AMTD - Eligibility and selection criteria

Who is eligible to apply?

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

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

Applicants who self-identify must provide a written attestation that they identify as belonging to the respective community. For example, if belonging to an Indigenous community, applicants must provide heritage background through written documentation as applicable.

Applicants to the 2022 AMTD Fellowship must fulfil or have “fulfilled all degree requirements”** for a PhD:

• Between July 1, 2018 and July 1, 2022 (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. In exceptional cases, the terms of duration of the fellowship may be amended.
• 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. Only in exceptional circumstances (e.g., scientific, family, health) may a current Waterloo PhD candidate or a recent PhD graduate apply for AMTD endorsement. 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.

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:

• Academic excellence

• Research productivity

• Evidence of leadership and external engagement, both academic and beyond the academy

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

• Applicant has held prominent funding, including tri-agency funding in Canada 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