Fellowship fees
Initial submission: $150
Acceptance of Fellowship nomination: $400
Annual fees for Fellowship title: $200
Eligibility
- Confirmed premium membership in the Canadian Nurses Association, which includes membership in the Canadian Academy of Nursing
- Confirmed membership in the applicant’s provincial/territorial professional nursing association
- Current members of the CNA board of directors and current CNA staff are not eligible for nomination to Fellowship in the Academy.
Criteria
Fellowship represents Canada’s highest honour for nursing, reflecting exemplary contributions to the profession and to health care in Canada, often throughout a full career.
Therefore, prospective Fellows must show evidence of meeting the following criteria:
- Demonstration of outstanding individual professional and leadership contributions in one or more domains of nursing (clinical practice, policy, education, research and/or administration), with impact on improvement of nursing, health or health care at the international, national, provincial/territorial, and regional/local level as appropriate to the nature of the contributions
- Evidence that these contributions have been translated into action in one or more of the above domains in a meaningful way
- Evidence of leadership in activities that have had a considerable impact on nursing, health care or societal health
Prospective Fellows are expected to have made leadership contributions across various domains and contexts of nursing practice. Examples of such contributions include the following:
- A practical nurse whose longstanding championship of oral care in a long-term care (LTC) facility has led to practice changes across the regional LTC system
- A street nurse whose activism has led to lasting changes in how communities typically made marginal by the wider society can be more successfully supported with harm reduction approaches
- A health authority chief nursing officer whose sustained championing of nursing has made attitudinal and structural changes in systems of nursing mentorship and the expansion of nursing roles within a region
- A nurse scholar whose sustained contributions to knowledge within a field have had international impact, leadership, and attracted widespread attention in the form of formal awards, honours or recognition
- A nurse educator whose leadership and innovations in pedagogy and/or curriculum have been taken up by nursing schools across Canada
- A professional nursing leader whose impact on governmental policy or provincial/territorial/national professional association direction has had a profound impact on the health of the nursing workforce
- A nurse whose longstanding career in rural northern communities has significantly enhanced trust and confidence and improved service access within the communities served
- A professional nursing leader who has successfully enacted a variety of impactful leadership roles across nursing/policy/health-care systems throughout a full career.
Before you submit
Please note that the process is completed online and once you begin the submission, you may not be able to save your progress and return to it later. Please ensure you have collected the required information and documents before you begin your submission. We suggest drafting your descriptions in a text file to avoid losing any information.
Required information and documents:
- Your demographic information, including current employer, licence/registration number, jurisdiction of registration and regulator (some fields are optional for those who do not have a current employer)
- Your CV (all styles accepted; must be PDF file)
- A high-resolution photograph (see guidelines) to be used in the printed commemorative program
- A four-part description of your individual contributions to nursing:
- Statement of your individual contributions (maximum 165 words):
Summarize your most outstanding individual achievements in clinical practice, policy, education, research and/or administration and describe the impact of these achievements on the improvement of nursing, health and/or health care. The impact can be at any geographic level, including international, national, provincial/territorial, and/or regional/local. Please write your statement in the third person perspective (i.e. using your name and/or preferred pronouns), and use language suitable for sharing with a public audience (e.g., posting on the Academy website).
- Context of your contributions (maximum 300 words):
Describe the context(s) in which your contributions to nursing, health and health care have been made. This might include mention of the roles you have held and the work that you have done in the context of those roles. If your key contributions have involved teamwork, explain your explicit role in relation to the team accomplishments.
- Evidence of the impact of your contributions (maximum 600 words):
Provide substantive evidence of the sustained and significant impact of your contributions to nursing, health and/or health care. Although different forms of nursing leadership are impactful in quite different ways, we encourage you to try to identify the measurable impact of your work. In addition, include what you consider to have potential for significant continuing impact on health, health care and/or the domains of nursing (i.e., clinical practice, policy, education, research and/or administration) resulting from your work. Be as specific as possible, providing explanation and data to support the impact of your contributions. Ensure that the information listed in your CV and the nominator statements align as well as possible with the description you provide.
- How your contributions relate to the Academy (maximum 150 words):
Fellowship in the Canadian Academy of Nursing implies a commitment to service. How do you envision making an ongoing contribution to advancing the aims of the Academy?
When you are ready to submit
When you have all the required information and documentation ready, log in to the online Fellowship submission system and do the following:
- Enter your demographic information
- Upload your CV (PDF file) and high-resolution photograph (see guidelines)
- Provide the four-part description of your contributions to nursing. The requirements are provided in the list above. This information needs to be prepared in advance, as once you begin your submission, you may not be able to save your progress and return to it later.
- Upload completed nominator forms [PDF]. Please note: nominator forms must be filled out in Adobe Acrobat. If the form opens in another application (e.g., your web browser), try right-clicking the file and select Open with Adobe Acrobat or change your computer’s settings. Two nominators, both of whom must be members of the Canadian Nurses Association, are required for each submission to become a Fellow. Ideally, at least one nominator will be a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Nursing. For candidates who do not have close working access to colleagues who are Fellows, we will accept nominations from other accomplished nurses (active or retired). For these nominations, please append a brief bio of the supporting nominator(s).
After you submit
You will receive an email immediately to confirm your submission has been received. We will review your information carefully and follow-up with you on the status of your submission.
Candidates will be notified of the outcome of their nomination upon completion of the review process.
For more information, contact our governance and corporate services coordinator.