Accelerate

Optimize your budget, grow your R&D, and tap into the expertise of highly skilled students, graduate students, recent grads, and postdocs to solve your research challenges and achieve your innovation goals. Open to eligible not-for-profits, the program pairs partner organizations with top-level research talent, who can help support your mission, execute initiatives, identify new opportunities, create innovative solutions, and more. Projects start at four months in duration and can be scaled up as needed.

NEW! Accelerate is going digital!​

We are thrilled to announce that Mitacs is launching an online application portal for our Accelerate program. This application portal is a first step towards digitizing our entire application process, by phasing out our paper applications and leveraging digital tools to further enhance your application experience.

To be eligible for the digital process, your project must:

• Use one, or a combination of the following Award values:
  • $10,000 Standard Award (1:1)
  • $15,000 Standard Award (1:1)
  • $13,333 Cluster Funding (1:1.2) (Eligibility: 3 or more unique interns, and a minimum of 6 internship units)
• Not be joint funded
• Have no known COIs at the point of application
• Contain 10 internship units or less

Please note the digital option cannot yet accommodate Indigenous Pathways and Masters and PhD Fellowship Award values at this time, or any joint-funded application. We strive to enable these in the digital application as soon as possible. Additional conditions to eligibility may apply. 

Does your project not seem like a good fit for this digital application?

Please expand and review the “Accelerate (Non-Digital)” option below. Program outcomes, requirements, and Award values remain the same in each application process.

You may always contact your Mitacs Advisor for help navigating this process.

Does the digital process seem like a good fit for your project?

Follow the application instructions below.

How to Apply

Step #1:

Click Here to Download and complete the Accelerate Research Proposal and supplementary templates for the digital process.

You will need to upload your completed proposal to the portal when prompted.

Step #2:

Click on the “Apply Here” button below to access the Accelerate Registration and Application Portal (RAP).

Please click on the buttons below for more Program information about policies, eligibility and processes.

Accelerate

Optimize your budget, grow your R&D, and tap into the expertise of highly skilled students, graduate students, recent grads, and postdocs to solve your research challenges and achieve your innovation goals. Open to eligible not-for-profits, the program pairs partner organizations with top-level research talent, who can help support your mission, execute initiatives, identify new opportunities, create innovative solutions, and more. Projects start at four months in duration and can be scaled up as needed.

Please note that the Accelerate Program is incrementally transitioning to a digital application process. To see if your project is a good fit for the digital process, please review the “Accelerate (NEW: Digital Application)” option above. Program outcomes, requirements, and Award values remain the same in each application process. 

How to Apply:

Step #1: 

Download and complete the Accelerate application templates.

Step #2:

Collect all required signatures: intern(s), professor(s), partner contact, and university Office of Research Services or equivalent.

Step #3:

When you are ready to have a draft reviewed of your application, you may email your application your Mitacs Advisor. Your Advisor will direct you on next steps.

Please click on the buttons below for more Program information about policies, eligibility and processes.

Accelerate Entrepreneur

Grow your startup, develop the research or technology at its core, advance your professional skills, and get to market faster with Accelerate Entrepreneur, a flexible initiative open to student and postdoctoral entrepreneurs in any discipline. Accelerate Entrepreneur helps startups better optimize their budgets, and provides the financial support needed to pilot test, refine, and ultimately commercialize new technology, products or services through internships valued at $15,000 each.

How to Apply:

Step #1: 

Connect with your local Mitacs Advisor to get your Accelerate Entrepreneur application started.

Step #2: 

Download and complete the Accelerate application templates.

Step #3:

Collect all required signatures: intern(s), professor(s), partner contact, and university Office of Research Services or equivalent.

Step #4:

When you are ready to have a draft reviewed of your application, you may email your application your Mitacs Advisor. Your Advisor will direct you on next steps.

Please click on the buttons below for more Program information about policies, eligibility and processes.

Accelerate Fellowship

Optimize your budget, boost R&D, deepen your talent pool, and tap into the highly skilled research talent your organization needs to achieve critical breakthroughs. Flexible and scalable, Accelerate Fellowship pairs industry leaders with top-tier Masters and PhD students, who apply their expertise to help companies create game-changing innovation on research projects spanning from 18 months to four years.

How to Apply:

Step #1: 

Download and complete the Accelerate application templates.

Step #2:

Collect all required signatures: intern(s), professor(s), partner contact, and university Office of Research Services or equivalent.

Step #3:

When you are ready to have a draft reviewed of your application, you may email your application your Mitacs Advisor. Your Advisor will direct you on next steps.

Please click on the buttons below for more Program information about policies, eligibility and processes.

Accelerate International

Expand your innovation horizons, seize exciting opportunities with international researchers, and build knowledge-sharing relationships around the world through Accelerate International, which supports bilateral research collaborations between interns, academic institutions, and partner organizations in Canada and abroad. Open to students and postdoctoral fellows in any discipline, the program allows Canadian researchers to participate in projects in Mitacs’s partner countries, and international students to undertake projects in Canada.

How to Apply:

Step #1: 

Download and complete the Accelerate application templates.

Step #2:

Collect all required signatures: intern(s), professor(s), partner contact, and university Office of Research Services or equivalent.

Step #3:

When you are ready to have a draft reviewed of your application, you may email your application your Mitacs Advisor. Your Advisor will direct you on next steps.

Note: Interns travelling internationally (whether to or from Canada) for an Accelerate project must visit our Accelerate International page for additional instructions and requirements.

Please click on the buttons below for more Program information about policies, eligibility and processes.

Business Strategy Internship

Maximize your ROI and optimize your budget by tapping into the knowledge and expertise of top-ranked postsecondary students and recent graduates to help you solve critical challenges through the Business Strategy Internship. Open to for-profit companies, hospitals, municipalities, and eligible not-for-profit organizations, the collaborative initiative matches interns from a broad range of disciplines with organizations in need of skilled talent in order to enhance their operations, improve processes, and solve challenges.

How to Apply:

Step #1: 

Download and complete the Business Strategy Internship application templates.

Step #2:

Click on the “Apply Here” button below to access the Business Strategy Internship Registration and Application Portal (RAP).

You may watch these videos for how to apply through the RAP.

Please click on the buttons below for more Program information about policies, eligibility and processes.

Elevate

Maximize your budget, grow your business, expand your network and add highly trained talent to your research team through Elevate, a one to two-year program for top-ranked postdoctoral fellows in any discipline. Participating fellows work closely with partner organizations to understand their business needs and apply research principles to address these needs. Partner organizations gain exclusive access to academic-institution resources that might not otherwise be available to them, leverage their research budgets, and assess potential research managers with minimal impact on those budgets.

How to Apply:

Step #1: 

Download and complete the Elevate application templates.

Step #2:

Click on the “Apply Here” button below to access the Elevate Registration and Application Portal (RAP).

Please click on the buttons below for more Program information about policies, eligibility and processes.

Globalink Graduate Fellowship

Access financial support, gain critical hands-on experience in the international innovation-and-research ecosystem, and collaborate with highly skilled supervisors at some of the top academic institutions in Canada through the Globalink Graduate Fellowship.

Available exclusively to former Globalink research interns who are applying to masters or PhD programs, or postdoctoral fellowships at an eligible Canadian academic institution, the initiative provides a $15,000 award, and allows you to further grow your potential while studying abroad.

Globalink Research Award

Grow your potential, expand your innovation horizons, build new relationships with international academic institutions and organizations, while you seize research opportunities abroad, through the Globalink Research Award. Open to full-time senior undergraduates, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, the $6,000 award allows talented researchers to undertake 12- to 24-week projects with a host supervisor in Canada.

How to Apply:

Step #1: 

Review all eligibility and award guidelines from Mitacs, the international partner, and the Canadian institution.

Step #2:

Participants connect with one another to discuss project interests. Please note that Mitacs cannot connect interested applicants.

Step #3:

Academic supervisors at Canadian institutions obtain endorsement from the Canadian institution before preparing the application. Please contact your local Mitacs Advisor for more information on what kind of endorsement is required for your project, and how to receive the link to the GRA Application Portal.

Step #4:

Complete the application: in addition to completing all the fields in the portal, applicants will be required to submit a research proposal and a Mitacs Pre-Departure form. Additional information will be provided in the application portal.

Step #5:

Submit your complete application 16 weeks prior to project start date.

Please contact your local Mitacs Advisor for more information.

Please click on the buttons below for more Program information about policies, eligibility and processes.

Globalink Research Internship

Access Canada’s dynamic and innovative research landscape, gain valuable hands-on research experience in your chosen field, and open the door to exciting international opportunities in the future through a Globalink Research Internship. Open to undergraduate students in Mitacs’s partner countries, the competitive initiative facilitates 12-week internships in research projects hosted by Canadian academic-institution faculty members in a variety of academic disciplines, from science, engineering, and mathematics to the humanities and social sciences.

Mitacs Entrepreneur International

Seize international business opportunities, grow your knowledge of the global marketplace, tap into new investment streams, and establish partnerships abroad to help take your startup to the next level through Entrepreneur International. The exciting initiative offers a travel grant to Canadian start-ups that are housed in an incubator or accelerator linked to an academic institution, enabling them to connect with host incubators abroad to explore business-development options in international markets.

How to Apply:

Step #1: 

Connect with a Mitacs Advisor in your region to discuss the trip you have in mind.

Step #2: 

Download and complete the Mitacs Entrepreneur International application templates.

Step #3: 

Verify with your Advisor that your Canadian and International incubator or accelerator is pre-approved.

Step #4:

Review the minimum eligibility and adjudication criteria.

Step #5:

Draft an application and collect all required supporting documentation.

Step #6:

Contact your Mitacs Advisor to submit your application.

RISE – Globalink Research Internship

Mitacs has partnered with the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), to support the mobility of students from Canadian universities to German universities and institutions. 

The RISE-Globalink Research Internship (RISE-GRI) is a competitive initiative that offers undergraduate students at Canadian universities in the fields of biology, chemistry, computer science, engineering, earth science, and physics the opportunity to participate in a research project supervised by a doctoral student at a German university or institution.