Is your company in need of additional R&D capabilities?
Are you a graduate student interested in applying your research to real-world issues?
Is your research team interested in working closely with Canadian industry?

The MITACS ACCELERATE Program links businesses across the industrial spectrum with university-based expertise—in any faculty or department—through short-term research projects. The conduit between a business and the university is a graduate student— a highly-skilled, up-and-coming researcher with fresh ideas and a new perspective. The cost for a four month internship— $15,000—is shared equally between the company and MITACS, through the support of federal and provincial funding partners.

Applications can be submitted at any time. MITACS ACCELERATE is an applied research program involving graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, their academic supervisors and a Canadian business. In partnership with MITACS, the BC Bioenergy Network invites post-graduate students and fellows to participate in new research collaborations in the bioenergy industry for a period of four months.

MITACS ACCELERATE Canada connects Canadian companies with the high-quality expertise within the country’s universities. Most importantly, it offers a novel training experience and enhanced career opportunities for graduate students and post-doctoral fellows as well as access to business development resources to facilitate new research opportunities.

Graduate student interns spend about 50% of their time over four months on site with an industrial partner, researching an issue of interest to all parties. The balance of the intern’s time is spent back at their home university, further advancing the research under the guidance of a faculty supervisor. The MITACS ACCELERATE Program is available Master’s and PhD’s students, and Post-doctoral Fellows. MITACS ACCELERATE provides an excellent opportunity to apply advanced tools, techniques and methodologies to important research issues and problems facing partner organizations. Through the program, new research issues are brought to the academic community, a new generation of highly-qualified researchers is trained and partners are able to leverage cutting-edge research to further their organization. Specific benefits to sponsoring organizations include:

• Access to highly-skilled researchers both the interns and university faculty
• Opportunity to apply new research techniques to critical issues facing their organizations
• Development of valuable relationships with universities to provide future collaborative opportunities
• Opportunity to support the transfer and translation of research insights to industry and society at large

• Exposure to industrially relevant research which might otherwise not be possible
• Development of valuable professional relationships with non-academic organizations
• Enhance potential future job opportunities (in and out of universities)

• Internship projects are a minimum of four-months in duration
• Each four-month internship project receives $15,000 in direct funding, with the partner organization and MITACS each providing $7,500 of this amount
• These funds are limited to supporting the direct costs of research as directed by NSERC and the NCE Program rules. A detailed description of eligible expenses is available in the NCE Program Guide.
• The intern will receive a stipend from the academic supervisor using the internship grant
• It is recommended that the intern receive approximately $10,000 per 4-month internship
• Any funds over and above the intern stipend will be used to support research related to the internship
• The intern must be a graduate student or post-doctoral fellow at a Canadian university
• The intern works directly with an academic supervisor at the university and a supervisor at the partner organization
• The intern, academic supervisor and partner supervisor will meet at the initiation of the internship to agree on the research plan
• The intern will undertake a research project which has the potential to lead to, or supplement, the student’s thesis in the case of a graduate student or to further the PDF’s research program
• The intern will remain a student of their university while (s)he is an intern and shall not be an employee of the partner organization during this time
• The internship funds will be awarded as a grant to the academic supervisor
• Masters students can hold a maximum of two internships during their degree; PhD students and postdoctoral fellows can hold a maximum of three internships.
• Please note that the above limits correspond to an individual’s current degree/position; for example, a PhD student who held two internships as a Masters student may apply for more as a PhD student
• Each four-month internship can be applied for individually as separate proposals, whereas longer (eight-month) projects can be supported through a double proposal (which counts as two internships).

When submitting an internship proposal for approval, please be sure to include:

• The Memorandum signed by all partners (intern, academic supervisor, partner supervisor and a representative of the Office of Research Services). Academic supervisors must request approval from their Office of Research Services and the approval signature must be included on the Memorandum submitted with the proposal.
• A current student CV (www.commoncv.net)
• A completed MITACS Application Form
• A proposal for the internship.

The proposal should be no more than three pages in length and written in plain language but should also include relevant technical details. Electronic submission is required.

The proposal should identify:

• Title of the proposed internship project
• Name of potential intern with degree and contact information
• Name of supervisor with contact information
• Name of organization sponsor with contact information

The proposal should describe the research project and should include:

• Relevant background information
• The research to be performed
• The methods or techniques to be applied
• Relevance to partner organization
• Details of expected interaction with partner
• Internship timeline, including start date
• Proposed internship's relationship to past/other internships if relevant

If the partner funds received towards the internship are being matched by a federal source (e.g. NSERC CRD grant), please inform program administrators in the proposal to ensure that the same industrial contribution is not matched by two federal sources of funds. Adjudication is the responsibility of the administrators of MITACS ACCELERATE. The criteria used to assess internship applications include:

• Research excellence
• Industrial relevance
• Potential for ongoing research by student
• Potential for expanded collaboration with partner organization

A final report and completed exit survey must be submitted by the intern no later than one month after the conclusion of the internship. The report should:

• Be no more than 3 pages in length
• Summarize research goals, research techniques used and a summary of research outcomes
• Identify benefits for the partner organization
• Identify future research plans

Note: NSERC Form 300 must be completed by the intern’s home University and signed by the academic supervisor who received the Internship grant. The Awardee will remain under the jurisdiction of the originating institution for the period of involvement with the industrial partner and will not be deemed as an employee, student, or post-doctoral fellow of the industrial partner institution.

The BC Bioenergy Network will not be responsible for providing insurance of any kind to individuals participating in the MITACS Accelerate Program. Program Awardees and their supervisors should ensure that the Awardee has adequate insurance coverage outside of the home institution.

Award recipients are required to acknowledge the BC Bioenergy Network in any communication or publication related to the project. Information about the training experience must be made available to the BC Bioenergy Network for communications purposes including, but not limited to, its newsletter, website, and annual report. For submission of Applications to the MITACS ACCELERATE Program, please e-mail or fax a copy of the signed Memorandum to 778-782-6657 and e-mail the proposal and student CV to both MITACS ACCELERATE and the BC Bioenergy Network.

Electronic submission is required to be sent to the MITACS Director, Business Development, Laurence Meadows at lmeadows@mitacs.ca and to the BC Bioenergy Network Director of Research, Dr. Scott Stanners at scott.stanners@bcbioenergy.ca. For information or questions about the MITACS ACCELERATE Program, please e-mail: Dr. Scott Stanners at the BC Bioenergy Network: scott.stanners@bcbioenergy.ca; or Laurence Meadows at MITACS: lmeadows@mitacs.ca.