Research Admin Offices:

• MILO

Opportunity Type:

• Grant

Value:

Provides $20,000 – $500,000* per year for 1 to 5 years.

NSERC is reducing the maximum annual request for Alliance Society grants to $500,000 (from $1,000,000) per year as of December 1,?2025 at 8:00?pm?(ET). This limit will apply to new applications submitted thereafter. It will not affect applications submitted before this deadline and does not affect grants that have already been awarded.

Disciplines:

• Natural Sciences and Engineering

Sponsors:

• Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC)

Deadlines:

Description:

The NSERC Alliance Society (formerly Option 2) program supports research with goals aimed at filling identified gaps at the intersection of science and society. To solve these challenges, teams must involve people or societal groups affected by these issues in setting the goals and research strategy, and must share the research in unconventional ways that will mean the results are used by those affected groups. Because this approach takes more effort, NSERC may cover up to 100% of the project costs.

Alliance Society projects require a particular focus on the following:

Societal Impact

Alliance Society projects focus on important and unmet needs affecting society or societal groups. Learn about a societal challenge / need where your expertise could help develop a solution. Note that “important for Canada” is not the same as “societal impact”.

Making Connections

Alliance Society projects are needs driven and should include a range of partners and collaborators, including people or societal groups affected by issues the project seeks to address:

• Bring stakeholders together, from science and society;
• Identify the activities and desired outcomes;
• Set the goals and the R&D strategy

Broad Outcomes

Alliance Society projects must have clear mechanisms to make results accessible to the public:

• Knowledge dissemination and mobilization is tailored to end-users;
• Avoid raising barriers for targeted groups to use the results (i.e. IP managements)

Public Impact Value Proposition

The Public Impact Value Proposition is a part of the Alliance application that is unique to Alliance Society and is found on the last page of the proposal template. In this section, applicants will be asked to provide information demonstrating that their proposal meets Alliance Society’s three criteria (above). Answer all four questions in the PIVP section carefully. This is the only material that the PIVP committee sees and they use it to evaluate if the three characteristics for Alliance Society proposal are met. In particular, you must outline the project’s plan to involve affected people or societal groups, as well as groups in your partner organizations’ network to achieve optimal results and impact and you need to show efforts and a plan of how you are reaching beyond the partner organization to define the problem and disseminate outputs.

For all proposals submitted after December 1, 2025 at 8:00PM ET, the role of the Public Value Impact Proposition (PIVP) Selection Committee will be expanded. Along with assessing applications for their fit to the objectives of Alliance Society, the Committee will also provide funding recommendations to NSERC following the merit assessment of each proposal.

Application/Nomination Process:

EVALUTION AND REVIEW PERIOD

Alliance Society applications will be evaluated in two stages. Full applications will be submitted to a multidisciplinary and multisectoral selection committee (PIVP Committee) that will assess whether a higher NSERC contribution is justified. The selection committee will meet on a quarterly basis. If selected, applications will then proceed to the second step for review of overall merit, similar to Alliance Advantage with the following project review times (note these estimated review times are after the PIVP Committee has made its decision).

Contact:

Thinking of applying? Contact the McMaster Industry Liaison Office for guidance documents and next steps:

Amber Metham, Associate Director (Research Contracts): metham@mcmaster.ca

Faculty of Engineering: Ross Huyskamp, Research Contracts Advisor: huyskar@mcmaster.ca

All other Faculties: Leanna Fong, Research Contracts Advisor: fongl@mcmaster.ca