Mitacs Accelerate Global Excellence Award
Sponsor
Mitacs
For More Information
Mitacs Accelerate Global Excellence Award Program Information [1]
For more information on research security, please visit the websites below:
Description
The Mitacs Accelerate Global Excellence Award aims to draw outstanding international researcher talent and Canadians currently studying abroad to industrial research projects in partnership with leading Canadian researchers — enabled by a competitive funding package of Can$170,000 over two years.
The Mitacs Accelerate Global Excellence Award is a new funding opportunity targeting individuals who will relocate to Canada for a collaborative, industrial-based research project at an eligible Canadian academic institution and with a Mitacs-eligible partner (private company, not-for-profit organization, municipality, or hospital).
Jointly funded by Mitacs and industry partners, this award ensures strong collaboration and impact and will provide an enhanced funding package to support the costs of research as well as relocation.
Each two-year project will be valued at $170,000, broken down as follows:
- $85,000 annual award, with $42,500 + tax per year provided by the partner organization (full contribution for the first year will be invoiced upon project approval).
- Minimum of $70,000 allocated to stipend and up to $15,000 available for research and relocation expenses.
Mitacs is pleased to partner with CIFAR [5] to offer up to an additional 10 fellowships to researchers affiliated with CIFAR.
Eligibility
Postdoctoral fellows
- Must currently reside outside Canada and intend to relocate to Canada to take up the award
- Eligible within five years of PhD completion (extensions available for parental leave, military service, etc.)
- Must be eligible for postdoctoral fellow status at a Canadian institution
- Canadians/permanent residents returning to Canada or international candidates requiring a work permit are eligible
- Must not have been employed full-time at the partner organization before applying
- Must be 18 years or older
Partner organizations
- Canadian for-profit companies (must receive more than 50 percent of their funds from non-government sources); eligible not-for-profit corporations, municipalities, or hospitals in Canada
- Eligibility can be confirmed with a Mitacs Advisor [6]
Academic supervisors
- Must be faculty at a Canadian academic institution
- Must be eligible to hold Tri-Agency funds
All parties must declare any potential conflicts of interest upon application submission, including:
- An academic supervisor in a position of ownership, employment or influence over operations at the partner organization.
- A postdoctoral fellow in a position of ownership, employment or influence over operations at the partner organization.
- Program participants with a close family relationship with each other, or with someone in a position of ownership, employment or influence at the partner organization.
Indirect Costs
0%
Deadlines
If College-level review is required, your College will communicate its earlier internal deadlines.
| Type | Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Internal Deadline | Applications are accepted on a rolling basis until Mitacs's deadline of May 1, 2026. A signed OR-5 form and complete application package (proposal documentation with all participant signatures) must be submitted to the Research Services Office (research.services@uoguelph.ca [7]) a minimum of one week prior to the intended submission date to Mitacs. | |
External Deadline | Applicant submits full application, including signed documents, directly to Mitacs Advisor. |
How to Apply
To submit an application to the Mitacs Global Excellence Award program, potential applicants must follow the below steps:
- Please first connect with Guelph’s Mitacs Advisor, Ahmed Tanashi (atanashi@mitacs.ca [8]), to discuss your potential project. Mitacs will pre-review the proposed partner(s) and intern(s) to assess and confirm eligibility. They will provide you with the application forms.
- The lead researcher will complete the GEA research proposal, and obtain all required signatures.
- Mitacs will pre-review of the complete application package.
- Once the pre-review is completed, the lead researcher/supervisor must submit a PDF of the application (includes sign-off/approval by the lead researcher, intern(s), and partner(s)), along with a signed OR-5 to the Research Services Office at research.services@uoguelph.ca [7].
*Please note, if the proposed partner funding being utilized in an application is unspent funding already under an agreement/account at the University, the lead researcher must contact the Research Services Office before engaging Mitacs to verify the ability to use the funds for a Mitacs Accelerate application. This will require review of the account and agreement, and engagement with Research Financial Services, to review options for utilizing the funding already at the University.
For more information on the application review and program administration/fund release process, please see the 'Program Administration' tab of the Mitacs Accelerate webpage [9].