Almost exactly a year since the grassroots organization Support Our Science staged a nation-wide walkout on May 1st 2023 led by graduate students and post-doctoral fellows across the country, the group is now celebrating following the announcement of significant new funding in the Federal Government’s recently announced budget. 

Beginning this year, graduate students who receive these national scholarships will see an increase in the value of Federal grants from the Tri-Agencies. Masters students will see an increase of $9,500 for a total of $27,000 per year, while doctoral grants will double from $20,000 per year to $40,000 annually. Federally funded postdoctoral fellowships will be increased to $70,000 from $50,000.

“Budget 2024 pledges $825 million over five years to directly support next-generation researchers by increasing both the number and value of awards,” the group said in an April 16th press release.

The Tri-Agencies refers to the Federally and jointly administered funding programs which fall under the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC).

According to 2024 budget documents, the government anticipates that these measures will increase the total number of scholarships and fellowships by more than 1700. In 2022-23, Tri-Agency funding provided 7,237 scholarships and fellowships. 

Support Our Science research indicates that while the total number of awards has remained relatively steady since 2010, the total number of graduate students studying in Canada has increased by nearly 40,000 over the same time period.

The most recent available SSHRC graduate funding data from the past two years shows that Trent University students received a total of 14 masters level grants, two doctoral scholarships, and one post-doctoral fellowship for a population of approximately one thousand graduate students.

Prior to 2024, the value of graduate student and postdoc-specific grants had not been increased in over two decades, putting strain on the finances of the graduate students and postdoctoral scholars who find it increasingly difficult to continue in academia due to increases in the cost of living.  

It is not clear whether or not current award holders will see their funding increased following the announcement of the 2024 Federal Budget or if the changes would only take place during the next round of funding.

Sandra Klemet-N’guesssan, a PhD candidate in Environmental and Life Sciences at Trent, has been involved in the local chapter of Support our Science as an Ambassador for just over a year.

During her time with Support our Science, Klemet-N’guesssan has worked on a number of initiatives including organizing the aforementioned walk-out in addition to letter writing and phone call campaigns as well as participating in meetings with MPs.

Her work also included the promotion of a petition which was sponsored by five MPs, including Peterborough-Kawartha’s Michelle Ferreri in her role as an associate member of the Standing Committee on Science and Research. 

“I was positively surprised to see the stance she was taking,” Klemet-N’guesssan said during a phone interview with Arthur.

Having previously served as President of the Trent Graduate Students’ Association, Klemet-N’guesssan is familiar with the diverse needs and challenges faced by graduate students at Trent.

She notes that the Support Our Science movement has been “led by people in the natural sciences” which has implications for the major aims and directions of the movement. 

For example, she noted the ways in which students are funded differs between disciplines and degree programs. In the sciences, students are generally funded through grants their supervisor has received while in the humanities, students are generally funded through internal department grants.

In both instances, should a student win a provincial or federal award, such as those from the Tri-Agencies, their internal funding is placed at risk, she said. However, in some instances a benevolent supervisor may allow a student to hold onto some of their original funding.    

“This new announcement is basically setting the new standard for how all graduate students and postdocs should be paid,” she said. “Institutions cannot continue with a huge gap between those who don't get those scholarships.” 

For now, the gap between those relatively few students receiving federal funding and those who don’t has just widened.

“The institutions themselves need to prioritize their grad students a lot more,” Klemet-N’guesssan said, noting specifically that while Trent is known as a primarily undergraduate institution, it has seen a massive growth in the number of graduate students. 

Arthur reached out to Trent’s School of Graduate Studies for comment on these changes at the Federal level and how they might affect the school’s internal funding policies but did not hear back in time for publication. 

In recent years, the School of Graduate Studies at Trent has implemented a cut in tuition for PhD students’ first year outside of a funded window, meaning that PhD students in their fifth year are eligible for a 50% tuition reduction. 

According to University Affairs, the average time to completion for a PhD in Canada is between five and six years — with humanities and social sciences programs tending to take longer and only 55.8% finishing within nine years in those disciplines. 

For her part, Klemet-N’guesssan is glad to see some progress even though it has been slow to materialize and ultimately will only benefit a minority of graduate students studying in Canada. 

Despite this, she hopes that this victory at the federal level will encourage graduate students to “take a strong stance” and get involved in politics and advocate for the work they do and the value it creates for universities and Canadian society. 

This effort, she notes, challenges the idea that researchers and academics should be “maintaining some neutrality” when it comes to political involvement. “We need to pay rent, and eat, and all that. We also need to have our work recognized and seen as valuable.”