Community Climate Adaptation Fund

By providing initial funding support, OFI’s Community Climate Adaptation Fund is intended to help  participants explore innovative climate adaptation ideas and create pathways for the work to continue beyond the initial funding.

OFI’s Community Climate Adaptation Fund is supported in part by Suncor Energy Foundation.

The Community Climate Adaption Fund will support up to five projects each year with individual project awards of $10,000 - $30,000.

• The projects are intended to be started and completed within a 12-month timeframe.  
• The most successful projects will be eligible to receive an extension grant of up to $50,000 to continue to build and deliver on their preliminary work.

Current faculty, staff, technicians, postdoctoral fellows (PDFs), and students from the Canadian academic institutions below are encouraged to apply.

• Each proposal must have a student leader to whom the principal investigator (PI) delegates primary leadership responsibility for managing and delivering the project, with proper support by and in close collaboration with the PI.
• Funding will be awarded to the PI at each institution and, depending on their institutional guidelines, is anticipated to be partially passed on as subcontracts or funding to their community partners.
• Staff, technicians, PDFs, and students who are unable to hold grants at their institution must have a PI act as the grant holder and obtain permission from their supervisor to apply for this grant.

Applications will be assessed on the following:

• Alignment and fit with the four key research objectives
• Excellence and creativity of the proposed research and community collaboration
• Potential for the project to continue to deliver value to the community partner after the funding ends
• Leadership and professional development opportunities for the student lead
• The project’s plan to foster and support respectful engagement, the removal of systemic barriers, and equitable access considerations

Projects are intended to create new lines of research or collaboration with a community partner and are not intended to be incremental to an existing funded research project.

• Salaries of highly qualified personnel, honoraria, equipment, materials and supplies, travel, and workshops.  Funding cannot be used for the salaries of the principal investigators (PI)
• Expenses must be administered in accordance with the university guidelines of the lead applicant PI
• OFI does not accept responsibility or obligation for funds expended more than the amount provided through the Community Climate Adaptation Fund, or for funds expended before or after the term of the Community Climate Adaptation Fund

To submit your application, please follow these steps:

1. Prepare the following documents:
   
   1. Completed application form
   2. Budget justification spreadsheet
   3. Curriculum Vitae (maximum two pages per person; if submitting multiple CVs, please compile them into a single file)
2. Complete the Suggested and Excluded Reviewers Form to submit your list of recommended reviewers
3. Complete the Checklist Confirmation Form
4. Email the supporting documents to ccaf@dal.ca.

• Independent reviewers who have no conflicts of interest will evaluate and score applications based on scientific merit and alignment with the program goals.
• Final award decisions will be approved through OFI’s executive team and Dalhousie Office of Advancement.