External scholarships competitions

This page gives information on two types of awards:

Federal and provincial programs
Other external funding opportunities

For detailed information about scholarships, awards, and bursaries, please consult the Graduate Studies and Postodoctoral Affairs (GSPA) Awards and Funding page.

See the External scholarship recipients page for a list of students who have received external scholarship funding.

Federal and provincial programs

Student submission deadlines are bolded below. It is the students' responsibility to keep track of their submission deadlines.

Please note: The Department cannot nominate students for the Trudeau and Vanier awards without applications. Please see application submission deadlines below.

Please note: Information and dates may be updated depending on further information from the tri-agency and resources available.

Scholarships	Transcript request deadline	Application/Department deadline Students must submit to the Department	Information Sessions
NSERC Doctoral	TBA	Application deadline to submit through the NSERC portal: TBA	The NERSC doctoral workshop slides are available in the Helpful Resources section of the web page.
SSHRC Doctoral	TBA	Department deadline: TBA	The SSHRC Doctoral Workshop slides are available in the Helpful Resources section of the web page.
CGS-M (Tri-Council MA)	TBA	None. Check recent changes.
Trudeau Doctoral	TBA	TBA	Application is available through the Trudeau Foundation Portal.
OGS	TBA	TBA

Other external funding opportunities

Please find below the most recent award funding, scholarships, and bursary opportunities sent to the English Department:

Laura Bassi Scholarship

The Laura Bassi Scholarship was established by Editing Press in 2018 with the aim of providing editorial assistance to postgraduates and junior academics whose research focuses on neglected topics of study, broadly construed, within their disciplines. The scholarships are open to every discipline and are awarded three times per year: December, April, and August. The value of the scholarships are remitted through editorial assistance as follows:

Master’s candidates: $750
Doctoral candidates: $2,500
Junior academics: $500

These figures reflect the upper bracket of costs of editorial assistance for master’s theses, doctoral dissertations, and academic journal articles, respectively. All currently enrolled master’s and doctoral candidates are eligible to apply, as are academics in the first five years of their employment. There are no institutional, departmental, or national restrictions.

Deadlines

Summer 2019

Deadline: 25 July 2019
Results: 15 August 2019

How to Apply

Applicants are required to submit a completed application form along with their CV using the portal prompted by the 'Apply' button below by the relevant deadline.

To help defray the Scholarship’s administrative costs, applicants are subject to a voluntary USD 10.00 fee. All applicants who are unable to pay the application fee are welcome to take advantage of the fee waiver option on the application portal.

Additional inquiries should be directed to scholarships@editing.press

2020 Rhodes Scholarship

The 2020 Rhodes Scholarship competition for Canada (to be held at the University of Oxford, England) has just been launched! Our dedicated web page for this scholarship has been updated

Eligibility Requirements:

must be a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident of Canada
must be studying and living in Canada
must have reached 19th and not have passed 25th birthday on 1 October 2020, which means the applicant must have been born after 30 September 1995 and on or before 1 October 2001.
must have completed (or will have completed by June / July 2020) an undergraduate degree from a college or university (normally a Bachelor’s degree) to a sufficiently high standard to be admitted to postgraduate study at the University of Oxford.

Additional Notes:

must have a minimum first class honours (equivalent to A-)
must have extensive accomplishments – see examples of contributions from past Rhodes applicants
students who have completed or will be completing a master’s degree are also eligible to apply for the Rhodes for a second master’s degree or doctoral degree, providing they still meet all other eligibility requirements, including the age limit.

Application Process:

Applicants must first apply through UW in order to be considered for institutional endorsement, which is required in order to formally apply for the Rhodes Scholarship. Applicants who receive institutional endorsement will receive an authorization code from Waterloo that will enable the Rhodes application to be completed online through the Rhodes website.

Institutional Deadline:

Applicants must email the required application materials to the Co-ordinator, Graduate Financial Aid and Awards in GSPA by Waterloo's firm deadline of 9:00 a.m. EST on August 30, 2019.

Graduate Student Medical Leave Award

Award description:

Effective January 1, 2018 eligible research-based master’s and doctoral students who must go inactive for medical reasons (e.g., physical or mental health) may be eligible to receive a Graduate Student Medical Leave Award, valued at a maximum of $5,000.

Students must have been registered full time for at least one academic term and have been in receipt of a financial package from their Department/School in the term immediately prior to going inactive for medical reasons. Eligible students who provide medical documentation (e.g., official medical documentation completed by a health care practitioner) to AccessAbility Services, to support their request for going inactive due to medical reasons, will be automatically considered for this award. Details regarding the process for submitting medical documentation to AccessAbility Services can be found on the AccessAbility website.

Value description:

One-time award with a maximum value of $5,000 for eligible research-based master’s and PhD students who have been registered for at least one academic term prior to going inactive for medical reasons. The value will be automatically assigned without the need for a complete needs assessment.

Based upon the department funding details in the offer of admission, students registered in a research-based master’s program will receive up to 1/3 of their annual funding package value (including IMSA) to a maximum medical leave award of $5,000; doctoral students will automatically receive the medical leave award maximum of $5,000. University refund and government reporting regulations and the date of the accommodation may also affect the value of the award.

Visit the Graduate Studies website for more information.

International Experience Awards

Several international experience award funds are available to University of Waterloo graduate students who participate in: an academic exchange, a study term related to their research (field work) or an academic requirement (placement), work, or volunteer experience. Award selection is based on a variety of factors such as academic achievement, financial need, length, location, nature of experience and whether it is an applicants first time travelling to a destination etc. Only one application is required in order to be considered for any of the International Experience Awards (see brief descriptions below).

Value:

The value and number of awards vary.

General Eligibility and Selection Criteria:

These awards are intended to provide support for upcoming international experiences, not past experiences while you are a graduate student. (Students should apply as soon as they are able to confirm details of their intended experience by one of the deadlines below).
Travel duration:
- Full-term Experience (for UW Student Mobility Funding Program)
- Minimum of 8 weeks (for David Johnston International Experience Awards)
- Minimum of 8 weeks, however travel lasting at least 4 weeks may be considered and awarded at a reduced value (for UW International Experience Award)
Students must be full‐time and in good academic standing in order to be considered. Some awards require a specific level of academic achievement.
Some of these awards are based fully or partially on financial need.
Funding is generally limited to one award per student in a given year due to the large number of applications received.

Specific Awards:

David Johnston International Experience Awards – open to Canadian Citizens/Permanent Residents or international students, min. 75% graduate average required, for travel anywhere however several specific awards fall under this broader award, including one for travel to Israel (see Lebovic) and another for travel to developing countries (see McCall MacBain).

UW International Experience Awards – open only to Canadian Citizens/Permanent Residents and residents of Ontario, must have demonstrated financial need (have applied for OSAP for the term travelling unless restricted), for travel anywhere.

UW Student Mobility Funding Program – for travel anywhere, with preference given to students with financial need. Several awards fall under this broader award which have specific eligibility requirements (see UW International Travel Award, Hume , Johnson, Kerr and LeDrew.)

For full award descriptions including eligibility and selection criteria, please search for the awards in the Graduate Funding & Awards Database.

Application/Deadline:

Apply by completing the Graduate Student International Experience Award application. This general application will be used to consider you for any of the international experience awards that you may be eligible for. Submit the completed application and all required supporting documentation (as outlined on the application checklist) on or before the deadline to emachado@uwaterloo.ca or to The Centre, Ira G. Needles Hall (NH), first floor. Award selection takes place each term. Please apply by the deadline for the term in which you will be travelling:

Spring (May-August) term travel – March 15

Fall (Sept-Dec) term travel – July 15

Winter (Jan-Apr) term travel – November 15

GSPA will communicate with applicants regarding the competition results within approximately three weeks of the award deadline.