NSERC rolls out new consolidated program for strategic collaborations with industry, not-for-profits and public partners

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) has announced its new consolidated strategic research grants program to replace six separate programs and expand eligibility to not-for-profit organizations. The Alliance Grants program adheres to a Budget 2018 directive to “modernize, simplify and improve … programs” dedicated to research partnerships and was created following extensive consultation last fall.

The Alliance Grants $241-million budget is identical to the funding total of the programs it replaces: Engage grants, Industrial Research Chairs, Connect grants, Strategic Partnership grants for Networks and Projects, Experience Awards, and Collaborative Research and Development grants. (See sidebar article on end of Experience Awards)

Under the previous system, NSERC offered a suite of programs aimed at establishing long-term relationships between researchers and companies, starting firms with smaller Engage grants and allowing them to apply for larger targeted grants and industrial chairs as the need arose. Many companies found the program structure cumbersome and time consuming, as new applications had to be submitted for each program they sought to access.

“We wanted to maintain that progression of initiating and growing and maturing the relationship. So what we’ve done is we’ve made it even more practical and simple and more responsive with the new program,” says Dr. Marc Fortin, NSERC’s COO and VP Research Partnerships. “(Alliance) is built to support and create greater creativity and innovation in the types of partnerships that are being built, recognizing that there are so many different business models that are valid and important in this new economy.”

NSERC claims the Alliance Grants will help industrial, not-for-profit and government participants more effectively assess and exploit new research emanating from academic research:

• A single point of entry to rapidly develop new partnerships, or facilitate the growth of existing research collaborations;
• Support for projects of different levels of scale and complexity, from new, short term, one-on-one collaborations, to larger multi-stakeholder research teams;
• Enhanced flexibility in the types of projects and partners, providing more opportunities for more innovative collaborations;
• Support for research focused on outcomes as well as training research talent in a multi-partner environment; and
• A streamlined application process resulting in faster decision times, thereby supporting modern and fast-breaking research.

“We’re taking the opportunity to focus more on the outcomes [as opposed to outputs] of those projects that will generate impact for Canada and Canadians…,” says Fortin, describing the new program as both “flexible and responsive”. It is also designed “to allow you to create and develop and grow the partnership over time without having to apply six times to six different programs. You can grow within the program.”

Once the draft version of the Alliance program was completed last fall, NSERC took it on the road holding nine “engagement sessions” that were attended by about 400 representatives from universities, industry, not-for-profit organizations, associations and the public sector. Fortin says the consultations led to several changes in the program. For example, the $25,000 funding cap provided by the previous Engage Grants program was eliminated, as was the stipulation that only one external partner could participate.

The result, says NSERC, is a program that allows projects to scale up more quickly “based on their potential impact and the increased engagement of partners” as well as the use of incentives for smaller firms to collaborate and support “value-chain and multi-sectoral partnerships”.

“(The program) is built to support and create greater creativity and innovation in the types of partnerships that are being built, recognizing that there are so many different business models that are valid and important in this new economy,” explains Fortin.

For one not-for-profit, the new Alliance program is something of a saviour. Queen’s University-hosted CMC Microsystems has been actively seeking new revenue sources in the wake of NSERC’s 2016 decision to curtail its 30-year funding agreement that helped grow the organization into a key research and training vehicle for microelectronics and photonics. The Alliance program provides an opportunity to secure critical new funding for its research community and generate results for its industry partners.

“It’s fantastic, perfect for us. It allows not-for-profits to participate (for the first time) so we can … directly fund research programs, develop technology platforms and turn those into products that we can sell in Canada to the research community and sell at a higher price to international companies,” says CMC president and CEO Gordon Harling. “It’s going to spawn a lot of new R&D projects. We will convene R&D projects, put in cash and in-kind in engineering into NSERC co-funded projects.”

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