Award Interruption

If you are still eligible for an award, you may pause your award payments for an approved leave of absence, internship or registration deferral.

Leaves of absence

If the terms of reference allow, you may be able to pause your award payments during an authorized leave of absence if you hold an FGS award or an external award administered through the Graduate Scholarship Office.

An FGS award: Your award payment will stop during an authorized leave of absence of up to one year and will be reinstated once you return to full-time studies.

An external award: Refer to the agency’s award holder’s guide or terms of reference for more information.

Apply for a leave of absence

Example

  1. Jon S. was awarded a Special award to be paid from September 2019 to August 2019. Jon took an approved leave of absence from January 2019 to April 2019. The Special award was halted January 2019 and reinstated May 2019 to December 2019 (beyond the August 2019) once he returned to full-time studies.

Internships and registration deferrals

Internships

Awards may be interrupted for an approved full-time internship (such as Mitacs, other research related internships and the Transformative Talent Internship). 

If you hold an FGS award your award payment will stop during an authorized full-time paid internship of up to one year and be reinstated once you return to full-time studies. For external awards, refer to the agency’s award holder’s guide for more information

Part-time internships: Consult with the Awards team to confirm whether or not a part-time internship will impact your eligibility to hold an award.  

Program required Internships: If your internship is required by program, such as Clinical Psychology, Counselling Psychology and School and Applied Child Psychology, your award will continue to be paid unless not allowed by the funder’s regulations.

Internship opportunities through My GradSkills

Registration deferral

You may be able to defer your award if you have to delay your registration start date and you have been offered an FGS award or an external award administered through the Graduate Scholarship Office (as long as the terms of reference allow).

  • An external award: refer to the agency’s award holder’s guide for more information on deferring your award.
  • An FGS award: you may defer the award for up to one year when the award terms of reference allow it

Registration