The James M. Flaherty Scholarship Program is a premier international exchange program, designed to stimulate and support educational exchange and partnership between Canada and Ireland at the highest level of academia and, more broadly, to facilitate a greater engagement between the peoples of both countries in matters related to culture, innovation and trade.
Canada has committed $150,000 annually for five years, while the Government of Ireland has committed €100,000 annually for three years, with the option of extending funding for the fourth and fifth years, in order to make this scholarship available.
The scholarships will be operated at two levels:
- Level 1 is for established researchers and academics. It will enable them to take part-time sabbatical-style leave from their academic appointments to spend up to two months as visiting professors in a university department in the other country, where they will collaborate in both research and teaching.
- Level 2 is for emerging research scholars, typically either PhD students or post-doctoral young academics, embarking on a research career. Level 2 scholarships will enable these scholars, through a four-week visit to the other country, to make contact with researchers working on related research topics and to widen and deepen their research horizons. These contacts will facilitate continuing research collaboration.
A centrepiece of the James M. Flaherty Scholarship Program will be a high-profile annual lecture, to be given in Ireland by a leading figure in the Irish-Canadian field. The speakers, selected in conjunction with Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada (DFATD), will speak on a subject of interest to both countries.
