Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Doctoral Scholarship

Benefits & funding

• Up to CAD 50,000 a year for three years toward tuition and living costs.
• Up to CAD 20,000 a year for three years for research, travel, networking and event participation.
• Up to CAD 210,000 in total across the three years.
• Holding another award is allowed. The Trudeau amount is then adjusted against funding from other organisations, institutions or universities, and every Scholar still receives the full CAD 20,000 annual allowance plus at least CAD 25,000 of the annual stipend.
• Leadership and mentorship programming: meetings, masterclasses, seminars and field experiences alongside the Foundation’s Fellows and Mentors.
• Lifelong membership in the Foundation’s alumni network, which runs to over 500 individuals — 344 Scholars to date, alongside 98 Fellows and 177 Mentors in a community of nearly 600 people.
• Scholars may work part-time, up to 20 hours a week, and keep their full scholarship benefits.
• The Foundation publishes these figures with a dollar sign only. It is a Montréal-based Canadian organisation funding study in Canada, so the amounts are Canadian dollars.

Eligibility

• Already enrolled in a doctoral programme, and in the first or second year of it at the time of application. The Foundation narrowed the competition to those two years from the 2026 round onward, citing the volume of applications it receives.
• One of three situations applies: a Canadian student at a Canadian university, a Canadian student at a university outside Canada, or an international student at a Canadian university.
• Students who live outside Canada and study at a university outside Canada are not eligible.
• Field of study in the humanities or social sciences, broadly defined, and directly relevant to the future of Canada.
• The doctoral work must relate to at least one of the four founding themes.
• Applicants from other academic fields are welcome, whatever department or faculty they sit in, provided the research question itself falls within the purview of the humanities and social sciences.
• The doctoral programme must be research-oriented (PhD, JD and similar) and lead to a thesis, dissertation or scholarly publication. Professional doctorates are not eligible.
• A joint programme with a professional degree (JD/PhD, MBA/PhD and similar) can still qualify if it carries a significant research component.
• Selection looks for an outstanding academic record, a rigorous research project, a demonstrated commitment to societal impact, and willingness to work across disciplines and sectors.
• Applicants must be able to communicate effectively in French or English. Fluency in both official languages is not required.
• Three references are required: the thesis supervisor, a second academic referee, and one referee from outside academia.
• No age limit and no minimum years of work experience are stated.
• Undergraduate, master’s and postdoctoral study are not funded.

Application process

1. 1
   Check the two gates first: first or second year of a doctoral programme, and one of the three eligible student situations.
2. 2
   Identify the founding theme the thesis genuinely answers and build the application around it.
3. 3
   Create an account on the Foundation’s portal and complete the application form there. The form can be filled out in English or French — the language is chosen on the portal homepage — and it must be completed in one language only.
4. 4
   Line up the three referees — thesis supervisor, another academic, one non-academic — and pass them the Foundation’s reference form. Exactly three are required, no more and no fewer; a family member cannot serve; referees may live outside Canada and may answer in either official language, whichever the application itself uses. Their submissions carry their own, earlier deadline.
5. 5
   Submit before the competition closes. The 2026 round opened on 9 September 2025 and closed on 17 November 2025 at 4 p.m. Eastern.
6. 6
   The Foundation’s File Review and Interview Committee shortlists files for a second reading, semi-finalists are then called to group interviews, and finalists travel to Montréal for in-person interviews.
7. 7
   New Scholars are announced at the end of April.

Program timeline

1. 9 September 2025, 9 a.m. Eastern

   2026 competition opened

2. 12 November 2025

   Reference forms due — the only 2026 submission date the Foundation still publishes

3. 17 November 2025, 4 p.m. Eastern

   Applicant deadline for the 2026 round. The Foundation removed this date from its own pages once the round closed; Canadian graduate schools that announced the competition recorded it

4. Application period closed, with 709 applications received

   November 2025

5. Semi-finalists notified for group interviews

   Late January 2026

6. Final interviews in Montréal, with 32 finalists from 18 universities

   10-12 March 2026

7. 30 April 2026

   2026 cohort of 19 Scholars announced

8. dates still to be announced by the Foundation

   2027 competition