BC Environmental and Occupational Health Research Network

Research Training Awards are intended to enable highly qualified Masters and PhD students to undertake full-time research training with a focus on preventing and/or reducing occupational illness, injury and disability in British Columbia.  Research projects must address WorkSafeBC’s current research priorities to be eligible for consideration.

There are two sets of awards available to highly qualified graduate students at the master’s and doctoral level, who are undertaking full time research on the prevention and/or treatment of occupational illness, injury and disability:

1. WorkSafeBC Research Training Awards administered through the WorkSafeBC Research Secretariat,
2. MSFHR/WorkSafeBC Research Training Awards administered by the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research (MSFHR).

Please be reminded that the research project applications whose themes are related to health research and eligible for funding under the MSFHR/WorkSafeBC Research Training Awards should be submitted to MSFHR.  (Prospective applicants are advised to check the MSFHR website for information on its competition and deadlines.) WorkSafeBC’s Research Training Awards will only consider those projects whose themes are not eligible under MSFHR/WorkSafeBC Research Training Awards but still fall under the following research priorities:

The BC Industrial Internship Program is administered by MITACS Inc, a federally-funded Network of Centres of Excellence (NCE). In 2003, MITACS piloted an internship program for the mathematical sciences.  As a result of its success, the program has been expanded, in partnership with the Ministry of Advanced Education of the Government of British Columbia, to all disciplines and faculties at BC’s universities. The BC Industrial Internship Program will help to ensure that the research innovations developed in BC universities are utilized by BC industry, thus building our province’s competitiveness on the national and international stage.The BC Industrial Internship Program is an applied research program involving graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, their academic supervisors and participating non-academic partner organizations.  Such organizations can include companies, hospitals, government labs and agencies, and not-for-profit societies.

This program funds interns to undertake research on site with the partner organization, applying cutting-edge tools, techniques or methodologies to research issues and problems arising within the organization. This on site research is expected to account for approximately 50% of the intern’s internship. The intern will then spend the remaining time at his/her home university with their supervising professor, evaluating the best techniques or methodologies to address the identified research issue.

Program Specifics  

• Internship projects are a minimum of 4-months in duration
• Each 4-month internship project receives $15,000 in direct funding, with the partner organization and MITACS each providing $7,500 of this amount
• These funds are limited to supporting the direct costs of research as directed by NSERC and the NCE Program rules. 
• The intern will receive a stipend from the academic supervisor using the internship grant
• It is recommended that the intern receive approximately $10,000 per 4-month internship
• Any funds over and above the intern stipend will be used to support research related to the internship
• The intern must be a graduate student or post-doctoral fellow at a BC university
• The intern works directly with an academic supervisor at the university and a supervisor at the partner organization
• The intern, academic supervisor and partner supervisor will meet at the initiation of the internship to agree on the research plan
• The intern will undertake a research project which has the potential to lead to, or supplement, the student’s thesis in the case of a graduate student or to further the PDF’s research program
• The intern will remain a student of their university while (s)he is an intern and shall not be an employee of the partner organization during this time
• The internship funds will be awarded as a grant to the academic supervisor

Deadline: at least 4 weeks prior the planned start date of the internship.