High Skill Interns Become Available in Saskatchewan
A national program to make post-doctoral students available to industry for research projects has come to Saskatchewan, and will become part of the suite of services offered by Communities of Tomorrow.
The program is known as MITACS Accelerate, and operates across Canada with funding from the federal and provincial governments. It provides financial support for graduate and post-doctoral students in 32 disciplines to undertake short term applied research and development internships for companies and public sector organizations.
The co-funding of the program was announced by Saskatchewan Advanced Education, Employment and Labour Minister Rob Norris, at Innovation Place in Regina.
“Our government is committed to supporting Saskatchewan’s graduate students,” said Minister Norris. “Today’s investment will provided graduate sutdents with even more innovative opportunities to develop and apply their education and research skills.”
The announcement was also welcomed by Dr. David Gauthier, Vice-President, Research, at the Univesity of Regina.
“Graduate students and post-doctoral fellows at Saskatchewan universities are some of the finest young researchers in Canada, if not the world,” said Dr. Gauthier. “Their contributions to scholarship and applications to real-world issues are greatly enhanced through these internships.”
In total, the Saskatchewan government is committing $270,000 to the program. An important component will be the work of Communities of Tomorrow to assist in placing interns with companies that need short term research and development capacity.
“This creates new opportunities for both the students and our industry partners,” said Communities of Tomorrow acting Vice President for Innovation and Development, JP Martin. “As a result of the program, we will be able to co-fund student internships for industry partners that have specific research needs. This essentially creates short term research and development capacity, on demand, to help move innovative ideas forward.”
Companies interested in taking on an intern under the program should contact Communities of Tomorrow’s JP Martin, at (306) 522-6622 or jpmartin@communitiesoftomorrow.ca.
