Call for proposals | Collaborative Northern Lexicon

Institut nordique du Québec (INQ), in collaboration its three research chairs, is launching a call to the student community interested in the Canadian North and in public communication.

Students are invited to submit a digital project for inclusion in the Collaborative northern lexicon.  This lexicon, dedicated to the North and the Arctic, will be composed of concise digital content that defines in simple terms, words or concepts that are familiar to the general public, but applied in a northern context.

Accepted forms of digital content

• Videos (less than three minutes);
• Audio clips (less than three minutes);
• Infographics (800 x 2000 px);
• Texts (less than 500 words and accompanied by a visual).
• Etc.

Eligible terms and concepts for the Collaborative northern lexicon

The Collaborative northern lexicon will be composed of words and concepts that are familiar to the general public, but applied in a northern context.  The lexicon will also include words, phrases or terms deemed significant by northern First Peoples (Cree, Inuit, Innu, Naskapi).

For example, these terms could be found in the Collaborative northern lexicon :

• Atikᵁ
• Animal health
• Arctic Char
• Berries
• Caribou
• Climate change
• Cloudberry
• Colonisation
• Contaminant
• Dog
• Drinking water
• Fishing
• Flora
• Food security
• Fox
• Housing
• Human health
• Hunting
• Inuksuk
• Kwei
• Permafrost
• Siku
• Sustainable development
• Sustainable health
• Taïga
• Toxicology
• Transportation
• Tundra
• Uskutimh
• Waste management
• Wastewater

Objective of the Collaborative northern ;exicon

To create a bank of digital content to improve the knowledge of this territory by the general public in Quebec. By dissecting familiar or significant terms and concepts, used in a northern context, the lexicon will offer quality content to promote the discovery and understanding of this unique region.

Bursaries for the creation of digital projects

Five proposals will be selected from this call.

• A bursary of $1,000 per project will be awarded to the students who propose the best digital content concept for the lexicon.
• Note that team submissions will be accepted, but the amount awarded to the project remains the same.

*By accepting the award, the student agrees to provide the digital content to INQ within 4 months, i.e. March 2022.

Announcement of the selected proposals

Students who have submitted successful proposals will be contacted the week of November 22, 2021.

Eligibility criteria for students submitting proposals

• Be enrolled as a full-time student at a university affiliated with INQ

Evaluation criteria

Submitted proposals will be evaluated based on the following criteria: :

•  relevance of the proposed word or concept in a northern context
•  quality of the information conveyed by the digital project (sources)
•  quality of popularisation of the information
•  valorisation of northern research
•  clarity of the proposal
•  realistic budget for the design of the digital project
•  originality

Submission of proposals

Proposals must be submitted to admin@inq.ulaval.ca before 11:59 pm on November 14, 2021.

Proposals must include the following information  :

• student's contact information (name, email, home university, academic level, program of study)
• the concept of the digital project - focus on the content and information to be conveyed to the general public so that the relevance of the project can be evaluated (1 ½ page maximum)
• a description of the project format (1/2 page maximum)
• a budget