Competition

Strengthen your students’ skills with a unique learning opportunity! Provide new training and career opportunities for your students by giving them the chance to put their knowledge and expertise to work in a challenging business environment.

Build new partnerships with industry leaders and give your brightest students the opportunity to gain vital real-world experience through Business Strategy Internship. Open to all post-secondary students and recent graduates, from college students to undergrads to postdocs and across all disciplines, the collaborative initiative matches interns with eligible businesses and not-for-profit organizations seeking specialized expertise in order to optimize their budget, maximize their resources, enhance their operations, and achieve their business goals.

Please be advised that the Business Strategy Internship has limited availability. You are encouraged to contact your local Mitacs Advisor before drafting your application.

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. Throughout the internship, Mitacs provides online professional development courses to interns through our e-Campus, EDGE.

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

Innovation projects are expected to lead to change and improvements for the partner and/or community, through exploration, design, and implementation of improvements/efficiencies in business models, products, processes, or service delivery.

Details

• The BSI program will provide an award of $10,000 per intern 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 Funding/Use of Funds section below) or to top up an intern stipend. Any combination of funding is allowed as long as the minimum intern stipend is $10,000 and the minimum partner organization contribution is $7,500.

• Projects should be designed as four-month internships, however, they can be adjusted to six-month internships to provide flexibility to accommodate the intern’s other responsibilities.

• Projects will be designed to address one or more business innovation components (i.e., marketing, operations, finance, intellectual property (IP), etc.) dependent on the needs of the organization.

• Projects submitted to Mitacs will be adjudicated to ensure that the participants meet the necessary requirements and that the work outlined is eligible for the program.

• Each project will require supervision from a supervisor at the partner organization and an academic supervisor or a point of contact appointed by the institution to oversee the work and the intern.

• Interns are expected to meet weekly with both supervisors to report on the progress of their project. Virtual meetings are acceptable.

• Interns and both supervisors will be required to complete an exit survey at the end of the program reporting on project outcomes, skills developed and providing feedback on the program experience.

• Interns will deliver a final presentation to their supervisors summarizing the work at project completion.

Before you begin your application, please contact Memorial's Mitacs advisors, who will assist you in completing the application process: Heidi Crummell, 709-327-8902, hcrummell@mitacs.ca

Once the application is complete, you must then submit for Departmental, HSS Faculty, and Research Initiatives and Services (RIS) institutional reviews and approvals via Memorial's Researcher Portal (RP). In order to facilitate the HSS Faculty’s administrative review, please ensure "Heather C. O'Brien (Grants Facilitator)" and “Matthew Milner (Grants Facilitator)” are added as "Team Members" on your RP file. Allow at least 10 business days for these reviews to be completed.

In accordance with University-wide approval protocols, all tabs of the RP file must be completed, the completed application must be uploaded to the “Attachments” tab, all supporting documentation including support for cash and in-kind commitments and/or letters of support must also be uploaded, and “Submit” must be pressed in order for HSS to begin its administrative review and provide approvals. HSS cannot guarantee timely completion of an administrative review for application files that are incomplete. For more detailed submission instructions and information, please consult the HSS Research Support Services website.

If you plan to apply to this competition or other research funding opportunities (as either PI or CI), e-mail an HSS Grants Facilitator, Heather C. O’Brien (HSSResearchAdmin@mun.ca or 864-8603) or Matthew Milner (HSSResearchGrants@mun.ca or 864-8050), to notify the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of your intent to apply. E-mailing the intent to apply as early as possible will help to facilitate an efficient review. A Grants Facilitator can answer any questions you may have about internal or external submission procedures and may also be able to help with proposal development.