The objective of the Concerted Actions program is to foster research development and knowledge transfer in the social sciences, humanities, arts and literature so as to better understand social issues and phenomena and develop new approaches and innovative solutions.

Through this program, the Fonds aims specifically to:

• Meet the need for increased knowledge expressed by partners in various sectors across Québec;
• Support the advancement of knowledge in the social sciences, humanities, arts and literature as it pertains to the issues that impact Québec society;
• Support researcher training and the development of research capacity in current and emerging themes through partnership research;
• Increase the decision-making and innovation capabilities of organizations and contribute to the development and assessment of public policy;
• Encourage knowledge sharing between those who generate knowledge and those who use it.

The attainment of these objectives is conditional upon the participation of partners in different phases in the process, from the definition of knowledge needs to the appropriation of the research results, and also upon the participation of researchers in various fields with diverse approaches and methodologies.

The program hinges on partnerships: Concerted Action partners who determine the needs and fund the research and research partners who collaborate with investigators on a daily basis to carry out the research program or project and implement the knowledge transfer strategy. 

• Meets research needs stemming from a single theme;
• Allows for the awarding of several scholarships and grants;
• May provide various funding components;
• May be eligible for several competitions.

• Meets a specific, short-term research need;
• May be an evaluative research initiative to enhance a program or an intervention, synthesize current knowledge, etc;
• Funds a limited number of projects;
• Is generally eligible for only one competition.

COMPONENTS

Different funding components are available to the scientific community for each type of concerted action. These components are detailed in each call for proposals.

FOLLOW-UP AND TRANSFER PROCESS

In an effort to inform Concerted Action partners of the progress of the research, foster the broad dissemination of findings to stakeholders and support the appropriation of the research results, each funded project will include follow-up meetings and a knowledge-transfer activity.

Follow-up committee

• Made up of Concerted Action partners, researchers, scholarship and grant recipients and Fonds representatives. If necessary, external resources may also be invited to take part.
• Meets when the research project begins and then again at a frequency jointly established by the scholarship and grant recipients and the Concerted Action partners. Funding recipients are required to participate. Travel expenses inherent to this activity must be provided for in the scholarship or grant budget.

Progress report

• Required for certain Concerted Actions. When required, details are provided in the call for proposals.

• Final report: In all cases, funding recipients must produce a final report no later than three months after the end of the scholarship or grant period (Master's and doctoral students must provide access to their thesis or dissertation). 25% of the last portion of the grant is retained until the final report is submitted (required condition for receiving the final grant instalment). The final report may be written in English or French. If written in English, it must be accompanied by a title and abstract in French. The conditions governing the submission of the report are set out in the call for proposals. The report must be submitted no more than 12 months after the end date of the grant, except under exceptional circumstances. If a final research report is not submitted within the prescribed time, no regular member involved in the grant may receive new funding from the Fonds until the situation has been remedied.

Transfer activity

• Organized by the Fonds in collaboration with Concerted Action researchers and partners once the final report has been submitted to the Fonds. Funding recipients are required to participate. Travel expenses inherent to this activity must be provided for in the scholarship or grant budget.

Obligations of scholarship and grant  recipients

• Scholarship and grant recipients must take part in follow-up meetings and the transfer activity. Refusal to participate in these activities may lead to the suspension of the scholarship or grant.

Participation costs

Expenses related to participation in the follow-up committee and the transfer activity:

•  Are the responsibility of the participants.

• Must be provided for in the scholarship or grant budget under "Travel and subsistence costs".

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Details: section 1.5 of the Common General Rules

The Fonds adheres to the Plan d'action sur la gestion de la propriété intellectuelle implemented by the government of Québec and complies with the practices in effect in the research sector. Concerted Action partners must also comply. 

Recognition

The Fonds and its partners:

• Recognize the researchers' intellectual property rights as they pertain to original raw data, interim research and the results of the funded project.
• Will not divulge the results before the researcher has submitted his/her report. 

Interim data

• May reproduce, translate and/or communicate, through any medium, the original raw data collected by the scholarship or grant recipients—or by others working under their supervision—with the recipients' prior approval. 
• May use the interim research results communicated during follow-up activities or in progress reports, with the scholarship or grant recipients' prior approval.

Final report and research findings

• May reproduce, translate and/or communicate the final report through any medium.
• May use the research results that have been made public by the scholarship or grant recipients. 

Appropriate citations 

• Will comply with regular university research citation standards at all times, especially with regards to subsequent work based on the research results.

Delay of disclosure

• If the partners ask for a delay of the results disclosure, an agreement must be made with the researchers as to the date at which the results will be divulged.
• The delay must not exceed one month, except in the case of a major foreseeable event (e.g. parliamentary committee hearings). 

Obligations of funding recipients

• Further to the provisions of Section 7 of the CGR, funding recipients must fully disclose all research results as early as possible through follow-up activities, progress reports, the final report, the transfer activity, publications and any other means.

Final report copyright

Funding recipients:

• Must grant, to the Fonds as well as to each of the Concerted Action partners, a non-exclusive, non-transferable copyright licence on the final report, without territorial limits (worldwide) and for an unlimited period of time, for which the grant constitutes consideration.
• Assure the Fonds and each of the Concerted Action partners that they hold all the rights that entitle them to consent to the assignment of copyright in accordance with this agreement. 

DEVELOPMENT

• Determine needs with partners;
• Approval from the Fonds Board of Directors to begin the collaboration;
• Development of the call for proposals;
• Signature of Fonds-partners memorandum of understanding.

COMPETITION AND EVALUATION

• Launch of the call for proposals;
• Submission of the letters of intent;
• Relevance assessments;
• Announcement of the results;
• Submission of the applications for funding;
•  Scientific evaluations;
•  Funding recommendations to the Board of Director and partners;
• Announcement of the results.

PROJECT

• Start of the project;
• Follow-up meetings.

KNOWLEDGE MOBILIZATION  

• Submission of the final report;
• Transfer meeting.

Reference documents

Funding recipients must meet the general eligibility conditions stipulated in the CGR and all requirements described herein. Applicants for the Scholarships, Research Support for New Academics and Research Team Support components should refer to the conditions presented in the following documents:

Scholarship component

Master's Research Scholarship (B1)

Doctoral Research Scholarship (B2)

Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (B3)

New Academics component 

Research support for new academics
(before:Research Support for New Academics (NP))

STATUS DEFINITIONS

See Appendix 1(b) of the CGR (Researcher Status).

PROJECT LEADER

CHU, CHUN, CRU, CRUN, CHC;

CE: Only when specified in the call for proposals.

REGULAR MEMBERS
(Section A of the form)

CHU, CHUN, CRU, CRUN, CHUT, CHC, CE

Special cases

CEN, CHG, PC, COP and CHA may be regular members of action research projects.

COLLABORATING MEMBERS
(Section B of the form)

All statuses defined in Appendix 1(b) of the CGR are eligible.

The scientific output of collaborating members will not be evaluated.

LANGUAGES

• French or English (Sec. 3.6, CGR).
• Title and abstract must be in French.

ATTACHED DOCUMENT

The document attached to the e-form must comply with the following requirements:

• Single-spaced;

• Only Times 12, Palatino 12, Arial 11, Helvetica 11 fonts will be accepted;

• Narrow fonts are not allowed.

E-FORMS

• Only the e-forms obtained on the Website and submitted through the FRQSC system are accepted. (Sec. 3.2, CGR)
• Print the static PDF version before filling out the online form.

PLEASE NOTE: E-forms are developed for each call for proposals, based on program components.

CANADIAN COMMON CV 

• Mandatory for all regular members and postdoctoral scholarship applicants.
• Must be submitted electronically with the letter of intent form.

PLEASE NOTE: when submitting a letter of intent, only the project leader's Canadian Common CV is required.

WHY?

• To assess the relevance of the proposals based on the needs expressed in the call for proposals.

WHO?

• A relevance committee made up of Concerted Action partner representatives and members of other organizations selected by the partner (and approved by the FRQSC) for their knowledge of the research topic.

WHEN?

• By the deadline specified in the call for proposals.

• Letter of intent e-form.
• Canadian Common CV of the project leader.
• Optional: Letters of authorization and support from research partners

• To assess the scientific quality of the proposals.

• Peer committee made up of research experts in fields relevant to the scholarship and grant applications.

• By the deadline specified in the call for proposals.

REQUIRED DOCUMENTS 

•  E-form.
• Canadian Common CVs of regular team members, submitted electronically with the application.*
• The Detailed Contributions attachment, which is available in the "Useful Documents" area of the program page. You must save the attachment in PDF format in your "My Account" file on the Fonds website.

*Regular members with COP status (only possible under the "Action Research" component) must submit an abridged CV (maximum 2 pages) summarizing the following in relation to the team's research program, in the order listed: 1) Training, 2) Experience and 3) Publications or other scientific achievements, if applicable. Abridged CVs must be written using word processing software, converted to PDF format and included after the Detailed Contributions attachment of the project leader's Canadian Common CV, by the competition deadline.

• The following documents, where required, must be scanned and included after the Detailed Contributions attachment of the project leader's Canadian Common CV, by the competition deadline: o  
  • Letters of authorization and support from research partners;
  • Editor's letters attesting to all publications listed as "accepted" or "in print";
  • Letters of acknowledgement for all publications listed as "submitted";
  • Two estimates from suppliers for equipment costing over $20,000. 

MASTER'S SCHOLARSHIPS

Consult the Master's Research Scholarship program rules

PLEASE NOTE: Use the master's scholarship forms provided for the Concerted Actions program

DOCTORAL SCHOLARSHIPS

Consult the Doctoral Research Scholarship program rules

PLEASE NOTE: Use the doctoral scholarship forms provided for the Concerted Actions program

POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS

Consult the Postdoctoral Fellowship program rules

PLEASE NOTE: Use the Postdoctoral Fellowship forms provided forms provided for the Concerted Actions program

WHO?

• All applicants must submit a letter of intent.

BY WHOM?

• The relevance committee is made up of Fonds representatives and Concerted Action partners.

WHY?

• To enable partners to assess the suitability and relevance of the letter of intent in light of the objectives and needs outlined in the call for proposals.
• To enable applicants to benefit from the suggestions and ideas proposed by the relevance committee to enhance the suitability of the project in light of the objectives outlined in the call for proposals.

HOW?

• The letter of intent is evaluated according to the evaluation criteria and weighting detailed in the call for proposals, based on the Scores and ratings grid.

PLEASE NOTE: The recommendations of the relevance committee will be transmitted to the scientific evaluation committee. Applicants must take into account these comments and suggestions or explain, in their application, their decision not to do so.

WHO?

• Only applicants whose letters of intent were determined to be relevant will be invited to apply for funding.

BY WHOM?

• The scientific committee is made up of Canadian and international experts in fields relevant to the applications submitted.
• Fonds and partner representatives will take part in the scientific evaluations as observers.

• The evaluation criteria and weighting are set out in the call for proposals.
• The committee assesses the scientific quality of the application and it's the potential benefits of the proposed project, particularly as they pertain to the needs outlined in the call for proposals. The evaluation is based on the Scores and ratings grid.

HOW?

• The committee will rank the applications and determine those recommended for funding.

PLEASE NOTE: The score given by the relevance assessment does not count towards the final score of the scientific evaluation. However, the scientific committee will evaluate whether the researchers considered the comments of the relevance committee. A certain number of points (see the call for proposals) will be awarded for this criterion.

Reference documents 

• CGR
• Responsible Conduct of Research Policy 

AMOUNT

• Specified in the call for proposals.

ELIGIBLE EXPENSES

• The list of eligible budgetary items for each program component is detailed in the appendix of the call for proposals. 

RELEASE FROM TEACHING DUTIES FOR COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY RESEARCHERS

• Eligible only when stated in the call for proposals.

ETHICS CERTIFICATE 

• Funds will only be paid out once the Fonds has received an ethics certificate, where required.

Reference documents 

• Common General Rules
• Scholarship Holder's Guide (Master's and Doctoral scholarships)
• Postdoctoral Fellowship Holder's Guide
• Responsible Conduct of Research Policy

CONCERTED ACTIONS DEVELOPMENT

Marie-Thérèse Duquette
418 643-7582 Ext. 3162
marie-therese.duquette@frq.gouv.qc.ca

Nathalie Roy
418 643-7582 Ext. 3138
nathalie.roy@frq.gouv.qc.ca

PROGRAM MANAGEMENT

Nathalie Roy
418 643-7582 Ext. 3138
nathalie.roy@frq.gouv.qc.ca

Marc Bélanger
418 643-7582 Ext. 3192
marc.belanger@frq.gouv.qc.ca
actions-concertees.sc@frq.gouv.qc.ca

Julien Chapdelaine
418 643-7582 Ext. 3146
julien.chapdelaine@frq.gouv.qc.ca