Awards and Funding

Graduate students at SFU Economics are normally provided with financial support through a combination of teaching assistantships, graduate fellowships, sessional instructor positions, and a variety of merit-based scholarships. 

Effective Fall 2024, every PhD student is guaranteed minimum funding as detailed in the SFU Graduate Program in Economics PhD Minimum Funding Policy.

Financial Assistance

The Department typically receives resources from the University to disperse as financial awards to eligible graduate students. The majority of these are in the form of graduate fellowship awards. Travel awards may also be available to help finance graduate student participation in academic conferences.

Please refer to Graduate Studies for all available scholarships and awards. All students, including current graduate students, are encouraged to apply for these awards. Please be sure to read the Terms of Reference for each award to see if you meet the eligibilty requirements.

Please note that students must pay tuition (research programs full-time fee) every semester and that international students pay the same rate as domestic students.

External Awards 

External awards that may be of particular relevance to economics graduate students are: 

Criteria

The Economics department ranking policy currently is that all awards/graduate fellowships will be adjudicated based on:
 
  1. University Requirements: see the Terms of Reference for each award.
  2. Additional criteria for our Department:
    1. Graduate cumulative GPA of at least 3.5/4.33.
    2. Students will be ranked according to the length of time in their degree program.
    3. Evidence of successful progress in degree program, as indicated by timely completion of course work, successful completion of comprehensive exams (PhD), scholarly activity and Supervisor's /Committee's/Departmental assessment of student's progress toward thesis research and writing.
    4. Application to other funding opportunities, including tri-agency and donor funded awards.
  3. The Committee will not (normally) recommend students for funding who have:
    1. an unsatisfactory progress review in the year preceding the date of application.
    2. an outstanding deferred course grade on their graduate transcript.

Award News