Impact Round 2025
On this page you will find all of the information regarding the Volt-Age Impact Round Calls for Proposals, including Impact Projects and Living Labs based on Existing Relationships.
Researchers are now invited to submit Notices of Intent providing an overview of their proposed projects. Researchers are also now able to begin writing their calls for proposals.
Overview
Impact Projects
Impact Projects refer to large-scale, multidisciplinary research initiatives designed to develop and implement new technologies and solutions for the electrification of society. A broad range of academic, public, community and private partners must be involved in Impact Projects to demonstrate real and significant impacts focusing on innovation, economic viability, equity, and the well-being of society. There will be approximately 10 Impact Projects selected by Volt-Age. Each successful project will be awarded up to $4M funding from the Volt-Age CFREF, for projects lasting 4 years. Impact Projects should be articulated around students. Our goal is to recruit up to 250 PhD students in the Volt-Age Cohort who will be at the heart of Volt-Age Impact Projects.
Living Labs
Living Labs are inclusive spaces to tackle collective challenges through collaborations between researchers and different societal stakeholders across the innovation cycle, from co-defining problems to research and development to testing. Volt-Age Living Labs must exhibit three main characteristics: co-creation of research, engagement of diverse stakeholders, and taking place in a real-life context. Up to two (2) Living Labs will be selected from this first Call for Proposals for Living Labs based on existing relationships. Each successful project will be awarded up to $1.5M funding from the Volt-Age CFREF funds, with projects lasting 3-4 years. A separate call for Living Labs based on New Partnerships will be launched at a later date.
Notice of Intent
The Notice of Intent is designed to allow researchers to announce their intention to apply for an Impact Call Grant. The NOI includes details of the research focus, proposed members of the research team, potential partners, and impacts relating to Volt-Age research goals.
NOIs will be posted publicly on the Volt-Age Concordia website so that they can be viewed by other researchers, allowing for additional collaborations and partnerships to emerge. The NOIs will not be reviewed or assessed by Volt-Age ; they are only informational.
We advise any researchers to review NOIs posted before applying to the Impact Call.
NOIs are non-binding and don’t impose any commitment regarding your Impact project application.
Note: For an individual to submit an Impact Call Application as a Principal Investigator, they must be listed as a PI or Co-Applicant Investigator on an NOI.
Deadline: January 31, 2025
Submitted NOIs
Notices of Intent will be published in the presentation below as they are received.
Call for proposals
Update on Memorandums of Understanding
The decision has been made that MoUs with both Impact project and Living Lab project partners can be submitted within the first year after being awarded the grant. Partners with whom an MoU has not been signed prior to submitting the application must submit a Letter of Support and must indicate in that letter that they commit to finalizing and signing an MoU in this time frame.
Update Feb 26 2025: To ensure that relationships with partners are not compromised, Letters of Support can be submitted even without the commitment to signing an MoU statement. It is the responsibility of the research team to ensure that MoUs with all partners are submitted within one year of a project being selected for funding.
Impact Projects
| Duration | Up to 4 years |
| Value | Maximum $4 million |
| Deadline | February 28, 2025 |
| Submit application | Applications must be submitted by email to volt-age@concordia.ca using the application template (available in Word format). Applications must be submitted as a single PDF format. |
| Contact | volt-age@concordia.ca |
**UPDATE FEB. 11: This document was updated. Please refer to the most recent version.
Living Labs Projects
| Duration | Up to 4 years |
| Value | Maximum $1.5 million |
| Deadline | February 28, 2025 |
| Submit application | Applications must be submitted by email to volt-age@concordia.ca using the application template (available in Word format). Applications must be submitted as a single PDF format. |
| Contact | volt-age@concordia.ca |
**UPDATE FEB. 11: This document was updated. Please refer to the most recent version.
Update on the Memorandum of Understanding February 26 2025
A new version has been uploaded. The only change in this version is to add "or Impact Project" to clauses 5.2 and 5.3 to ensure the MOU can be used for both Impact Project and Living Lab proposals.
Important note: Memorandums of Understanding are due within one year of a project being selected to receive funding. They do not need to be submitted with your proposal application.
Curation process
The Curation Process was designed to gather perspectives and feedback from researchers, administrators and students to help guide the creation of the Impact Call for Proposals. The Curation Process included a total of 16 events engaging approximately 200 individuals, including response collection activities, workshops, webinars, and informal meetups.
Evaluation and decision process
A total of 29 Impact Round applications were submitted by the deadline of February 28, 2025: 24 Impact Project proposals and 5 Living Lab proposals. Each proposal was then reviewed by the Volt-Age team for technical and eligibility errors and a report was issued back to the Principal Investigator of each proposed project. Teams were given three days to resubmit their applications correcting these errors.
Each proposal went through a rigorous two-step evaluation process that involved two distinct and independent adjudicating bodies: 1) Master Reviewers, and 2) Adjudication Jury.
Master Reviewers
The international pool of Master Reviewers was developed by the Volt-Age team. Master Reviewers were selected to participate for their experience and knowledge, including but not limited to: past involvement as chairs of NSERC and/or SSHRC evaluation committees, technical expertise in various fields relating to electrification (batteries and energy storage, smart buildings and grids, transportation, renewable energy systems), expertise in social innovation, entrepreneurship, and community partnerships, experience with Indigenous community engagement in research, experience with Living Labs, and expertise in environmental impact and resource management.
Master Reviewers were required to state conflicts of interest with the Volt-Age program as a whole, and also with each individually submitted proposal. Master Reviewers were not assigned to evaluate projects that they declared a conflict of interest with.
Two Master Reviewers were selected to evaluate each project – one with the expertise necessary to assess the technical aspects and a second with a complementary perspective. Each Master Reviewer completed a separate, independent evaluation of each proposal assigned using the Impact Project or Living Lab Project evaluation criteria (published December 2024) with space to add notes or comments
Evaluation Report and Proposal Analysis
Results of Master Reviewer evaluations were compiled by the Volt-Age team into a synthesized report. The report included a summary table of the Master Reviewer evaluations, as well as a brief analysis of the proposals looking at themes and platforms, areas or research and fields of study, and team makeup. This report, along with the full proposal dossiers (summary sheet, full proposal submission, and full evaluations), was sent to the Adjudication Jury. This report did not offer any commentary of any kind on the selection process or make any recommendations as to the projects that should be chosen for funding.
Adjudication Jury
The Adjudication Jury was comprised of representatives of the host and partner institutions, the Volt-Age Advisory Board, and topical experts, and have not been involved in other aspects of the adjudication process. The Adjudication Jury met virtually on March 25, 2025 and discussed the process and outcomes of the evaluation as well as the various elements to consider in selecting a balanced group of projects to fund through the Volt-Age Impact Round. The Jury requested additional qualitative and strategic assessment of some projects by senior Volt-Age leadership, with final recommendations of the VPRII of Concordia to be sent via email. A final decision was reached by consensus via email on April 1, 2025.
Adjudication Jury members
Tim Evans (chair) – Conflict of Interest form
Troy Jerome – Conflict of Interest form
Shelley Brown – Conflict of Interest form
Eva Keyhayia – Conflict of Interest form
Steven N. Liss – Conflict of Interest form
Xiaodong Liang – Conflict of Interest form
William A. Ghali – Conflict of Interest form
Sheldon Williamson – Conflict of Interest form
Norman Hébert – Conflict of Interest form
Volt-Age is grateful to the Master Reviewers and Adjudication Jury members for their time and support of the Impact Round evaluation and decision process.
