Food from Thought Grants

Food from Thought (FfT) has a huge, challenging mission: to make Canada a global leader in developing innovative solutions that improve the sustainability and productivity of agricultural production at global, landscape and micro scales. FfT is funded in part by a $76.6 million grant from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund.

The program’s objectives are:

• Developing tools, approaches and technologies to leverage data to improve food production and sustain ecosystems;
• Transforming agriculture's impact on biodiversity at the global scale;
• Sustainably intensifying food productivity at the landscape scale; and
• Enhancing food safety and livestock health at the micro-scale.

The Research Innovation Office is dedicated to turning U of G discoveries into innovative products and services and is developing programming to support these objectives. 

U of G researchers who are working on new technologies that will propel FfT’s mission forward can take advantage of funding and learning programs. Besides providing researchers with assistance in moving projects forward, these programs will enable research teams to create tools and platforms that can be adapted to solve problems in the wider agri-food ecosystem.

Advantage Workshops

Open to researchers, postdoctoral, and graduate students, the 3-4 hour Advantage Workshops are intended to give research teams the tools they need to maximize the impact of their research and to produce innovative products and tools. The workshops will expose research teams to new skills that can help them to envision and communicate solutions and to develop fruitful, long term relationships with industry.

See the Advantage Workshops page for more details.

Research Innovation Immersion Placement Grants

Designed for research teams who identify opportunities to learn new problem-solving skills through partnerships with dynamic technology, engineering or innovative partners, a Research Innovation Immersion Grant supports the cost of researchers, postdoctoral and graduate students in 1-week to 3-month placements at innovative companies. Researchers will be placed with companies (from start-ups to multi-nationals) where they can learn skills and strategies to be brought back to campus and applied to research problems

Please contact our Project Coordinator to receive more information.

Product Development Grants

To promote inter-collegiate collaboration in support of Food from Thought objectives, the Product Development Grants provide funds to validate concepts with external users and to develop and test prototypes that produce new tools or applications with commercial potential. Projects that have clearly identified on-campus partnerships and require graduate student involvement will be prioritized.

Grants will be announced via the University’s Research Alerts. Please contact our Project Coordinator for more information.