Economic Trust of the Southern Interior funding internship programs

Feb 9, 2023 | 10:49 AM Nathaniel Leigh

The Economic Trust of the Southern Interior is partnering with non-profit Mitacs to facilitate internship programs for College of the Rockies students.

ETSI-BC is encouraging economic and community development by funding internships between post-secondary institutions like COTR with municipalities, businesses and non-profits.

Expressions of interest from local organizations can be submitted for a chance to receive funding between $10,000 to $15,000 for an internship program.

You can find more information from ETSI-BC below:

ETSI-BC is pleased to again partner with Mitacs in FY2023 to fund internships involving public postsecondary institutions and municipalities, businesses, non-profits, Indigenous, and community research partners in the ETSI-BC service area.

This Call for Expressions of Interest is meant to help address challenges or opportunities that will lead to economic and community development and create pathways for students and graduates to find meaningful employment in the region.

The Growing the Southern Interior through Research Partnerships collaboration will contribute to two of the ETSI-BC Strategic Pillars: Developing Human Capital and Innovating & Advancing Key Sectors.

These collaborative research projects will help generate economic opportunity, innovation, employment, and resiliency.

This collaboration will provide funding for partnered projects between academia and businesses, nonprofits, or municipalities, through the following Mitacs funding programs:

Accelerate
Business Strategy Internship

These programs support researchers at the undergraduate, graduate and/or post doc level to work as interns to help solve problems and/or develop new products or processes for the recipient organization.

These interns will share their time between the academic institution and the industry/nonprofit/community partner.

Eligible Projects
Through this funding collaboration, ETSI-BC will consider financial assistance for Mitacs projects that help contribute to any of the following outcomes:

Advancement in any of ETSI-BC’s target sectors: agriculture, economic development, small business (including tech), tourism/sport, and energy/mining/forestry/pine beetle recovery/transportation.
Growth and innovation in new and emerging industry clusters, including supporting the region’s industry to become more environmentally sustainable and transition to a Net Zero economy.
Economic development opportunities in rural and/or Indigenous communities.
Inclusion of marginalized groups including Indigenous-led organizations and Indigenous students.

Goals of this Collaboration
The goals of the partners in this funding collaboration are to encourage:

• Research partnerships to address the region’s business issues, challenges and opportunities, in partnership with one or more of these post-secondary institutions:

College of the Rockies
Nicola Valley Institute of Technology
Okanagan College
Selkirk College
Thompson Rivers University
UBC Okanagan

• Projects that support the employment of students within the Southern Interior.
• Economic development projects with a regional focus or benefit.
• Diversity and inclusion in economic development opportunities for First Nations and other under-represented groups in the region.

Financial Mechanics
Interns are eligible for funding ranging from $10,000 to $15,000, for a given four-to-six-month term.

Funded projects can be longer, but only the first internship will be co-funded by ETSI-BC at a rate of 25% of the total value.

Any additional internships would be co-funded by Mitacs only.

Application Process
Stage 1:Eligible applicants can submit a Mitacs Accelerate application or a Mitacs Business Strategy Internship application preferably no later than March 31, 2023. Successful projects would ideally start by June 30, 2023.

Stage 2: Mitacs will share the Public Project Overview with ETSI-BC. Following review by ETSI-BC, Mitacs will inform the applicants which projects will be receiving the additional funding.

Questions: For questions pertaining to the application process, please contact Mike Kennefick at mkennefick@mitacs.ca.

– Article includes statement from Economic Trust of Southern Interior