Regional Innovation Ecosystems (RIE) in the Prairie provinces
The stronger you are, the better Canada is. Let’s build a stronger Prairies economy together! Here is what we can do to help: we invest in your projects that create a stronger, inclusive economy on the Prairies we connect you with other key players to create mutually beneficial business relationships we can help pathfind your project to other sources of funding and expertise to help grow your business and get your products or services to market
Grant Deadline
Deadline not available
Funding Amount
Deadline not available
Type of Grant
Sectors
All Sectors
Demographics
Incorporation
For Profit
Perks
Region Restriction
This grant is restricted to whole of Canada This grant is restricted to whole of Canada This grant is restricted to whole of Canada
Keywords
Age Restriction
This grant is age restricted from 18 to 100
Eligibility and Requirements
Eligible activities
Activities should help a regional innovation ecosystem to respond to a specific challenge, opportunity or market need or demand. These should relate to business scale-up and productivity, with emphasis on:
- Technology commercialization (technology readiness levels 7-9), which includes:
- enhancing businesses innovation efforts
- setting up, expanding or modernizing a facility to provide specialized services for businesses, including platforms, innovation assets, tools and testbeds
- focusing on late stage product development, such as technology showcasing and demonstration
- Business scale-up, which includes:
- developing entrepreneurship and helping businesses develop markets, export and attract investment
- analysing opportunities, such as identifying changes in global demand or prime contractors’ requirements for a sector
- Productivity improvement, which includes:
- transferring technology, including validating needs, training and implementing a new technology
- adopting technology for new industrial applications and/or entry into new markets
- Ecosystem capacity building, which includes:
- developing strategic business alliances within a sector or cluster
- research and analysis to identify barriers to scaling up and boosting productivity within the sector or cluster
- developing a strategy to address these barriers
- Business acceleration and incubation, which includes:
- helping entrepreneurs create and grow their start-up company, with services such advice as:
- how to create a business plan
- how to create a marketing strategy
- how to hire employees
- other aspects of setting up a business
- support entrepreneurs with services such as:
- office space
- expert mentors
- specialized equipment
Additionally, RIE applications must support one of the following 2 priority areas:
- growth and transformation, within one of the following priority sectors:
- clean technology
- clean resources
- life sciences (including precision healthcare)
- value-added agriculture
- advanced manufacturing
- digital technology
- inclusiveness - supporting under-represented groups such as Indigenous peoples, women, youth and other under-represented groups.
Eligible applicants
RIE is open to not-for-profit organizations that support businesses, innovators and entrepreneurs, for start-up, growth, productivity, technology commercialization, technology adoption, export and investment attraction, including:
- post-secondary educational institutions
- business accelerator and incubators
- angel networks
- Indigenous (First Nations, Inuit, Métis) organizations, including Indigenous-led not-for profit organizations and Indigenous-owned businesses
- social enterprises
- a group of eligible recipients such as an industry association or consortium
- a municipality and other levels of government
All eligible applicants must be legal entities capable of entering into legally binding agreements.
Expected outcomes
The RIE program is expected to result in an enhanced and strengthened economy across the Prairies. On a project-by-project basis, examples of outcomes include (but are not limited to):
- number of highly-qualified personnel (HQP) jobs created, including science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) jobs
- number of non-HQP jobs created
- revenue growth ($)
- export sales growth ($)
- number of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) assisted
- business sales growth resulting from commercialization ($) – where applicable
Funding and Reporting
If we select your project for RIE funding, PrairiesCan will normally provide non-repayable funding in periodic reimbursements, based on submitted claims. These reimbursements will be released to you for the approved portion of eligible projects costs that have been incurred and paid.
Note that any funding of a commercial project with a not-for-profit organization or of any project with a for-profit organization typically will be repayable. Repayable contributions are normally repaid (at 0% interest) over 5 years in monthly installments beginning 1 year after the project end date.
You will need to plan project cash flows based on the timing of the claims and the period to process the reimbursement. We provide an orientation to this process for successful applicants.
You are expected to have secured all non-PrairiesCan requested project financing (typically, at least 50%) before applying.
Projects may vary in duration, typically ranging from a few months to 3 years. All successful applicants will sign a standard Contribution Agreement with PrairiesCan. The Agreement outlines the obligations of the funding recipient, including the submission of claims information and periodic progress reports (minimum 2 per year).
Eligible costs
All proposed costs should be incremental, meaning that they are beyond the normal operations of an organization, and essential to the project. Costs that may be eligible for reimbursement include, but might not be limited to:
- capital costs (equipment, machinery)
- labour (wages, benefits)
- operating costs that are directly related to the project, such as management fees or working capital
- consultancy fees (such as professional, advisory and technical services)
- costs related to intellectual property
- preproduction (such as technological development and commercial demonstrations)
- subcontracting costs
- production and distribution of promotional material and management tools
- costs related to specialized services such as testing, research and development, technical or innovation, sector development strategies in all markets and business networking
Ineligible costs
Costs that are deemed unreasonable, not incremental and/or not directly related to project activities are ineligible for reimbursement. These include, but may not be limited to:
- refinancing of an existing debt
- purchase of any assets for more than the fair market value of the said asset
- costs of amortization
- land acquisition and goodwill
Costs incurred prior to the proposed project funding start date will not be eligible.
Grant Application website
Contact
1-800-622-6232