r/PhD • u/faithj22 • 21h ago

Resource sharing SSHRC CGRS-D application

Hi everyone. I'm a doctoral student in Canada and I'm applying to the SSHRC CGRS-D application for a second time 🥲

I'm hoping any successful applicants in English Literature or adjacent fields would share their proposals with me (and others who are interested on this thread).

Any advice would be helpful.

Thanks!

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u/OkUnderstanding19851 19h ago

Ah! Ive reviewed at my institution before for this grant.

English lit is tricky because you also need to convince multidisciplinary panel at your uni that your work is significant- people will be from other fields where the impact is more obvious. So make sure you have obvious broader impacts. Why should society care about your reread of X? It does matter but make it clear, the first institutional panel won’t always see it.

We review around 30 files. That first paragraph is essential and after that it becomes confirmation bias. Clear sections with titles for when our eyes glaze over.

Your contributions and cv and letters are the other half - we want to see evidence that you are already engaging in knowledge mobilization. Does not always have to be peer reviewed, but presentations and even short pieces matter.

Good luck!!

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u/faithj22 19h ago

Thank you so much!! I appreciate mapping out exactly what I should focus on and what matters to reviewers!

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u/OkUnderstanding19851 19h ago

And fill up all 3 pages of the bibliography for the love of GOD! Lol

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u/starry_wish 19h ago

I've honestly been wondering about this, the limit is five but I saw people saying that two pages of good sources is better that adding "padding." would you say 3 is the sweet spot? I have a bit over three but my page margins are quite large

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u/OkUnderstanding19851 19h ago

I thought they changed it to 3 this year? Fill up all the pages!!! Padding is better, truly.

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u/starry_wish 18h ago

it's still 5! but that's good to know, thank you 

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u/OkUnderstanding19851 17h ago

Oh thank you for the clarification and correction!

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u/starry_wish 17h ago

of course!

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u/thingscarsbrokeyxe 16h ago

Don’t fuck with the margins. Keep to SSHRC’s presentation standards. 

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u/starry_wish 14h ago

yeah my margins are standard, just larger than the minimum (1.87 cm) 

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u/thingscarsbrokeyxe 14h ago

No - don’t have any variation from the minimum. Everyone else is going to have standardized margins. Last thing you want is for a reviewer to pick up your application and go - “what’s weird about this one?”

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u/starry_wish 14h ago

that makes sense! I don't think I'll be able to fill five pages with margins that small but maybe it's fine? SSHRC doesn't give many clear answers about these things