NSERC starting new PDF Program?

[itsAnewStart]

Just saw this from the NSERC website:

We were also gratified to see the announcement of a new Post Doctorate Fellowships (PDF) Program that will greatly increase our ability to make Canada a prime destination for research and innovation excellence.

Anyone knows what this is? I didn't see any changes on the website yet.

Does it mean that they are increasing the fellowship amount ;P? ($40,000 seems a bit low now... and have to pay taxes too...)

Edited March 12, 2010 by itsAnewStart

[bhdavis1978]

Just saw this from the NSERC website:

Anyone knows what this is? I didn't see any changes on the website yet.

Does it mean that they are increasing the fellowship amount ;P? ($40,000 seems a bit low now... and have to pay taxes too...)

I believe they're referring to a new PDF program designed to attract foreign (non-Canadian, non-residents) to come to Canada to do postdoctoral work with Canadian PIs. I think it's a super generous program actually, I believe the salary is going to be $70,000, but I may be wrong.

I would prefer it if they would just collapse this program into the general PDF program, and increase the amount of funding that each PDF gets ($45K, maybe $50K), and increase the total number of PDFs available, and maybe add some flexibility in it for cost of living based on city (e.g. Toronto and Vancouver are more expensive cities to live in than Montreal). And then open up the PDF program to allow foreign nationals who wish to come to Canada to work to be able to compete for these (set a minimum and maximum percentage of the total PDFs to be allocated to this). i.e. Model it sort of after the Marie Curie fellowship program (IIF, and IOF).

I dunno- they're not listening to me anyway, and even if they heard me, they'd probably ignore it.

Edited March 12, 2010 by bhdavis1978