Global talent drives solutions

Canada taking bold action to meet national priorities 

With geopolitical shifts causing uncertainty, Canada is facing a new level of urgency to safeguard our national sovereignty, innovation, economic growth, and global competitiveness.  

In response, the Government of Canada is doubling down on innovation and supporting the attraction, development, and retention of highly skilled research talent. As part of a new $1 billion investment in its 2025 budget, the federal government announced research awards to attract international doctoral and postdoctoral researchers to areas that address emerging global and national challenges and support the growth of the Canadian economy in the following priority areas: artificial intelligence, quantum, cybersecurity, health, clean technologies, environment and climate resilience, food and water security, manufacturing and advanced materials, and defence and dual-use technologies. 

The announcement is an important investment in talent and highlights the critical role researchers will play in building a resilient economy for Canada. 

Mitacs commitment to talent and innovation 

Mitacs’ commitment to talent development and retention is integral to our mission to drive industry–academic collaboration, deploy skilled talent, and build innovation capacity to strengthen Canada’s productivity and global competitiveness.  

We believe a strong, resilient Canadian economy depends on harnessing ideas, talent, and innovation to improve productivity and global competitiveness. 

Our model includes support and opportunities for highly skilled international postdoctoral researchers who bring fresh perspectives and practical solutions to real-world challenges. Many Mitacs postdocs have transformed their research into commercial impact – here are just a few examples. 

Building better batteries for global markets

Ravindra Kempaiah’s journey towards battery innovation started with an 8,200-kilometre expedition on an electric bicycle. 

 “For the cost of a Tim Horton’s coffee, I crisscrossed the United States. It was very clear in my mind that this technology was going to be the future.”

Ravindra Kempaiah

After earning a bachelor’s degree in technology and a master’s in nanotechnology from the National Institute of Technology in India, followed by a PhD from the University of Illinois, he followed his hunch. As a postdoctoral fellow at Dalhousie University, he studied the development and commercialization of long-lifetime lithium-ion batteries for light electric vehicles.  

By working with Dalhousie’s Dr. Jeff Dhan — one of the pioneering developers of the lithium-ion battery technology used today — Kempaiah propelled his academic expertise and experience to launch a company. 

With support from the Mitacs Accelerate Entrepreneur program, Kempaiah founded Zen Energy in 2021, a Dartmouth, Nova Scotia-based company innovating and commercializing long-lifetime batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage systems. Kempaiah is now developing digital AI twins that can track battery performance to improve design, adaptability, and reliability.  

The technology is being developed within Canada but applied to global solutions to meet the growing market for battery-powered vehicles. 

 “Mitacs gave me freedom to explore how to make the most impact. My experience in Canada was extremely critical in developing my research skills because I got to firsthand see what cutting edge really looks like.”

Ravindra Kempaiah

Applying research to meet mobility needs

Founded by a pair of professors from Simon Fraser University, Siamak Arzanpour and Edward Park, Human In Motion Robotics is a Vancouver-based robotics company looking to provide a mobility solution for people with lower extremity motor deficits and severe mobility impairments. 

Their exoskeleton, called XoMotion™, is designed to provide the ability to walk and stand in natural movement, eventually training the body to recover movement when possible. 

It’s an ambitious, cross-disciplinary project that Nafise Faridi Rad is proud to be a part of as a current postdoctoral fellow. A PhD graduate from the University of British Columbia, Rad’s interest in robots started in high school when she saw an MIT’s professor’s TED Talk who had returned movement to a dancer who had lost a leg. 

Rad began studying robotics with the ambition to see her work move beyond the lab and into commercial applications. Through her Mitacs Accelerate postdoc with Human In Motion Robotics, Nafise has gained hands-on experience applying her research in real-world settings, alongside interdisciplinary collaboration to identify challenges and help bring practical solutions closer to market. 

“Through Mitacs, I can work with cross-disciplinary teams and industry partners to have external validation of my research. Mitacs helps to turn the research into practice,” says Rad. 

From lab to CEO with Mitacs’ support

As a PhD student conducting research at Children’s Hospital, Ali Pormohammad saw firsthand the need for the development of new biotech and medicines. “I was doing an internship and seeing lots of kids and patients dying due to infections for which we used to have treatment. Available antibiotics are getting resistance and it’s challenging both diagnosis and treatment in the infection field,” says Pormohammad.

As a researcher who had been working on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) for over a decade, he became determined to move beyond publishing papers and find a real-world solution. After finishing his PhD, he joined a leading lab in biological sciences during his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Calgary.

Despite initial obstacles in finding industry partners to tackle AMR, Pormohammad connected with one within a week of joining the Mitacs Elevate program. He said participating in the program helped him move towards academic-industry collaboration with enormous benefits for his career.

Through this experience, Pormohammad saw the potential in starting his own company. He later joined the Accelerate Entrepreneur program and went on to become the founder of MHCombiotic Inc in Alberta, helping advance patented solutions to AMR.

Pormohammad says he had not considered being a company CEO, but his research success and exposure to strategic support through Mitacs led him in that direction. Since named one of Calgary’s 40 under 40, he is continuing to feel inspired and empowered to apply his research to a major health challenge.

New Mitacs initiatives for Canadian and international postdoctoral fellows 

Tapping international talent boosts competitiveness and goes together with providing a platform for domestic talent to thrive and find compelling opportunities at home. To translate national priorities into applied research and industry collaboration, Mitacs has launched two complementary initiatives to the Government of Canada’s investment in postdoctoral talent. Mitacs is powering high-caliber talent within Canada, while attracting the best and brightest globally to keep us at the forefront of technological advancement and innovation. 

The Mitacs Accelerate Industry Postdoc, launched in 2025, offers enhanced awards up to $75,000 per year for three years to postdoctoral fellows currently in Canada conducting applied research with a company, non-profit, municipality, or hospital. 

So far, nearly 250 projects have been awarded across Canada, in partnership with over 200 industry partners as well as Crown corporations, government, and not-for-profit organizations.  

The Mitacs Accelerate Global Excellence Award will bring outstanding international research talent, including Canadians currently studying abroad, to Canada to participate in industrial fellowships in partnership with leading researchers. The new postdoctoral award is an important demonstration of Mitacs’ commitment to attracting top research talent to strengthen the economy, improve productivity, and increase competitiveness. 

Launching on March 2, the Global Excellence Award will offer funding of $170,000 over two years for collaborative industrial research projects – with funding to support both research and relocation costs.  

Find out more: Interested in opportunities as a postdoctoral fellow with Mitacs? Explore the Global Excellence Award and the Mitacs Accelerate Industry Postdoc.

About Mitacs  

For over 25 years, Mitacs has helped grow the economy and develop the workforce of tomorrow, connecting industry with academia and global partners to solve real-world challenges. We support business-academic research collaboration through internships, co-funded with businesses, for undergraduate to graduate students and post-doctoral fellows.   

As a national innovation connector, Mitacs takes a talent-first approach to strengthen innovation capacity and drive global competitiveness. We serve as an essential research-commercialization bridge, accelerating market entry and growth for new products and services.   

This is a critical time for Canada to think big and take bold action. Mitacs is ready to help build a strong and resilient Canadian economy, powered by ideas, talent and innovation.   

Mitacs is funded by the Government of Canada, the Government of Alberta, the Government of British Columbia, Research Manitoba, the Government of New Brunswick, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Government of Nova Scotia, the Government of Ontario, Innovation PEI, the Government of Quebec, the Government of Saskatchewan, and the Government of Yukon. 

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