Feds invest $56.4M for Mitacs Accelerate skills development & research

Apr. 22, 2015 – The Government of Canada’s budget announced an additional investment of $56.4 million over four years, starting in 2016-17, to support industrial research internships for graduate students through the Mitacs Accelerate program.

The new funding will support an additional 6,000 internships over four years, effectively doubling the program by 2020.

Mitacs Accelerate provides graduate students and postdoctoral fellows with career skills as they apply their specialized expertise to business-focused challenges in partnership with industry and not-for-profit organizations. Internships are supported by the Canadian government, industry partners and provincial governments.

“This new funding will support R&D collaborations, which will see graduate students transfer their skills from theory to application while our partner companies grow through innovation,” said Alejandro Adem, CEO and scientific director of Mitacs. “We are grateful that the Government of Canada has taken a significant step to further promote innovation and productivity in Canada by expanding investment in Mitacs Accelerate and supporting collaboration between industry and Canadian universities.”

The impact of Mitacs Accelerate on Canadian R&D investment, innovation and business outcomes was recently revealed in a longitudinal survey. As a result of their collaboration with Mitacs, former industry partners reported that the Accelerate program met their corporate needs:

• 66 per cent of projects have resulted, or will result, in commercialization,
• 25 per cent of the interns were hired into new positions, and
• 18 per cent of companies saw their profits grow through cost savings.

Mitacs is a national, not-for-profit organization led by Canadian universities that has designed and delivered research and training programs in Canada for 15 years. Open to all disciplines and all industry sectors, projects span a wide range of areas, including manufacturing, business processes, IT, design and more.