Promoting Academic-Industry R&D: Grant Opportunities with OCI, NSERC and Mitacs (Interactive Session)

Hosted by the Faculty of Science (FSc) Research Services and Lassonde School of Engineering (LE) Research Support Office

• Date & Time: Thursday, July 11, 2024 at 2:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.
• Location: In-Person (306 Lumbers Building) or Virtual (via Zoom, access link provided through registration link)

Light refreshments will be served to in-person attendees.

About the interactive session:

Join us on Thursday July 11th for a hybrid (both in-person and online attendance options available), interactive session on funding opportunities with the Ontario Centre of Innovation (OCI), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and Mitacs. In this session, you will:

• learn about the latest grants available to support industry-academic research partnerships,
• explore opportunities to leverage OCI, NSERC and Mitacs contributions toward specific research projects
• ask questions directly to representatives of these agencies, and;
• network with your peers and agency personnel.
• Please note that this is the first of two interactive sessions dealing with promotion of Academic-Industry partnerships to obtain funding. The second interactive session is expected to be held in early-mid September 2024. We plan to invite 4 people from Ontario Natural Science and Engineering (NSE) companies who have expressed interest in partnering with York Faculty members on NSE research endeavours which can be funded in part through OCI, NSERC and/or Mitacs.

Featured speakers at this first session are:

Fernanda Navarro, Business Development & Commercialization Manager, OCI

Fernanda is a Business Development & Commercialization Manager with the Ontario Centre of Innovation based in downtown Toronto. She holds a Masters of Business Administration from Ivey Business School and a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing from the Tecnológico de Monterrey (México). Prior to joining OCI, Fernanda was actively involved in the startup ecosystem supporting angel investments in early-stage companies.

Louisa Ho, Research & Innovation Development Officer, NSERC

Louisa Ho is a Research and Innovation Development Officer at NSERC’s Research Partnerships Division, where she manages program delivery, outreach, promotion, and policy development for the Alliance Grants – NSERC’s flagship university research partnerships program. Drawing upon her extensive academic research and technology transfer background, Louisa has played various roles in advancing the innovation landscape, including guiding initiatives spanning translational research, intellectual property development and protection, research commercialization, and start-up ventures. She holds a Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Toronto and an MBA from the Lazaridis School of Business.

Leslie Bone, Senior Advisor, Business Development, Mitacs

Leslie completed her PhD at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson) in Molecular Science and has been with the Business Development team at Mitacs as a Senior Advisor for almost 7 years. Leslie connects professors, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows with industry partners to tackle mutually interesting research and innovation challenges.

Mitacs is a national not-for-profit research organization offering innovative training & research programs that will develop the next generation of researchers and innovators for Canada’s new, knowledge-based economy. Through a unique suite of programs, Mitacs partners academic institutions and industry to solve shared research questions.