CANADIAN NORTHERN STUDIES TRUST

Overview

The Canadian Northern Studies Trust (CNST) is ACUNS scholarship awards program. It was established in 1982 to further the Association’s mandate to advance knowledge and understanding of Canada’s North by offering student awards for exceptional northern-based research. The purpose of the CNST is to foster scholars and scientists with northern experience and at the same time to enhance educational opportunities available for northern residents to obtain post-secondary education at Canadian colleges and universities. 

CNST Award recipients represent the best in subject, quality, and commitment in Canadian northern research in all disciplines.

The CNST was created as a committee of ACUNS and is responsible for administering the Trust programs and adjudicating the student awards.  In addition to a Chair, at least six members are appointed to the committee from Canadian universities.  A further six members can be appointed from interested parties. Members are selected to represent a variety of geographic regions and a balance of disciplines commensurate with the applications received for the awards program. Other considerations are language and gender. 

ACUNS President and Secretary Treasurer act as ex-officio members to the Committee. The ACUNS Board of Directors, under the guidance of the Secretary Treasurer, retains overall responsibility for investing, monitoring, accounting and auditing of the CNST funds

The CNST Program operates on an annual round with awards typically announced to the ACUNS’ website at the time of the Association’s Annual General Meeting each October. The deadline for all opportunities is the end of January. Shortly after the deadline, a subset of the CNST committee travels to Ottawa to conduct an initial review of all applications in order to establish shortlists of the most likely candidates to be passed along for consideration by the main Committee. CNST guidelines, policy, instructions, and short listed applications are printed into a Manual that is distributed to committee members. Over the next two months one or two rounds of email ballots are submitted to the Chair to establish the top three to five, unranked candidates in each category for final adjudication. The final adjudication meeting to determine award recipients and runners-up is held at the beginning of May in Ottawa. Policy review, guideline updates, and items of concern are discussed at this meeting and required actions approved by motion.  Minutes of all CNST meetings are submitted to the ACUNS’ Board. The Chair provides a summary report to the entire ACUNS’ membership at the associations’ Annual General Meeting in October.

The CNST provides a range of scholarships, studentships and awards from Association endowments and annual donors, including The W. Garfield Weston Foundation; the Northern Scientific Training Program (NSTP) of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC); the Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC); the Canadian Polar Commission (CPC); the Arctic Cooperatives Ltd; and the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board (BQCMB).