SSHRC Knowledge Synthesis Grants December 2026: Up to CAD $78,000 for a One-Year Synthesis on the Changing Nature of Security and Conflict, Closing 3 December 2026

SSHRC Knowledge Synthesis Grants December 2026: Up to CAD $78,000 for a One-Year Synthesis on the Changing Nature of Security and Conflict, Closing 3 December 2026

This is a grant for people who already know the literature and can say something useful about it. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada runs Knowledge Synthesis Grants as a deliberately unusual instrument: it does not fund new fieldwork, new datasets, or new experiments. It funds the work of pulling together what the past decade of research already established, identifying where the evidence runs out, and putting the result in front of people who make decisions. The December 2026 competition applies that instrument to one theme — the changing nature of security and conflict — and closes on 3 December 2026 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time.

Two streams run in parallel. Stream 1 is domestic: a Canadian researcher or team, CAD $10,000 to $40,000, up to 16 grants. Stream 2 is a Nordic-Canadian collaboration co-funded with NordForsk, CAD $10,000 to $78,000, up to 15 grants, and it requires a specific three-country team structure. NordForsk has put NOK 6 million behind the Nordic side. Results are announced in March 2027.

Key Details

What the Grant Actually Buys

A Knowledge Synthesis Grant funds one year of synthesis work and the products that come out of it. SSHRC names the acceptable methods directly: scoping reviews, systematic reviews, and narrative syntheses. The evidence base is research from roughly the past ten years. The point is to establish the state of knowledge on a question, name the gaps in it, and identify which sectors are positioned to act on what is known.

The deliverables are fixed and they are part of the deal, not an afterthought:

• A two-page evidence brief, due December 2027.
• A synthesis report of no more than 40 pages, due May 2028.
• Participation in a virtual kick-off webinar in May 2027.
• Attendance at a knowledge mobilization forum in spring 2027.
• Open access deposit under the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy.

Note that the reporting timeline extends well past the one-year funding period. Budget your team’s time accordingly — the report is due roughly 18 months after the grant starts, and the forum attendance lands early, before most of the writing is finished. Plan to have preliminary findings presentable by spring 2027.

The Five Thematic Areas

SSHRC published sub-questions under each theme. You do not have to answer one verbatim, but they show precisely what the funder is thinking about, and a proposal that ignores their framing entirely is working uphill.

Emerging technologies and innovation. How states balance technological advantage against preserving human judgment as AI enters military decision-making. How drone proliferation into criminal activity affects law enforcement preparedness. Whether emergency management strategies should cover disinformation prevention and response. What historical lessons in creative military adaptation apply to asymmetric warfare. How ethical considerations should shape counter-information-warfare policy. What measures protect AI systems in finance, healthcare, and defence from data poisoning.

Intergenerational equity and inclusion. Measuring the impact of campaigns aimed at preventing youth recruitment, across both Canadian and Nordic contexts. Engaging young citizens in conflict and post-conflict dynamics. The long-term societal effects of whole-of-society defence approaches. How Indigenous knowledge systems can guide Arctic defence and resilience. Correctional approaches that support rehabilitation where radicalization is a factor. What should guide Arctic infrastructure development for Northern communities.

Environmental considerations. Mitigating extreme weather effects on military capability, particularly Arctic operations. Alignment between strengthening domestic food supply chains and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Systematic integration of gender and environmental considerations into conflict resolution. Whether renewable energy investment can serve both energy independence and national security.

Geopolitical and international perspectives. Strengthening international legal frameworks against hostage diplomacy. The implications of redistributing key roles to regional and Global South actors. Transforming diplomacy to address emerging threats. Building bilateral and multilateral conflict prevention and de-escalation efforts.

Strengthening public-private sector collaborations. Encouraging private sector initiatives that strengthen cybercrime response. The private sector’s role in strengthening bilateral relations and preventing escalation. Effective approaches to information sharing between government and the defence industry. Policy tools that bolster market resilience where essential services have consolidated.

The recurring thread is Arctic security, hybrid warfare, cyber threats, disinformation, and whole-of-society defence. That thread also explains the Nordic partnership: Canada and the Nordic countries share an Arctic, a comparable set of hybrid-threat exposures, and a policy conversation that has moved quickly since 2022.

Who Is Eligible

Stream 1. An individual researcher or a team, affiliated with a Canadian postsecondary institution or an Indigenous not-for-profit organization. The institution must hold institutional eligibility before funds can be released — if you are at a smaller organization, confirm this early, because it is a real gating item and not a formality. Postdoctoral researchers can apply if they maintain a formal institutional affiliation. Students cannot apply as applicants, though they can be involved in the work.

Stream 2. The team structure is prescriptive and there is no flexibility in it: one Canadian applicant, one applicant from a Nordic country, and one co-applicant from a different Nordic country. Three people minimum, spanning Canada and two Nordic countries. The Canadian side follows Stream 1 institutional rules. The Nordic side must sit at a research-performing organization that receives NordForsk funding or is recognized by NordForsk, and must meet the criteria in NordForsk’s guidance for Nordic project partners.

Subject matter can come from any discipline, thematic area, approach, or subject eligible for SSHRC funding. Two exclusions matter: projects whose primary objective is curriculum development are ineligible, and proposals that belong at NSERC or CIHR will be rejected rather than redirected. If your question is fundamentally about engineering a defence system or about clinical health outcomes, it is in the wrong competition.

Budget Rules Worth Reading Before You Draft

The single rule that reshapes most budgets: grant funds cannot be used to remunerate team members — applicants, co-applicants, or collaborators — regardless of whether an individual would be eligible to hold a grant. There is a narrow exception permitting compensation of Indigenous team members under specific Tri-Agency guidelines.

That means your budget is built out of research assistance, student support, knowledge mobilization costs, translation, meeting and travel costs, open access fees, and similar direct expenses. Not your own time. Teams that have only worked with salary-bearing grants sometimes draft a budget that has to be rebuilt from scratch late in the process; do it first instead.

For Stream 2, the money arrives from two places. Roughly one-third comes from SSHRC and two-thirds from NordForsk, with SSHRC’s share never below one-quarter of the total. You submit budget forms for both funders. Build the two budgets together so the split is defensible and the arithmetic reconciles.

How Applications Are Scored

Three criteria, each with a minimum threshold. An application must score 3.0 or higher on every one of them — a strong score elsewhere does not rescue a weak one.

Challenge (40%). Does the topic matter, will the synthesis have policy impact, and are the research gaps real ones? This is the heaviest weight and the place where security-and-conflict proposals most often go generic. Name the decision that better evidence would improve, and name who would make it.

Feasibility (30%). Is the methodology appropriate to the question, is the knowledge mobilization plan credible, and is the budget right for the work? Say which synthesis method you are using and why — scoping review, systematic review, or narrative synthesis are not interchangeable, and reviewers can tell when the choice was made by default.

Capability (30%). Does the team have the expertise, and does it have a track record specifically in synthesis work and in stakeholder engagement? Prior synthesis output is worth more here than a longer list of primary research publications. So is evidence that you have actually worked with policy or practitioner audiences before.

Preparation Strategy and Common Mistakes

Start the institutional process now, not in November. Submission goes through the Convergence portal and must come from an authorized research grants officer or an institutional representative with financial signing authority. Internal deadlines at Canadian universities typically sit one to three weeks ahead of the funder deadline. For Stream 2, you are coordinating that across three institutions in three countries.

Do not propose new research. The most common failure in synthesis competitions is a proposal that quietly includes original data collection. If your plan involves interviews, surveys, or new fieldwork as a core component, it does not fit this instrument.

Treat the knowledge mobilization plan as substance, not garnish. The deliverables — an evidence brief, a forum appearance, a public report — are the entire theory of the grant. A plan that says findings will be disseminated through academic publication is not responsive.

Find Stream 2 partners deliberately. NordForsk provides a networking form for partnership matching, and the Nordic webinar on 25 August 2026 is the practical place to make contact. A three-country team assembled in November will show in the Capability score.

Confirm institutional eligibility early. Both the Canadian institutional eligibility requirement and NordForsk’s recognition of the Nordic organizations are prerequisites for money moving, not for applying — but discovering a problem in December is worse than discovering it in September.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I apply to both streams? SSHRC’s own competition documentation is the authority on multiple applications; check the full call text and confirm with the KSG contacts before assuming you can hold or apply for both. The two streams have separate grant counts and separate budget forms.

Is Stream 1 open to a solo applicant? Yes — Stream 1 allows an individual researcher or a team. Stream 2 requires three named people across Canada and two Nordic countries.

Are postdocs eligible? Yes, provided they hold a formal affiliation with an eligible institution. Students may not be applicants.

What currency is the Nordic funding in? Grants are stated in Canadian dollars. NordForsk’s commitment to the Nordic side of Stream 2 is NOK 6 million.

When do I find out? March 2027, with the kick-off webinar in May 2027.

How long is the report? The synthesis report is capped at 40 pages and due May 2028. The two-page evidence brief is due earlier, in December 2027.

Is This the Right Grant for You

It fits if you have a defined body of literature you already know well, a question that a decision-maker somewhere is currently guessing at, and the discipline to produce a short, readable brief on schedule. It fits particularly well if your work sits at an intersection the theme names directly — Arctic communities and defence infrastructure, youth radicalization prevention, disinformation and emergency management, cybersecurity and private-sector policy.

It fits poorly if you need salary support, if your contribution depends on gathering new evidence, or if your team has never produced work for a non-academic audience. The one-year window and the fixed deliverable schedule reward groups that have done this kind of writing before.

Official Links and Contacts

• Full call text and application: SSHRC — Knowledge Synthesis Grants: December 2026 Competition
• Nordic-side guidance and partner matching: NordForsk — Knowledge Synthesis Grants: The Changing Nature of Security and Conflict
• Canadian applicant questions: [email protected] or 1-855-275-2861
• Nordic applicant questions: [email protected]

Deadline: 3 December 2026, 8:00 p.m. Eastern time. Confirm your institution’s internal submission deadline before you do anything else.