Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship

What replaced the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) merged several doctoral awards — including this one — into a single harmonised programme.

Open the official Canada Graduate Research Scholarship – Doctoral (CGRS-D) page →

External link to the awarding body. LandingPrep is not affiliated with it and does not process applications.

Key facts

How to apply for the Canada Graduate Research Scholarship – Doctoral (CGRS-D)

These steps are for the replacement programme. The Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship itself is closed and cannot be applied for.

1. Confirm you meet the eligibility: Doctoral applicants with no more than 36 months of full-time-equivalent doctoral study by 31 December of the application year. International applicants are eligible, but up to 15% of awards are available to them..
2. Read the official criteria carefully and note exactly what the scholarship values.
3. Secure your university admission or nomination first, where it's required.
4. Write a specific, story-led SOP that ties your goals to the scholarship's mission — build and refine yours free with our SOP tool.
5. Line up strong, tailored recommendation letters early (referees need 2–3 weeks).
6. Highlight leadership, impact and a clear plan for how you'll use the opportunity.
7. Submit well before the 17 October (agency deadline; Canadian institutions set earlier internal dates) deadline, and prepare for an interview if you're shortlisted.

Always verify amounts, eligibility and deadlines on the official scholarship website — these change every year.

Other funding for Canada — and how this one fits

Our dataset holds 2 other Canada awards. Almost nobody wins funding from a single application, so the useful question is not whether to apply for the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship but what else goes on the list beside it.

These awards split across University, Government funding. That distinction matters more than the headline amount: the eligibility gate on a government or institution award is usually fixed and checkable in advance, so you can rule yourself in or out on paper, while merit and need awards turn on a judgement you cannot audit. Build the list from the ones you can verify you qualify for, then add the judgement-based ones on top.

• Funding deadlines run ahead of admission deadlines. and for most awards the money is decided weeks or months before a place is. Applying "on time" for the course and late for the funding is the single most expensive ordinary mistake in this process, and it costs nothing to avoid.
• Some awards need admission or nomination first. Where that is the case the real deadline is the one on the university application, not the one on the scholarship page, because you cannot meet the second without having cleared the first.
• One tailored application beats six generic ones. Every award publishes what it is for. The applications that fail are usually the ones that describe an excellent candidate without ever connecting them to that specific purpose.
• Amounts are rarely what they look like. A full-tuition award in an expensive city can leave a larger gap than a smaller stipend somewhere cheaper. Compare what is left unfunded, not what is granted.

Amounts, eligibility and deadlines are indicative and set by the awarding bodies, who change them without notice. Verify every figure on the official source before you rely on it — including the ones on this page.