Background

The Banting Postdoctoral Fellows (BPDF) program is a very prestigious and competitive postdoctoral fellowship program supported by the Government of Canada.  Please refer to the program website for the latest guidelines.

Since this is an extremely competitive program and only a limited number of BPDFs are  awarded each year (success rate in 2020 competition was about 10%), universities strategically put in place internal peer review processes to review and facilitate the submission of the strongest applicants to the Banting Program.  The Banting program expects universities to be highly selective in their endorsement of applications and to only put forward the highest quality of applicants.

The BPDF differs from traditional funding programs in that its specific emphasis is on the synergy between the applicant and the proposed institution. It is important to note that a BPDF applicant must be able to demonstrate how their proposed Banting-funded research is a strong fit with both their supervisor and Lakehead University's Research Plan priorities.

An internal peer review committee will be appointed by the Vice-President Research and Innovation and will rank/recommend applicants to be submitted to the program (with the final approval of the Vice-President, Research and Innovation).  Lakehead University’s evaluation process will ensure that applicants from equity seeking groups have an equal opportunity to participate in the program. All committee members will be required to have reviewed the resources available on the Banting Equity, Diversity and Inclusion page.

Lakehead University’s internal application and selection process is as follows:

Procedures and Timelines - (Please note the updated required application materials list below)   

June 14, 2021:  Candidate contacts and finalizes proposed Lakehead University supervisor.

July 12, 2021:  Deadline for submission of complete Banting application packages. As part of the internal review process, candidates will be required to complete the online Banting application and submit supporting documents. Please submit your package as a single PDF file to the Office of Research (to Andrew Hacquoil, Research Facilitator, Institutional Programs, at ahacquo1@lakeheadu.ca).  Incomplete applications will not be accepted.*

Checklist

*The following parts of the BPDF application (which can all be found in the official Application Guide on the BPDF website) are required by the internal deadline (please note the the three referee letters are not required as part of the internal submission package)

●        [   ] CCV - using the Vanier-Banting academic template

●        [   ] Banting application details - a pdf of the actual application that is completed in ResearchNet (a pdf of the preview version is required.  Please note that is NOT a print screen); normally 5-6 pages)

●        [   ] Significance of Research Contributions - maximum of one page

●        [   ] Significance of Leadership Contributions - maximum of one page

●        [   ] Fulfillment of degree requirements form - this form is required even if PhD has not yet been completed (for Lakehead University applicants that have not yet completed their PhD, this form must be completed by the relevant academic unit's graduate coordinator).

●        [   ] Special Circumstances, if applicable – maximum of one page

●        [   ] Research Proposal – maximum of four pages

●        [   ] Bibliography – maximum of four pages

●         [   ] Attachment: Supervisor's statement – to be completed by the proposed supervisor

August 3, 2021:  Internal peer review committee completes internal peer review of applications and submits recommendations to the Vice-President Research and Innovation   

August 9, 2021:  Notification of successful and unsuccessful applicants and their proposed supervisors. A summary of the feedback from the internal review committee on the BPDF application  will be provided by the Office of Research Services to both successful and unsuccessful applicants and their mentors.  Applicants who are successful in the internal competition will be assigned to a Research Facilitator in the Office of Research Services who will work with the applicant and supervisor on improving the quality of the application considering all feedback available to the applicant.       

September 8, 2021:  Full applications are due to the assigned Research Facilitator in the Office of Research Services for final review.

September 17, 2021:  Institutional support letter provided to the successful applicant(s)  

*All applicants to the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship must follow the internal application process set by the Office of Research Services. A key part of the Banting application process is the institutional support letter. Applicants that do not follow this process will not receive institutional support.  Only applications that have been received by our internal deadline and reviewed by our internal peer review committee will be considered for submission to the Banting Program.