Eligible Candidates/Costs

Salaries/wages and employer’s portion of Mandatory Employment Related Costs (MERCs) (e.g.: Canada Pension Plan, Employment Insurance, mandatory minimum vacation pay, as per Employment Standards Act) for a limited-term internship position of 52 weeks (with at least 35 hours of work per week) for candidates that:

• Are new entrants into the workforce, are transitioning to a new career, or the unemployed or underemployed who are entering a new field;
• Have not previously participated in a NOHFC-funded internship;
• Are at least 18 years of age; and
• Reside, and be legally entitled to work, in Canada.
• For the  Indigenous Workforce Development Stream:  Identify as an Indigenous person, including First Nation, Metis, or Inuit.  

Review Criteria

Applications will be reviewed according to the following criteria:

• The extent to which the position addresses a labour shortage or supports the development of a skilled trade or profession in Northern Ontario;
• The opportunity for the placement to result in a full-time, permanent job with the applicant or another Northern Ontario business;*
• The quality of the skill development opportunity and the potential for the position to provide specific and recognizable transferable skills, and 
• The quality of the position’s work/training plan and direct onsite supervision methods   

*Please note that applicants, in order to demonstrate the possibility of the internship resulting in permanent employment, must outline in their application:

• How the internship could result in a permanent job with the applicant, or
• How the skills and training acquired by the intern by working with the faculty member on the proposed project will make them more employable in a certain field or industry (please give specific examples from your project that will show what skills and training will be acquired by the intern).

Applications that indicate No employment opportunities will result, will be declared ineligible and removed from the internal competition.

Funding

For eligible municipalities, Indigenous communities and not-for-profit organizations, funding is in the form of a conditional contribution of up to 90% of an intern’s salary and employer’s portion of MERCs to a maximum of $35,000 per year. 

It is important to note that the applicant must provide the remaining 10% of the costs for the intern.  Therefore, when submitting your internship application to the Office of Research Services, a Research Proposal Approval Form (RAPF) must be included in the package.  A statement of where the required matching funds (including MERCs) will come from must be included in, or attached to the signed and completed RPAF as well.  Applications submitted by the January 17, 2023 internal deadline without an RPAF will be considered ineligible in the internal competition. 

An Important Note on Research Internships

Please note that for a proposal to be considered as being a research internship, the application must be written so as to meet the NOHFC's definition of research:  

Q:  What is a research intern under the Internship Program?

A:   An employer applying for a research intern must engage in research activities as part of their mandate. NOHFC considers both pure (scientific) and applied research positions.

• Pure (scientific) research internships must contribute to the development of documents that are generated for public consumption and peer review.
• Applied research internships involve conducting studies and research that seeks to solve practical problems and find solutions to everyday problems. This often involves original investigation into the development of new technology, products, and services.

For the purpose of defining an applied research internship the following criteria must be met:

a)   The applicant must be involved in research aimed at developing a new technology and or products (i.e. a solution to everyday problem)

b)  The internship duties will focus on assisting the applicant organization in development and research of a new technology, products, or service.

 Applicants are required to state in their submissions how they meet the NOHFC's criteria for a research internship.  Applications that are not deemed to be research-related (i.e., the duties of the intern will be more administrative in nature instead of involving a research activity) will be considered ineligible in the internal competition. 

For More Information

 For more information about the NOHFC internship program, please click here.