Collaborative Research and Training Experience (CREATE) Program

NSERC's Collaborative Research and Training Experience (CREATE) program supports the training and mentoring of teams of highly qualified students and postdoctoral fellows from Canada and abroad through the development of innovative training programs that:

• encourage collaborative and integrative approaches between large and medium or small sized institutions to address significant scientific challenges
• facilitate the transition of new researchers from trainees to productive employees in the Canadian workforce

For this year's competition, it is anticipated the NSERC CREATE program will include both the regular and international streams (please note that it is anticipated that as in the past, the international stream is linked to collaborating with researchers in Germany as well as the German research foundation, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)).* 

Institutions are all given an allotment of regular CREATE LOIs (the international stream will not count towards this allotment) that they can submit and that go directly to the full application stage.  Lakehead has one regular stream LOI in its allotment. However, when an institution submits a number of LOIs greater than its NSERC program allotment,  their LOIs will be evaluated by NSERC to determine which LOI will advance to the application stage. 

NEW - For the 2027 competition, NSERC will fund one additional CREATE initiative through quantum funding announced in Budget 2025 as part of the upcoming Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS). This initiative aims to advance the strategy’s workforce development priorities by supporting training opportunities that result in skilled and technologically proficient research trainees in areas including, but not limited to, quantum communications, quantum sensing, quantum materials, quantum computing, and quantum software. Applications will be evaluated through the normal CREATE peer review process, but applications should include "Quantum" in the title. LOIs submitted to the Quantum call are not included in each university’s allotment of LOIs advancing to the application stage. Each university can submit up to one LOI for the Quantum call. If more than one quantum expression of interest is received, an internal competition/review will need to be held to determine which Lakehead quantum LOI is submitted under Lakehead’s quota. All other quantum LOIs will be submitted under Lakehead’s regular stream (see above information).

If you intend to submit an LOI to this program, you  must notify the Office of Research Services (ahacquo1@lakeheadu.ca) by February 13, 2026 of your intention to apply to this opportunity

Given the highly competitive nature of the NSERC CREATE program and the requirement for institutional support, Principal Investigators will be required to work closely with assigned research facilitators from the conceptualization of the project proposal to final submission (this includes seeking support from co-applicant institutions).

The NSERC LOI submission deadline is May 1, 2026, and the full application deadline is September 22, 2026.

More details about the 2027 CREATE competition will be communicated at the information session for potential applicants on February 13, 2026. Updates to the CREATE program website for the 2027 CREATE competition will be posted in February 2026.

*International Research Training Groups (IRTG) – with DFG (Germany)

Submitting an application for the IRTG for a German-Canadian bilateral training program takes time but can be very rewarding, and the CREATE grant can be extended up to 9 years.  However, given the NSERC and DFG timelines, to apply to the NSERC Create competition in 2026, you will need to have an approved pre-proposal to DFG before the LOI deadline.  If you are starting now to develop the DFG proposal, you should expect to apply to the CREATE program next year at the earliest. The steps are:

1. Establish a collaboration with a research university in Germany
2. RECOMMENDED:  Team applies for a DFG grant (matching funds required) to conduct an IRTG preparatory workshop (either in Germany or Canada)
3. Team submits a pre-proposal (DFG calls it a “draft application”) to DFG at any time (no deadline) – review takes several months
4. If the DFG pre-proposal is successful: Submit the LOI to NSERC by the deadline of the next cycle.
5. If the LOI is successful: Submit full proposal to both DFG and NSERC. Both agencies must approve the proposal to be successful.