Business Strategy Internship (BSI) Grant

The Mitacs Accelerate Grant Program offers businesses a unique opportunity to tackle research challenges with the help of academic expertise and funding. By contributing a minimum of $7,500, organizations can access tailored research projects over a flexible timeline, starting from four months. This program encourages collaboration between businesses and academic institutions, ultimately enhancing research capabilities and fostering innovation in various fields.

Note:

• You are encouraged to contact your local Mitacs Advisor before drafting your application.

This gives partners more flexibility when accessing talent to meet their research and development project needs.
Mitacs
For more than 25 years, Mitacs has brought together academia, industry, government, and global partners to solve real-world problems, develop top talent, and grow the Canadian economy.
Advance your business and research goals with the Mitacs Business Strategy Internship (BSI). This program fosters collaboration between post-secondary students, postdoctoral fellows, industry partners, and academic researchers to tackle critical business challenges and drive innovation. By connecting skilled research talent with organizations in need of strategic insights, BSI helps enhance operations, improve processes, and develop new opportunities.
Open to for-profit companies, hospitals, municipalities, and eligible not-for-profit organizations, BSI provides funding support for innovation-driven projects while offering interns valuable hands-on experience.
About the program
In partnership with Canadian academic institutions, Mitacs is pleased to offer the Business Strategy Internship (BSI). The award provides either $10,000 or $15,000 per intern to allow them to undertake a four-month internship project with a partner organization in Canada. Interns will work with their academic supervisor to co-design a project with their partner organization to work on the organization’s innovation activities, helping them improve their products, processes, or services.
The BSI program aims to:

• support innovation to generate knowledge and its transfer between academic and non-academic sectors
• strengthen the innovation capabilities of partner organizations
• support the creation and ownership of intellectual property in Canada
• promote collaboration between sectors by reducing the risk for companies to engage in innovation
• provide work-integrated learning and professional skills training to increase employability of post-secondary students
• ensure and promote equitable access by underrepresented groups to foster inclusive innovation
• Funding

The BSI program provides an award of $10,000 per intern per four- or six-month internship, with the full amount of the award going towards intern stipend. The partner organization will contribute $5,000 towards the award.
Alternatively, partner organizations can select a $15,000 funding model where up to $5,000 of the funds can be used for eligible project costs (see Use of Funds) or to top up an intern stipend. The minimum intern stipend for all units is $10,000 and the minimum partner organization contribution is $7,500.
Further, all parties must declare any potential conflicts of interest upon application submission, including:

• An academic supervisor in a position of ownership, employment or influence over operations at the partner organization.
• An intern is in a position of ownership, employment or influence over operations at the partner organization.

Programs participants with a close family relationship with each other, or with someone in a position of ownership employment or influence at the partner organization.
Interns may interact remotely with an international partner organization.
BSI projects must take place in Canada with Canadian partner organizations.
This program requires three core participants: an eligible intern, an eligible academic supervisor and an eligible partner organization.
Project Extension
Mitacs project extensions are now available to Business Strategy Internship (BSI) project holders who need more time to complete the objectives and deliverables as outlined in an approved Mitacs project. Though this streamlined application and adjudication process (with additional financial commitment from the partner organization), eligible applicants may extend the original project timeline by adding up to one internship unit (IU) per intern per project. Project extensions can be used to overcome unexpected challenges, to incorporate additional scope, or to allow additional time to support implementation of results.
You are eligible to request an extension in your project if:

• At least 75% of your initial project is completed or your project has ended less than 4 months ago;
• The extension is requested to complete the initial objectives of the project;
• The extension request is for 1 internship unit per intern to a maximum of 10 internship units per project;
• The partner in the project will provide an additional contribution leverage by Mitacs with our standard funding model (see above).
• For project extension, completed forms should be submitted to your local Mitacs Advisor for revision and official submission to Mitacs for evaluation.

Eligibility

Academic supervisorsAcademic supervisors are eligible if they are faculty at a Canadian academic institution who are eligible to hold Tri-Agency funds.
Partner organizationsPartner organizations can be for-profit corporations (must receive more than 50% of their funds from non-government sources), eligible not-for-profit corporations, municipalities, or hospitals in Canada.Eligibility can be confirmed with a Mitacs Advisor.
InternAn intern can be a Canadian citizen, a permanent resident, international student with a student visa, or international postdoctoral fellow with a valid work permit. Interns must be 18 years old or over, and fall into one of the following categories:Registered students and postdoctoral fellows at Mitacs partner colleges and universities in Canada. Postdoctoral fellows are eligible if the date of graduation from a PhD program is less than five years to the start date of the project. Exceptions are available for extenuating circumstances such as parental leave or military service. Fellows must not have been employed full-time at the partner organization prior to applying.Recent graduates (must be within two years of graduation at the start of their project), and non-degree students (diploma, certificate, etc) are eligible at the academic institution’s discretion. (Any interested applicants should check with their institution to first determine whether they are able to support other types of university interns before drafting an application.)Visiting students and researchers at Canadian academic institutions who are completing a degree at a university abroad may also be eligible at the discretion of the Canadian institution.
How many internships can one intern do?
Post-secondary students are eligible for any number of internships at the discretion of their institution. Interns must be enrolled as a student at an eligible institution throughout the course of the internship and have time in their schedule to commit to the project.Postdoctoral fellows can do up to nine (9) four-month internships (up to three (3) years)Recent graduates can complete up to three (3) four-month internships within two years of their graduation dateInterns may not participate in more than one internship at the same time.