Introduction
What is the TCV?
The Tri-Agency CV, commonly shortened to TCV, is a narrative curriculum vitae developed by Canada’s three federal research funding agencies: SSHRC, NSERC, and CIHR.
What the TCV is
The TCV asks applicants to explain their experience and contributions in connected paragraphs rather than relying mainly on lists. It gives reviewers context about what an applicant did, why the work was important, whom it served, and how it supports the applicant’s proposed role in a funding application.
“Narrative” does not mean that the document should be a personal story without evidence. It means that facts are selected and explained so a reviewer can understand their relevance, quality, significance, and impact. Publications and grants can be included, but the format also recognizes many other forms of research contribution.
Why it was introduced
The three agencies developed the format to capture a wider and more inclusive view of research excellence. A traditional CV can make it easy to count publications, citations, awards, and funding while making it difficult to see an applicant’s actual role, the quality of the work, mentorship practices, societal contributions, or influence beyond academic publishing.
The TCV supports responsible research assessment. Reviewers are directed to consider quality and impact broadly and to avoid treating journal impact factors, h-index values, citation totals, publication counts, or grant totals as substitutes for evaluating the work itself.
The format can also provide context for different career paths, lived or living experience, work outside universities, community knowledge, and institutional circumstances. Applicants decide whether such context is relevant and appropriate to include.
The three TCV sections
01
Personal statement
Explain why you are well suited to your proposed role in this application. Relevant material can include expertise, experience, collaboration, leadership, past performance, research impact, lived experience, career context, and recognition.
02
Most significant contributions and experiences
Describe up to ten important contributions or experiences related to the application. Explain your particular role and each contribution’s impact, significance, or usefulness. A contribution can be a single item or a connected group of outputs and activities.
03
Supervisory and mentorship activities
Describe how you have trained or mentored future generations. This can include formal supervision, informal mentorship, workshops, outreach, community capacity-building, inclusive research environments, and preparation for careers inside or outside academia.
What can count as a contribution?
A contribution is not limited to a journal article. The official instructions recognize a broad range of academic, professional, creative, technical, community, and societal work. The right examples depend on the application and the nature of your field.
- Articles, books, reports, preprints, presentations, and other publications
- Datasets, software, tools, methods, knowledge systems, and research infrastructure
- Patents, products, technologies, processes, services, and new organizations
- Policy, guidelines, standards, regulations, professional practices, and advice
- Creative works, performances, exhibitions, recordings, and public humanities
- Partnerships, community-engaged research, citizen science, and collaboration
- Knowledge mobilization, public communication, and engagement with decision-makers
- Indigenous leadership, self-determination, and capacity-building in research
- Equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility advances in the research ecosystem
- Assessment, peer review, service, volunteer activity, and research leadership
Including an activity is not enough by itself. Strong entries explain the applicant’s role and provide direct evidence of quality, significance, usefulness, reach, or influence where that evidence exists.
How to describe activities, funding, and impact
A credible account distinguishes the contribution from the work done to help it reach others. A report, dataset, method, artwork, partnership, or software tool is a contribution. A workshop, briefing, co-design process, public event, training session, pilot, open release, or implementation partnership is an activity that may help that contribution become useful. Reach shows who encountered it; uptake shows who used, adopted, adapted, or reused it; an outcome describes what changed.
Not every contribution needs a dramatic societal impact. Academic influence, improved research capability, stronger community capacity, a change in professional practice, better access, trainee development, policy use, cultural contribution, and new partnerships can all matter when relevant and supported. If only the activity or reach is known, report that honestly rather than claiming an outcome that has not been demonstrated.
Funding can provide important context, but it is an input rather than an impact. Explain what support enabled—such as trainee time, equipment, data collection, partner engagement, access, dissemination, or implementation—and identify your role. Grant amount, grant count, and funding success should not replace an explanation of the work’s quality, significance, usefulness, or influence.
Key requirements
The information must be self-contained. Reviewers should be able to understand and assess the CV without looking up information elsewhere. Hyperlinks generally should not carry essential evidence, and reviewers are not guaranteed to open them.
The applicant must use the template required by the agency or funding opportunity and follow its attachment and formatting instructions. Opportunity-specific appendices may be required, and those appendix pages may be treated differently from the main page limit.
Requirements can change. Always consult the current funding opportunity before preparing or submitting the document.
TCV versus a traditional CV
Who uses the TCV?
SSHRC, NSERC, and CIHR are gradually introducing the TCV across funding opportunities. Adoption is not identical across every program, and some competitions may continue to request a Canadian Common CV, an agency-specific CV, an applicant profile, or another format.
Participant requirements can also differ. A principal applicant, co-applicant, collaborator, trainee, knowledge user, international participant, or community organization may not all submit the same document. Check the instructions for both the competition and your role.
How to prepare a strong TCV
Begin with the funding opportunity rather than with your publication list. Identify the project’s objectives, the evaluation criteria, and your proposed role. Then select career evidence that demonstrates your readiness and expected contribution.
For each leading example, answer five questions: What was the contribution? What was your distinct role? Why was it significant or high quality? Who used or benefited from it, and what changed? How does it prepare you for this application?
For mentorship, explain what you did rather than simply listing trainee names. Describe the environment, guidance, skills, opportunities, or capacity you helped develop and include verified outcomes where available. Formal and informal mentorship can both be relevant.
Write so the evidence is understandable to the intended review committee. Use discipline-appropriate language, explain uncommon abbreviations, and avoid inflated claims. A precise, supported statement is stronger than a broad statement that cannot be verified.
Official links and further information
These government pages should be treated as authoritative when they differ from this introduction:
Information and links reviewed July 25, 2026.