NSERC USRAs:

• New policy for NSERC Black student scholars: NSERC provides supplementary allocations for additional awards for Black student scholars.
• NSERC has confirmed a supplementary allocation of 8 Awards for Black student researchers at Western.
• All Faculties will be invited to submit their top three candidates for the NSERC Black student USRAs.
• As with our prior allocations, the final selection will be determined centrally via a lottery process.
• Note: The supplementary allocation for Black student researchers is not a limit. There is no limit on the number of Black student researchers that can be offered an award within an institution’s allocation. NSERC expects institutions to use their awards allocations to support applicants from all underrepresented groups, including Black student researchers.
• NSERC USRAs for Indigenous student will not count towards Western’s allocation. Students will be asked to self-identify in the NSERC portal.

For CIHR and SSHRC USRAs (exclusively for Black student scholars)

• CIHR and SSHRC USRAs are exclusively for Black student scholars who meet the program eligibility requirements under the supervision of a research-eligible supervisor in any faculty.
• Western has been allocated 4 CIHR USRAs and 4 SSHRC USRAs.
• All Faculties will be invited to submit their top three candidates each for the CIHR USRA and SSHRC USRA awards.
• The proposed research project must align with that specific Agency mandate.
• As with our prior allocations, final selection will be determined centrally via a lottery process.

 

Eligibility

Institutions may continue recommending applications from self-identified Indigenous students beyond their allocation of awards.
New policy for Black student researchers: NSERC provides supplementary allocations for additional awards for Black student researchers.
Indigenous and black student researchers who are recommended for the USRA awards must self-identify and provide consent within the application form for this information to be shared with Western and NSERC. If this is not indicated on the NSERC form, they will be counted as part of the institution’s quota. NSERC will not accept replacement applications.

For CIHR and SSHRC

At the present time, CIHR and SSHRC USRAs are exclusively for Black student researchers. To be eligible to apply for these awards, applicants are asked to disclose within the application form that they self-identify as Black and to confirm that they understand that this information will be shared with the institution to which they are applying and, if awarded, publicly.

Supervisors

Effective 2020, USRA supervisors no longer need to hold NSERC funding. They just need to be authorized by Western to independently supervise students.