Instructions for submitting a registration using the Convergence Portal

These instructions are to be used in conjunction with the information in the Canada Impact+ Research Chairs (Impact+) funding opportunity and the Requirements for recruiting and nominating Canada Impact+ Research Chairs.

Principal research administrators (PRAs): Each institution has one or two appointed PRAs, who are entrusted with the critical responsibility of managing user privileges within the Convergence Portal. These administrators assign appropriate access rights to the senior official and delegates at their institution based on their roles and responsibilities.

Senior official: The designated representative with the institutional authority to create and sign off on registrations and applications (for example, the provost or vice-president, Research, depending on the institution). The senior official has both read and write privileges in the Convergence Portal. Nominating institutions must take all necessary measures to ensure that the senior official is available to complete the attestation and submission of registrations and applications by the due date and time. Please note that the “CERC SO” role in Convergence is shared between the Impact+ and CERC programs.

Delegate(s): The designated employee(s) at the nominating institution who has (have) a role in the Impact+ registration and application process. The institution can name as many delegates as needed. Delegates have both read and write privileges in the Convergence Portal. Please note that the “CERC delegate” role in Convergence is shared between the Impact+ and CERC programs. 

Nominee: The person who is nominated for an Impact+ Research Chair. Once the nominee is invited by the nominating institution, they will have, with some restrictions, read and write privileges in the Convergence Portal. See the Invite nominee section for information on the steps the nominee will need to take to complete their profile.

The following table describes the read and write privileges in the Convergence Portal.

Nominating institutions and nominees must complete the registration using the Convergence Portal. All individuals taking part in preparing the registration must have a Convergence Portal account. They may choose either of the official languages (English or French) to submit documents and information related to this competition.

The nominating institution is responsible for creating the registration and submitting it once it is complete. The nominating institution must create and submit separate registrations for each nomination. No registrations will be accepted after the deadline and no extensions to the deadline will be provided. After the registration deadline, no changes can be made to the registration.

The Convergence Portal is supported only on the latest versions of Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Apple Safari and Mozilla Firefox. Use of an unsupported browser is strongly discouraged.

Senior officials can create registrations in the Research Administrator dashboard. Senior officials can only create as many registrations as their institutional limits allow (see Institutional application limits).

Once the senior official has created a registration in the Research Administrator dashboard, it can be accessed in the Institutional Applications tab. Once a nominee has been invited to a registration, they can access the registration in their Applications tab.

The following modules must be completed in Convergence before finalizing and submitting a registration.

Once a registration has been submitted, all entries other than the nominee may be modified in the application.

To complete this module, provide the following required information:

• Proposed Chair title: The Chair title should include the full program name, i.e. “Canada Impact+ Research Chair in …”. It should be descriptive and should not include symbols or abbreviations. For example, use “and” instead of “&”. The title should also be short and in language plain enough for a lay audience and members of the media to understand and use it.
• Language of the application: Indicate which official language (English or French) will be used for the application.
• Expected chairholder appointment date: Enter the anticipated date that the nominee will take up their chairholder appointment at the host institution. Chairholders will be required to take up their appointment no later than 12 months after the award is accepted. TIPS will contact successful institutions after award acceptance to confirm whether any changes need to be made to the expected date of appointment specified in the application.
• Alignment with a federal research funding agency: Based on the mandates of the three federal research funding agencies and the research area(s) of the Chair, select the agency with which this Chair primarily aligns. This selection is used by TIPS for financial and reporting purposes and should not be viewed as directing interdisciplinary research programs to shift their focus or align primarily with a particular agency’s mandate.
• Indigenous research: Indicate whether the proposal involves Indigenous research as defined by SSHRC. If the application involves Indigenous research, it will be peer reviewed in the context of SSHRC’s Indigenous Research Statement of Principles and the Guidelines for the Merit Review of Indigenous Research.

For nominees to access and complete the registration, the nominating institution must invite the nominee. The Convergence Portal platform will then send an email to the nominee, who can accept or decline the invitation.

Upon accepting the invitation, the nominee will log into the Convergence Portal (or create an account) to complete their enrolment and update their profile. During enrolment, the nominee will be asked to confirm that they are being nominated in only one application across the Impact+ and CERC 2026 competitions. The same nominee cannot be submitted in both competitions.

As part of the invitation process, the nominee will be asked to fill out a self-identification form in the Convergence Portal. The self-identification form is a mandatory component for a complete Impact+ nomination package. All nominees are encouraged to self-identify in all groups that apply to them. This ensures that the program will have accurate representation data of nominees and awardees for monitoring and reporting purposes. The form includes an option to indicate “prefer not to say” in response to the questions. The nominee can modify their self-identification information at any time by updating the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion section of their account profile.

The self-identification form is not part of the application, and is neither accessible to, nor shared with, the nominating institution (senior official or delegates), external reviewers and/or selection committee members.

The self-identification information will be stored electronically in the nominee’s account profile, and access is limited to agency staff on a need-to-know basis. TIPS staff will use this information for administrative and statistical purposes. It may also be used to report to government or the public, where it will be reported in a form (e.g., aggregate) that ensures protection of the identity of any individual.

Further information about the collection of self-identification information can be found on the Canada Research Chairs Program’s Frequently asked questions webpage.

The name, title and current affiliation of the nominee invited in the preceding module will appear in the “Nominee” module. This information is required by TIPS to ensure potential reviewers are not in a conflict of interest with the nominee.

Select two socioeconomic objectives, one of which needs to be indicated as primary.

The Canadian Research and Development Classification (CRDC) was jointly developed by the three federal research funding agencies, along with the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Statistics Canada. The Convergence Portal contains Socioeconomic Objective (SEO) - CRDC 2020 Version 1.0. If you have any questions or would like to provide feedback, email R&D-Classification@sshrc-crsh.gc.ca.

Chairs will be awarded in alignment with the program’s strategic priority areas. Please refer to the Canada Impact+ Research Chairs funding opportunity for more details. Applications are invited from a broad range of disciplines in the social sciences and humanities, natural sciences and engineering, and health and related sciences.

In this module, using the strategic priority areas listed in the funding opportunity, select a single area that is relevant to the application.

Select two fields of research from the CRDC codes that relate to the proposed research, one of which must be indicated as primary.

List between five and 10 keywords to describe the proposed research program.

Provide a summary (maximum 2,500 characters) of the proposal in language that the public can understand. Using simple terms, describe:

• the nature of the proposed research program;
• the proposed research program’s objectives;
• the research approach; and
• the work’s novelty and expected significance.

This summary will be shared with potential peer reviewers and used in the application peer review process. If the proposal is funded, this summary will be made available to the public and used for promotional and communications purposes.

In this module, select “yes” or “no” in answer to the question, “Is a request for infrastructure support from the Canada Foundation for Innovation included with this Chair nomination?”

For more information on CFI support requests, see the Canada Impact+ Research Chairs funding opportunity. The CFI portion must be submitted via the CFI’s Award Management System (CAMS).

Only the senior official has access to this module. The senior official must answer questions related to the nominee’s recruitment to attest that the nominating institution has followed the Requirements for recruiting and nominating Canada Impact+ Research Chairs.

In particular, the senior official must attest that they discussed this nomination with the nominee to ensure that they understand the nature of Canadian federal research funding and the specific parameters of the Impact+ program (its objectives, priorities, and relevant administration policies and responsibilities). The senior official must also attest that the nominee is not being nominated by another institution in the current Impact+ and CERC competitions. Multiple nominations of the same nominee will result in the rejection of all applications associated to this nominee.

They must also attest that the nomination aligns with the program’s commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion, and with the nominating institution’s equity, diversity and inclusion policies and practices.

The Tri-agency Institutional Programs Secretariat reserves the right to ask institutions to provide, at any time within 48 months of submission, all documentation that demonstrates the requirements for the recruitment process were followed.

Where results of a monitoring exercise find that the program’s requirements have not been followed for the nomination, the program reserves the right to withdraw the nomination, suspend future payments or terminate the award of an already active Chair.

After all registration modules have been completed successfully, the senior official must read and accept the Terms and Conditions to finalize and submit the registration to the Impact+ program. After the senior official accepts the terms and conditions, the registration status will change to “Received by Agency.”

If you have questions:

• about the application process, email impactplus@chairs-chaires.gc.ca  
• about the Convergence Portal, email websupport@convergence.gc.ca
• about requests for accessibility and adaptive measures, email impactplus@chairs-chaires.gc.ca or communicate with the nominating institution’s accessibility contact included in their job posting