As the presidents of Canada’s three federal research funding agencies—the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)—we wish to express our deep solidarity with the Ukrainian people in the context of Vladimir Putin’s unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine.

We welcome the recent statement by the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, and the Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Health, calling for measures to support Ukrainian research personnel in their time of need.

To this end, our agencies are pleased to announce a new Special Response Fund for Trainees (Ukraine). This temporary fund will allow all active and eligible grant-holders across the three agencies to apply for a supplement that will provide one-year relief and assistance to trainees (i.e., individuals eligible for master’s, doctoral or postdoctoral support) whose research in Ukraine has been interrupted by the invasion. Additionally, it enables grant-holders to retain research trainees who were expected to return to Ukraine in 2022 but cannot because of the current situation.

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