(This funding is now closed.)
Materials and Manufacturing Research Institute (MMRI) is offering financial support for projects that aim to diagnose technical challenges of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and identify potentials for innovative solutions. The projects are also expected to bring new multidisciplinary university-industry partnership opportunities for both short and long-term research and development activities.
Proposal submission: January 15, 2019.
Funding availability: A maximum of $5,000 per project, plus fieldwork travel support for researchers if applicable. In-kind contribution from SMEs is required. Direct costs of a project beyond the above support limit may be covered by the company.
Requirements:
For small and medium sized enterprises:
• Must be a Canadian or provincially incorporated business.
• Must have less than 500 employees.
• Must be for-profit.
• Must be located in British Columbia (BC).
For supporting researchers:
• Given the multidisciplinary focus of MMRI, it is required that a minimum of two faculty members work with the SME in each proposal. At least one of these faculty members must be from UBC, either Point Grey or Okanagan Campus. The second faculty member can be from UBC or external organizations.
• Only one project is allowed per faculty member and one project per SME.
Project information:
• Projects must have relevance to materials science and manufacturing technologies and aim to solve SME-specific technical challenges.
• The latest time to start a project is January 15, 2019 and it can last between 1-2 months.
• During the course of each project, the MMRI Research Engineer will work with industry delegates and university teams to maximize their interaction, e.g., by inviting industry delegates to the research meetings and observing students experiments/progress, and facilitating students access to industry facilities if applicable. To maximize interaction with SMEs, the research students will be highly encouraged to spend at least one day a week at the company location while executing the project. A travel cost support will also be provided when applicable.
• Eligible costs under each project may include salary of research assistants in the labs, material purchase, laboratory fees, machine shop fees, software license, field travel, etc. towards the execution of the approved SME-specific project.
Submission instructions:
• The application form must be filled out and submitted by the above deadline on the MMRI website.
• If the SME has not identified any faculty members to collaborate for the project, or the faculty members have an applied project topic at hand that can benefit SMEs but do not have a partner yet, please contact Dr. Mahdi Takaffoli, MMRI Research Engineer (mahdi.takaffoli@ubc.ca) to facilitate the match-making process.
Review criteria:
Proposal reviews will be based upon the following criteria:
• Eligibility of the industry partner as a client of National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP): Canadian or provincially incorporated, less than 500 employees, and for profit. In addition, the company must be located in BC.
• Significance of the project to the SME.
• Intellectual merit of the proposal, including relevance to materials and manufacturing.
• Multidisciplinary aspect of the project, including collaboration among researchers from different disciplines.
• Appropriateness of the requested budget for supporting the proposed research plan.
Reporting:
• Details of project expenses must be sent to MMRI at the end of each project by faculty members (an invoice template will be provided by MMRI).
• Students/research assistants in each project, under mentorship of MMRI Research Engineer and supervision of leading faculties, will be required to complete a technical report (template to be distributed). This report will be submitted to the SME contact person and will also be the basis of potential follow-up joint grant applications towards continued collaboration of the research team with the partnering SME. MMRI will closely assist the SME and the research team for pursuing these follow-up long-term partnership opportunities.
• Funding will be issued to the research faculty accounts after the final report has been submitted, and the invoice is received.
Please direct any inquiries to:
Mahdi Takaffoli, MMRI Research Engineer
mahdi.takaffoli@ubc.ca
Phone: (250) 807-9108
Awarded Projects
Manufacturing Process Analysis of Supercapacitors for Wholesale Grid