Research Innovation and Commercialization Grant

The Faculty of Science has invested in a funding opportunity for its faculty members wishing to take the next steps toward concept development for the commercialization of research.

Bacteria Research Petri Dishes
Photo by Stock

2023 competition

Important Dates

Please note: NOI (Notice of Intent) submission is required for eligibility to submit a full proposal. The NOI Intake Form will be available in Winter 2023. If you are interested in learning more about this program, please contact us.

About

The purpose of this grant is to stimulate and encourage faculty members to initiate, explore, and develop activities constituting a significant step toward commercializing research. Examples might include, but are not limited to, requests for funding to develop a prototype, validate a concept, carry out a market assessment, conduct a proof-of-concept study, etc.

Value

Proposals may request up to $10K maximum and may be held by an individual faculty member within the Faculty of Science at University of Manitoba, or can be collaborative within departments or interdisciplinary across departments within the Faculty of Science. While the purpose of this funding is to support researchers within the Faculty of Science, collaborators external to the Faculty of Science may be involved in the project.

Mentorship and support

The Faculty of Science will provide support through a mentored concept development session consisting in project-specific feedback from relevant experts to assess and revise concepts to improve feasibility of proposed projects. The Science Innovation Hub will make every effort to offer follow-up supports to Research Innovation and Commercialization Grant recipients to pursue additional subject-matter and commercialization mentorship, access or apply for additional funding, and explore other opportunities for investment beyond the grant period.

Past Competitions

The Faculty of Science Research Innovation and Commercialization Grant has had two successful funding cycles in 2019 and 2021.

2021 recipients:

  • Jacob Burgess
    Physics & Astronomy
    Development of High Sensitivity Low Drift Sensors for THz Light

  • Silvia Cardona
    Microbiology
    A portable CRISPRi-based pathogen detection system

  • Mark Fry
    Biological Sciences
    Antagonism of Voltage gated Na+ channels

  • David Herbert
    Chemistry
    Development of prototype "sustainable dye-sensitized solar cell" devices

  • Can-Ming Hu
    Physics & Astronomy
    Towards commercialization of a novel prototype microwave isolator based on cavity magnonics

  • Scott Kroeker
    Chemistry
    Increasing Molybdenum and Sulfur Loading in Nuclear Waste Glasses

2019 recipients:

  • David Herbert 
    Chemistry
    Iron-Based Dyes for Cheap-to-Fabricate Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

  • Saman Muthukumarana
    Statistics
    User Analytics and Software Development for Assessing Customer Behaviour

  • Can-Ming Hu
    Physics
    Developing a prototype microwave sensor for early detection of insects inside grain kernels

  • Frank Schweizer
    Chemistry
    Hybrid Adjuvants Rescue Antibiotics from Resistance in Multidrug-Resistant Gram-Negative Bacteria

  • Francis Lin
    Physics
    Pre-Commercialization Development of an All-on-Chip Cell Migration Assay

  • Parimala Thulasiraman
    Computer Science 
    Smart city Real Time Traffic Forecasting

  • Kevin Campbell
    Biological Sciences
    Genetic engineering nature's solutions into human hemoglobin for therapeutic blood transfusion

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