New Frontiers in Research Fund – Exploration

Procedures and timelines for the New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF) – Exploration competition. Please be aware that there are 2 stages to this application: mandatory Notice of Intent, and Application

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Notice of Intent (NOI)

​NOI Important Dates
August 18, 2025 | 12:00pm	Applicant submits application on Convergence

Procedure

1. Signatures are not required for the NOI stage, but will be required for the full application stage.
2. Your NOI application must be submitted via Convergence by 12:00pm on August 18, 2025. ORS will need to provide online approval by 5:00pm on August 19, 2025.

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Application

Application Important Dates
Check with your Department/School	Application package sent to Department Head/School Director office for review & approvalSee below for application package details.
October 9, 2025	Application package sent to Dean’s Office or affiliated hospital research office via email for review & approval (FoM Internal Deadline).
October 14, 2025	​Application package approved by Faculty, and forwarded to ORS (UBC Internal Deadline)
October 20, 2025 | 12pm	​Applicant submits application on Covergence (Applicant e-Submission Deadline)
October 21, 2025 | 5:00pm	​ORS approves application on Convergence (NFRF Application Deadline)

Procedure

For the NFRF Exploration competition, the Faculty of Medicine (FoM) has agreed with the Office of Research Services (ORS) on the following procedures/timelines:

1. Your application package must be submitted to the Dean’s Office or affiliated hospital research office by Thursday, October 9, 2025 for Faculty approval via email to the Faculty signature contact for your site. Note that Evelina Tolstykh (fom.grantapprovals@ubc.ca) is the contact for Faculty approval for those located at the UBC Point Grey campus. See below for a complete list of the required items.
   
2. After Faculty approval, your documents will be forwarded to ORS.
3. Your application must be submitted via Convergence no later than 12pm on Monday, October 20, 2025.
4. ORS will electronically approve your application via Convergence for submission to NFRF.

Please remember that you can continue working on your research proposal up until you submit on Convergence on October 20th, even after you have submitted your application package for Faculty approval.

To avoid system issues which may cause delay in the submission process on the deadline day, you are highly encouraged to submit early. While ORS makes best efforts to submit all applications on time and to facilitate support for our research community, application packages submitted for Faculty approval after September 6th may not receive a guarantee of administrative review from ORS which includes confirmation of application completeness.

Required Documents

Required Documents to be submitted to the FoM for the Application stage of the NFRF Exploration competition:

1. Completed Research Project Information Form including the following signatures:
   1. the Principal Investigator
   2. Department Head or School Director
   3. Research Centre Director (if using research space within a Senate-Approved Research Centre, identified with an asterisk on the Academic & Research Units page)
2. Complete application, including the following sections:
   • Completed and signed confirmation of eligibility form for all external co-PIs and co-applicants.
     • Note: For co-PIs and/or co-applicants within UBC but outside of FoM, they will need to determine with their Department/Faculty whether they need to review and sign the application. For co-PIs and/or co-applicants within UBC and FoM, this form is not required.
   • Page 1, including list of participants
   • Participants’ Eligibility Profiles pages
   • Summary of Proposal Page
   • Budget and budget justification pages

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General

Please also review the ORS website for the NFRF-specific Agency Application Requirements & Procedures.

If you have any questions regarding this process, please contact Evelina Tolstykh at the FoM (evelina.tolstykh@ubc.ca).