All application information can be found in the Mitacs Registration and Application Portal (RAP). Please ensure there are no conflicts of interest in your proposal prior to submitting to Mitacs.
BSI interns are not allowed to have any position of ownership, employment, or influence over the daily operations at the partner organization. BSI interns with close family relationships or intimate relationships with academic supervisors or employees of the partner organization are also not allowed.
Any other COIs (for example, involving the academic supervisor and the partner organization) must be disclosed to Mitacs during the application process and will be reviewed by Mitacs’s COI committee. Please visit the Mitacs Conflict of Interest Policy for more information.
If a COI exists, we suggest that you contact the Business Development representative for your region prior to starting an application to ensure that you are eligible for the program.
Yes. You may include up to 10 interns on one proposal, provided that each intern’s role is clearly laid out. The academic supervisor and/or co-supervisor attached to the proposal should be able to reasonably supervise the number of interns listed, which would include weekly meetings with each intern to discuss project progress.
Before work on the project starts, Mitacs needs to receive funds from the partner organization. Interns should not start working on their project until after they receive the funds from their academic institution. Interns who start project work before receiving the funding do so at their own risk.
There is no stated limit to the number of internships an academic supervisor can support, however, there are practical limits to how much time is reasonably available in their schedule to manage multiple internships.. Academic supervisors and/or co-supervisors are expected to provide hands-on guidance to interns as they move through the project.
Both academic supervisors and co-supervisors listed on the project must be eligible as per the guidelines laid out in our Eligibility tab.
Yes. The internship is four months in duration but can be stretched over six months to accommodate the intern's other responsibilities.
To participate in any Mitacs program, it is preferred that interns have full-time student or postdoctoral status at their academic institution. However, part-time students are also eligible for internships that do not include international travel, provided that the following conditions hold:
Recent college and university graduates (any level) are eligible, at the discretion of the academic institution.
Universities must be Full, Associate, or Honourary partners of Mitacs. Colleges/CEGEPs/polytechnics must be provincially or territorially recognized PSE-degree granting institutions with a signed Mitacs Funding Agreement.
Yes, this program can support international students registered at a participating academic institution. Academic institutions are considered employers of the intern and should determine any eligibility issues regarding visa restrictions prior to submitting the project to Mitacs. Projects cannot be completed remotely from another country.
In-person interaction at the partner’s location is required when feasible, but we recognize that due to pandemic restrictions, many organizations and academic institutions began working virtually as much as possible, and that this mode of work may continue in some fields as part of the new normal. If the partner organization does not have a physical location where the intern can interact with their staff, an internship may still be eligible, but Mitacs expects the proposal to describe the nature of the planned interaction (whether it will be in-person, virtual, or both) with all parties (the academic supervisor and the partner organization).
Project start dates cannot pre-date the Approval letter you receive from Mitacs. Project work should not start until you have received funds from your academic institution. Funds will not be released to your academic institution until after Mitacs has received the funds from the partner organization. Partner organizations must pay their invoices to Mitacs before any funding can be released.
All participants (interns, academic supervisors, and partner organizations) will be required to complete an exit survey within 30 days of the end of the project date. Academic institutions will be required to complete a Financial Report and submit to Mitacs outlining the awards paid out. Intern final reports are not required for this program.
Mitacs follows Tri-Agency Financial Administration guidelines for use of funds. See Mitacs's use of funds page for details of eligible expenses for Mitacs programs.
If you have any questions about the Business Strategy Internship (BSI) program, please email the Business Strategy Internship team.
BSI is offered in partnership with your academic institution, which administers your award. We recommend that you speak with your professor and institution about funding policies (“stipend” or “salary”) and potential deductions of benefits. Universities administer funds according to their individual institutional policies, which are flexible under Tri-Council guidelines. If benefits are included, they may be deducted from either your pay or the accompanying research funds.
Mitacs takes no position on intellectual property (IP).
IP is to be shared between the academic institution, its researchers, and the partner organization according to the academic institution's IP rules, unless a separate agreement is negotiated.
Mitacs can facilitate IP discussions with any Canadian academic institution. The following universities have their own IP policies for Mitacs projects:
Note that these IP agreements may not apply to joint applications with other funding organizations.
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