Scotiabank Economic Resilience Research Fund
After partnering to fund 18 high impact research internships across Canada in 2021 and 2022 Mitacs and Scotiabank are launching a third round of the Scotiabank Economic Resilience Research Fund (SERRF).
SERRF is designed to help reduce the financial barriers for charities and not for profit organizations to access expertise from Canadian Academic Institutions through the Mitacs Accelerate program.
Through this third round of the program SERRF funding will be awarded to up to 50 research internship projects to occur in the fall 2023.
The SERRF has been launched to support research projects in three key focus areas that are central to Scotiabank’s ScotiaRise initiative:
- Accelerate newcomer integration
Proposed research projects will explore the experiences of newcomers to Canada (in the past three years) including immigrants, refugees, and temporary foreign workers to help fast track meaningful employment for newcomers to the country. Integration essentials might include language, culture and life skills, training and help qualifying for and finding employment, and support networks.
- Increase high school graduation and post-secondary participation
Proposed research projects will target disadvantaged populations, including Canadian Indigenous communities and at-risk youth to ultimately facilitate a higher rate of high school graduation and post-secondary participation. Post-secondary education is defined broadly, to include university, college, and trades programs.
- Remove barriers to career advancement for disadvantaged groups
Proposed research projects should be focused on one or more equity seeking groups that face obstacles of sexism, racism, or homophobia (e.g., people with disability, Indigenous, veterans, LGBTQ, women, and BIPOC). The project should determine how to remove barriers to meaningful employment and find solutions to career entry and advancement.
Successful projects will receive up to $12,750 in funding from Scotiabank and Mitacs to support a four to six month Mitacs Accelerate internship. The funding contribution from the SERRF program reduces the required contribution from the not for profit or charity partner organization from $7,500 to $3,750.
This opportunity is time limited and interested projects must submit an Expression of Interest by April 5, 2023
More detail about the Scotiabank Economic Resilience Research Fund and application process can be found in the program guide
For further information or to start the EOI development process please contact ncummings@mitacs.ca or reach out directly to serrf@mitacs.ca