Seneca College has received a $750,000 grant from the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario’s “Applied Research and Commercialization Initiative.”

The Applied Research and Commercialization Initiative is a pilot project aimed at addressing the gap between research and commercialization in southern Ontario and encouraging collaboration between Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and post-secondary institutions.

With these funds, Seneca will assist SMEs in the sectors of Information and Communication Technology (ICT); allied health and health sciences; environment/sustainability; simulation-based emerging manufacturing and financial services (securities).

The range of projects includes product and process applied research, engineering design, technology development, proof of concept, prototype development, pilot testing, demonstration and problem solving and pre-commercialization market analysis.

Key Features of the Funding:

• The grant covers project size of up to $ 75,000. Of this, the grant will fund up to $50,000 or 66.66% of the total project cost.

• Industry partner needs to contribute 33.34% of the project cost. (in cash and in kind) A cash contribution is required for each project.

As for the in cash/in kind industry partner contribution, there is no prescribed ratio and will depend on the overall strength of the project and partner.

FedDev expects the following impact from funding these projects and these will be used as key criteria for project selection:

• Job Creation - Project should lead to job creation
• Increased Revenue/Profitability for the industry partner
• Improved Competitiveness/Sustainability of the industry partner
• Improved capacity for Industrial Innovation
Other than the 'cash' contribution required, the industry partner would also be administered a survey at project completion, to capture some of the above information. This would form a part of the final report.

Please contact Deepak Bajaj, Director, Applied Research & Innovation, Project Administrator for these projects at deepak.bajaj@senecac.on.ca or call 416-491-5050 ext. 7904.