The 2025 Exploration stream competition of the New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF) was launched on April 29th, 2025. The objective of the Exploration stream is to support high-risk, high-reward and interdisciplinary research. It seeks to inspire projects that bring disciplines together beyond traditional disciplinary or common interdisciplinary approaches by research teams with the capacity to explore something new that might fail, but that has the potential for significant impact.

Exploration grants support research with a range of impacts—economic, scientific, artistic, cultural, social, technological, environmental or health-related. This list is not exhaustive; other types of impacts are also recognized. Diversity of perspectives is important, and the fund encourages research proposals led from any discipline, from those in the social sciences and humanities, to health, the natural sciences and engineering.

All competition information is available on the NFRF website, and the competition can now be accessed via the Convergence Portal.

Essential Information

Value: Up to $125,000 per year (including indirect costs).

Duration: Up to two years.

Results Announced: By March 31, 2026.

The Exploration competition has two stages:

To encourage projects that push the boundaries in terms of interdisciplinarity, proposals must be submitted by research teams with at least two individuals. In addition to a nominated principal investigator (NPI), the team must include either a co-principal investigator (co-PI) or a co-applicant. Teams may include one co-PI and any number of co-applicants and/or collaborators.

A proportion of awards equal to the proportion of applications submitted that are led by early career researchers will be reserved for these projects. A proposal is considered to be led by early career researchers (ECRs) if both the NPI and co-PI (if applicable) are ECRs.

To ensure that Exploration grants support high-risk, high-reward projects across the broadest spectrum of disciplines, individuals can participate in only one application of the NFRF Exploration grants stream at a time, as either an NPI, co-PI or co-applicant. If an NPI, co-PI or co-applicant also had such a role on a previous Exploration grant-funded project, their final report for the previous project must be submitted and approved at least one month before the full application deadline for the present Exploration competition.

In preparation for the NOI deadline, we encourage all applicants interested in submitting an NOI to participate in one of the two upcoming webinars. Below are the dates, times and links to the webinars.

NFRFE-2025 – Notice of Intent to Apply Webinar (English)

Thursday, May 22, 2025, 1:00 PM | (UTC-04:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)

Webinar number: 2338 567 7308

Webinar password: h2xV4S3ui6V (42984738 when dialing from a phone or video system)

Join by phone: +1-438-797-4001 Canada Toll (Montreal); Access code: 233 856 77308

FNFRE-2025 - Webinaire Avis d'intention (French)

Thursday, May 22, 2025, 10:00 AM | (UTC-04:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)

Webinar number: 2342 586 6017

Webinar password: 5FQrjmq3vf2 (53775673 when dialing from a phone or video system)

Join by phone: +1-438-797-4001 Canada Toll (Montreal); Access code: 234 258 66017

Please contact oris.sshrc@uleth.ca should you have any questions.

Campbell S. Peat, PhD

Research Facilitator - Social Sciences, Humanities & Fine Arts

Office of Research and Information Services

(p) 403-332-4487

(e) campbell.peat2@uleth.ca

Our University’s Blackfoot name is Iniskim, meaning Sacred Buffalo Stone. The University of Lethbridge is located in Blackfoot Confederacy territory. We honour the Blackfoot people and their traditional ways of knowing in caring for this land, as well as all Aboriginal peoples who have helped shape and continue to strengthen our University community.

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