NSERC Doctoral Award Values and Success Rates by Research Field
By Muntasir • Published May 30, 2026 • Updated Sep 20, 2026 • Scholarships & Funding, Canadian Universities & Colleges
NSERC's doctoral scholarship paid 40,000 CAD per year for 36 months, a 120,000 CAD total, before folding into a new joint tri-agency award. Your odds depend on how many other applicants in your specific field applied that year, not a single national percentage.
💵 40,000 CAD per year for 36 months under the old CGS-D and PGS-D names.
📩 The 2025-26 competition, results out April 15, 2025, was the last one run under those names.
🎓 CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC now run one harmonized doctoral scholarship instead of three separate ones.
NSERC does not publish a public breakdown of success rates by individual research field.
What the award actually paid
NSERC ran two doctoral awards side by side for years: the Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship - Doctoral, known as CGS-D, and the Postgraduate Scholarship - Doctoral, known as PGS-D. Both paid the same rate: 40,000 CAD per year for 36 months, a 120,000 CAD total over the award. Applicants were ranked in one competition, with the highest-ranked students receiving the CGS-D name and the next tier receiving PGS-D, though the dollar value was identical either way. The 2025-26 NSERC CGS-D and PGS-D competition , with results released April 15, 2025, was the final round run under these two names.
What replaced it
CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC now run one harmonized doctoral scholarship together instead of three separate agency programs. It is called the Canada Graduate Research Scholarship - Doctoral, part of the joint Canada Research Training Award Suite , and it pays 40,000 CAD per year for up to three years. You submit one application, through your university's graduate studies office, and the relevant agency for your field assesses it within that single national competition.
Award value over time
| Program name | Per year | Total value | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| NSERC CGS-D / PGS-D | 40,000 CAD | 120,000 CAD over 36 months | Final competition 2025-26, results April 15, 2025 |
| Canada Graduate Research Scholarship - Doctoral | 40,000 CAD | Up to 120,000 CAD over up to 36 months | Current joint CIHR, NSERC, SSHRC program |
Why success rates vary by field
NSERC sorts applications into discipline-based evaluation groups covering areas such as biological sciences, chemistry, physics, mathematics and statistics, computer science, and the various engineering fields. Each group works from its own pool of applicants and its own quota of awards for that competition year, so your actual odds depend on how many applicants in your specific field applied and how many awards that field's group received, not on one fixed national percentage. A strong application in a field with fewer applicants competing for its group's quota has a different real-world chance than the same quality application in a larger, more crowded field.
NSERC does not publish a field-by-field breakdown of success rates on its public award pages, so treat any specific percentage you see quoted for a particular discipline as unverified unless it comes from your own department's award statistics or your graduate program office, which sometimes track this internally for their own applicants.
What to do with this
Ask your department's graduate coordinator for internal statistics on how students in your specific field have done in recent competitions, since that number is far more useful to you than a program-wide average. Apply regardless of your field's typical competitiveness: the award is portable and pays the same rate no matter which evaluation group reviews your file.