Friday December 4, 2009

Funding for Canadian Agri-Business to Partner in R&D with Chinese and Israeli Companies

The Canada-China-Israel Collaboration on Agri-Innovation program is requesting proposals to support industry partnered R&D. Program funding is up to 50% to a maximum of $900,000 in grants with a limit of $300,000 per country partner. Eligible projects must be:

• innovative and lead to a new agricultural products, processes, solutions or technologies with clear commercial potential
• jointly undertaken and financed by private sector companies from Canada, China, and Israel with each providing a minimum country investment of 25%

Eligible project expenses include:

• direct salaries and wages of scientists, engineers, technicians, technical writers, draughtsman, analysts, programmers, laboratory and shop labour
• Subcontractor and consulting fees
• Equipment depreciation, rental or leasing, but not capital, expenditures to a maximum of 25% of project costs.
• expendable materials and supplies.
• Travel, accommodation, meals, incidentals and other non-research expenses, e.g. translation services, photocopies, or hospitality related to project work and result presentations
• Other costs such as exhibits, regulatory activities, standards certifications, field trials, but not patent related expenses

The partners should agree in advance on IP rights and the commercialization strategy. Preference will be given to projects that involve academic institutions as well as young researcher exchanges. The maximum project duration is 3 years.

DEADLINE FOR EXPRESSION OF INTEREST: 5 P.M. (EST) MARCH 1, 2010