As of January 15, the eligibility criteria will be restricted, and as of April 1, each researcher can only apply for 1 Engage grant per fiscal year - see below for a message by NSERC.
All researchers currently working on developing an Engage proposal are encouraged to fully exploit the current limit of 2 Engage grants per fiscal year before the new limit takes effect. If you are currently working on an Engage proposal, please plan to submit the remaining Engage proposals for this fiscal year by late January. Last year we were told that only applications received by mid January would still count towards the current fiscal year, but I'm still waiting for a confirmation by John Jackson what the cutoff date will be this year, so let me know ([email protected]) if you want to be updated about that. Engage Plus proposals and unsuccessful Engage proposals don't count towards the limit, and it is OK to have time-overlapping Engage projects.
Updates to Engage Grants
(Dec 10 2015 message by NSERC)
Engage Grants are popular with both industry and postsecondary institutions. To ensure the quality and impact of these projects, the following changes will be implemented to preserve the program's effectiveness while managing its budget:
- Starting January 15, 2016:
o
Eligible Engage Grants applicants must have received recent peer-reviewed support through NSERC. The rigorous peer review practices provided to NSERC by Canada's science and engineering braintrust will ensure that high quality university-based Engage projects are selected.
o
Companies participating in Engage must have at least two full-time employees and have been in operation for at least two years when applying. This change will support projects with industrial partners that are positioned to exploit research results beyond the completion of the grant and to sustain the collaboration created through Engage.
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Engage Grants applicants at universities will be limited to one new award per fiscal year so applicants can focus on choosing the right company partners. This will not apply to college-based Engage Grants applicants because it's the institution that applies rather than the researcher.
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Industrial partners will be limited to two Engage grants per year. However, partners providing cash contributions to ongoing NSERC-funded projects outside of Engage will be allowed up to two additional Engage applications per year. This change will allow companies that demonstrate a commitment to industrial-academic research greater opportunity to make use of Engage to expand their collaborative network.
These changes will be detailed in the Engage Grants description as of December 15th. Further additions will be made to the description and instructions to help eligible researchers and companies develop a successful application:
- An elaborated description of what constitutes a company-specific problem;
- An Industrial Participation section that describes eligibility considerations for company partners;
- Clarification on the right of academic participants to use the intellectual property from the project for future teaching and research;
- Guidance on what must be addressed in the company letter of support; and
- An expanded application checklist that summarizes what to provide in the full application, along with a template to make it easier to complete the two-page freeform section of the proposal.
(End of December 10 2015 message from NSERC)
Program description under the current guidelines:
NSERC Engage Grants
Grant Amount
: up to $25,000
Grant duration
: up to 6 months
Short Description
: These grants are intended to foster the development of new research partnerships between an academic researcher and a company that have never collaborated before, by supporting short-term research and development projects aimed at addressing a company-specific problem in the natural sciences or engineering fields. The company only has to contribute in-kind (e.g., meetings with the researcher), but cash is not required.
Important to know
: all IP arising from the project will belong to the company. Everybody involved in an Engage project will have to sign Queen's Engage IP forms (email [email protected] she can send you the forms) before a PeopleSoft Project can be opened (the signatures can wait until the notice of award has been received). Please review these forms if you've never applied for an Engage grant before.
Key Eligibility constraints (will change Jan 15 2016)
:
- The applicant must be an NSERC-eligible academic researcher and must have been granted peer-reviewed research support in the natural sciences and/or engineering fields from a recognized federal or provincial granting agency within the past six years.
- Applicants who have received a rating of "Strong" or higher for the criterion 'Excellence of the Researcher' in their most recent Discovery Grant competition within the past six years will be considered to have met the requirement for demonstrated peer-reviewed research support. In absence of Discovery Grant ratings from the past six years, NSERC will recognize certain peer-reviewed research grants from other funding agencies.
- Researchers with a principal appointment in a health-oriented university faculty (e.g., medicine, pharmacology, dentistry) are only eligible for an Engage Grant if they have been awarded an NSERC Discovery Grant within the past six years.
- Adjunct faculty need to fulfill additional conditions to apply for an Engage grant, beyond the regular NSERC faculty requirements.Please email [email protected] for details.
- only 1 researcher and 1 company, no collaborators or co-applicants
- the company partner must have a minimum of two full time employees; or be in operation for a minimum of two years.
- the company partner must operate from a Canadian base and demonstrate clear intentions and capacity to further develop and apply any technology within Canada.
- no existing or past relationship between the person applying for funding and the company: no previous collaboration, no joint participation in a research network, no principals from the company can be adjuncts in the applicant's department
- the project must include a real research challenge
- no more than 2 awarded Engage grants per researcher and fiscal year, which is April 1 - March 31, but only applications submitted by lateJanuary will actually count towards the previous fiscal year, e.g., January 15 2015 counts towards fiscal year 2014-15.
- it's OK to have 2 overlapping Engage grants, and it's OK to submit 2 at the same time. Engage Plus grants don't count towards the limit.
Alternative funding sources
to consider if you, the company or the project don't qualify for an Engage grant: OCE VIP I proposals (without the Engage portion), Mitacs Accelerate or Elevate internships, OCE TalentEdge internships. If the project does not have enough research-focus for an Engage grant, the company could consider applying to IRAP-BIAP for funding to pay you for product optimization or testing, for example.
Links to NSERC Engage documents:
All the forms can be found on the NSERC online site after you log in and select the grant program (Engage). If you've never used this site before then you can register here.
Instructions for form F183A (Company information form. This documents also contains instructions for the support letter from the company.)
