AMTD - Eligibility and selection criteria

Who is eligible to apply?

You should apply for the AMTD if:

• you are an emerging global leader in your discipline;
• you have a disruptive research agenda that challenges existing knowledge with an end goal of advancing the betterment of society; and
• you are a demonstrated leader, with exceptional communication skills, whose research agenda prioritizes innovative ways to engage with communities within and outside of academia.  

Canadian citizens, permanent residents of Canada, and foreign citizens are eligible to apply. Individuals who are Canadian Citizens or Permanent Residents of Canada who identify as Black or Indigenous* are also strongly encouraged to apply. 

*For the purpose of this fellowship, an Indigenous person is one who is a citizen or member of a First Nations (Status/Non-Status), Métis, Inuit community as defined in the Canadian Constitution Act 1982.

Applicants to the 2023 AMTD Fellowship must fulfil or have “fulfilled all degree requirements”** for a PhD:

• Between July 1, 2019 and July 1, 2023 (inclusively)

For applicants who have completed more than one PhD, the eligibility window applies to the most recent of the degrees.

The window of eligibility can be extended by a cumulative maximum of two years if the applicant had their academic career interrupted for one or more of the following reasons:

• Parental leave
• Illness
• Health-related family responsibilities
• Mandatory military service
• Attention to matters of cultural or community significance
• Disruptions due to war, civil conflicts and/or natural disasters in a country of residence

Interruptions used to extend the eligibility window for degree completion must have occurred after the “fulfilment of the degree requirements” and before the application submission deadline.

**“Fulfilled all degree requirements” refers to the date that all degree requirements were met, including thesis defence corrections and submission of thesis. It does not refer to the convocation date.

Eligibility restrictions:

• Applicants who currently hold a tri-agency postdoctoral fellowship (Banting, CIHR, NSERC, SSHRC) are eligible to apply for the AMTD Fellowship only if the term of that funding officially ends prior to the start of the AMTD Fellowship.
• Applicants must not hold a tenure-track or tenured faculty position, nor can they be on leave from such a position.
• The AMTD Fellowship is non-renewable and is issued for the duration initially awarded. It can only be held once in a lifetime. Successful receipt of the AMTD Fellowship may prohibit scholars from holding any other University of Waterloo-funded postdoctoral fellowships.
• Applicants who submit an application to the AMTD Fellowship can not apply to the Provost’s Program for Interdisciplinary Postdoctoral Scholars or the Provost’s Program for Black and Indigenous Postdoctoral Scholars.
• The competition is intended for scholars outside of the University of Waterloo; current Waterloo postdocs, research associates or those about to begin a postdoc appointment at Waterloo are not eligible. Current Waterloo PhD candidates or recent Waterloo PhD graduates may be considered only in exceptional circumstances (e.g., scientific, family, health). In order for a current University of Waterloo PhD candidate or recent graduate to be considered, the applicant and supervisor must demonstrate how the postdoctoral appointment will generate transformative outcomes that are beyond the trajectory of the PhD research.
• Successful scholars must be able to start their appointments no later than September 30, 2023. One of the goals of this program is to create a community of scholars from the same competition year. Scholars unable to start an appointment by September 30, 2023 are encouraged to apply for the next round of competition if still eligible.
• While adjunct faculty or faculty members associated with one of the University Colleges (e.g., Conrad Grebel, Renison, St. Jerome’s, United College (formerly St. Paul’s)) are able to support an application, a co-supervisor who is a fully appointed faculty member at Waterloo, must also support the application.

What are the selection criteria?

Fellowships will be awarded in the University of Waterloo's strategic areas of research strength. The program seeks to attract globally recognized, emergent scholars whose work has the possibility to disrupt their disciplines, and the global community. The University seeks candidates who have demonstrated:

The expectation is that the scholars will possess a subset of the following attributes:

• Applicant has held prominent funding, including tri-agency funding or other national level awards as a graduate student;
• Applicant has held a number of meritorious institutional awards;
• Applicant has an exceptional record of research output or research creation (including but not limited to journal articles, book chapters, conference proceedings or other demonstrative outputs) appropriate for their discipline;
• Applicant actively engaged in community and scholarly activities, with an emphasis on research and knowledge dissemination;
• Applicant is one whose academic and scholarly activities place them in the top 1-3% of their peers;
• Applicant and proposed University of Waterloo faculty member have a strong statement of proposed research