The goals of this program are to:

• Train future researchers and professors and more specifically, future stakeholders in the field of artificial intelligence, mainly in the fields of excellence of our IVADO members: operations research, machine learning and decision sciences;
• Foster the development of collaborative and applied research with Québec-based organizations (companies of all sizes and NPOs);
• Promote multidisciplinarity;
• Contribute significantly to achievement of one or more of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, i.e.:

Projects must involve data science in the broad sense, including machine learning, operations research, statistics and their applications, so as to generate innovative solutions likely to have significant impact toward achievement of one or more of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

• Opening of the competition: February 16, 2022, 9 a.m. ET
• Deadline for requesting assistance for academic-industrial networking: February 16, 2022, 11 p.m. ET
• Deadline for submitting an application: March 21, 2022, 11 p.m. ET
• Scheduled awardee announcement date: April 12, 2022
• Funding start date: April 1, 2022
• Funding end date: March 31, 2024

Amount and duration

• The minimum contribution by the partner(s) is 50% of the direct project costs, including a minimum of:
  • Option 1: support for organizations with fewer than 250 employees:
    • 10% of the cash value of the project if the project includes at least one organization based in Québec and having fewer than 250 employees (according to the criteria described in the Eligibility Criteria section)
    • Example of maximum funding granted:
      • UdeM funding: $150K
      • Cash funding for organization with less than 250 employees: $30K
      • In-kind funding for organizations with less than 250 employees: $120K
  • Option 2: support for organizations with 250 or more employees:
    • 25% of the cash value of the project in any other case (according to the criteria described in the Eligibility Criteria section)
    • Example of maximum funding granted:
      • UdeM funding: $150K
      • Cash funding for organizations with more than 250 employees: $75K
      • In-kind funding for organizations with more than 250 employees: $75K
  • In-kind contributions (at cost) are permitted;
  • The maximum grant amount is $150,000 for two years;
  • The total budget available for the program is $1 million;
  • Funding is provided per project;
  • Funding must be expended during the budget year beginning April 1, 2022, and the project may be completed over two years. For a project that is confirmed on an annual basis, an extension may be requested.

Funding period: April 1, 2022, to March 31, 2024.

Eligible expenses are as follow:

• Research personnel (students, postdocs and/or research professionals);
• Materials and supplies;
• Services and platforms.

Terms of payment

The funds will be managed at Université de Montréal and the university that will made the funds available to the lead researcher base on the management rules in effect. For projects requiring ethics approval, funds will not be released until approval is granted. Some projects may require specific agreements (e.g., pertaining to intellectual property). Funding may be reduced, withheld, delayed, or rescinded under specific circumstances, which will be outlined in the letter of award.

For the professor (supervisor) filing the application:

• You must be a professor at Université de Montréal;
• You must have one of the following eligible statuses: assistant professor, associate professor, full professor, research professor, or visiting professor. Adjunct professors are not eligible;
• You must not have any conflict of interest with one or other of the participating organizations.

For the potential co-supervisor, there are no constraints.

To be eligible, projects must involve at least one startup, SME, NPO or major organization from Québec.

• NPOs with more than 250 employees must meet the following criteria:
  • Be a non-profit organization or not-for-profit organization legally constituted in Québec for more than three years;
  • Have their principal establishment in Québec.
• For-profit organizations with 250 or more employees must meet the following criteria:
  • Be legally constituted under federal or Québec legislation in force and registered with the Québec Enterprise Register;
  • Have their head office in Québec and the majority of their employees or subcontractors working mainly from Québec;
  • Have 250 employees or more;
  • Have been incorporated for more than three years.
• Startups and SMEs must meet the following criteria:
  • Be legally constituted under federal or Québec legislation in force and entered on the Québec Enterprise Register;
  • Have their head office in Québec and the majority of their employees or subcontractors working mainly from Québec;
  • Have 249 employees or fewer;
  • Have assets of less than $50 million including the assets of associated corporations), calculated on a worldwide basis, for their taxation year ending in the calendar year preceding the given calendar year.
  • Have been incorporated for more than one year.
• NPOs with fewer than 250 employees must meet the following criteria:
  • Be a not-for-profit organization legally constituted in Québec for more than one year;
  • Have 249 employees or fewer;
  • Have their principal establishment in Québec.
• A full financial structure must be provided, accompanied by all supporting documents, covering the full period over which funding is requested; i.e., one or two years. You must provide a guarantee that this funding will be available for the chosen period. Annual reporting will enable monitoring of the project results and partner investments.

Go to our dedicated platform to submit your application, beginning February 16, 2022.

/!\ Applications submitted by e-mail will be automatically rejected.

Your application package must include:

• A file to be submitted on the platform, INCLUDING a description of the project (maximum two pages) structured so as to include the subsections:
• • Description of the issue, project and methodology, with a demonstration that the objectives of this call for projects are aligned with the fields supported;
  • Note regarding the feasibility of the planned collaborative research in the pandemic context;
  • Expected deliverables and performance indicators;
  • Relevance of the organizations involved;
  • Expected benefits for the organizations involved and for Québec.
• A Gantt chart (maximum one page)
  The Gantt chart must clearly and concisely show the project plan; i.e., the activities to be completed and the expected deliverables.
• A financial structure compliant with the terms and conditions of the call for projects.
• Letters of support from the organizations involved.

If you wish to obtain assistance from the IVADO team for academic-industrial networking, please submit a request no later than 11 p.m. ET on February 16, 2022, via info@ivado.ca.

The project proposals will be reviewed to ensure compliance with the program criteria (e.g., complete application, compliant with the page limit, eligible supervisor only) and alignment of the proposed research project with the objectives and the fields supported.

Only applications that meet all criteria will be forwarded to the review committee.

The proposals will be evaluated by a committee of experts¹ and professors mandated by IVADO. With regard to excellence, the committee will apply the following weighting in its assessment of the proposed projects:

• Estimated impacts of the collaborative project with regard to value creation relative to the targeted sustainable development objective(s): 35%
• Innovative and promising nature of the project: 25%
• Relevance of the development plan and maturity of the collaborative project: 25%
• Incorporation of multidisciplinarity and alignment of the team’s experience and expertise with the proposed project: 15%

After assessing them, the review committee will rank the proposed projects, and the list of accepted proposals will be established based on the available budget. The results must subsequently be approved by the IVADO Executive Committee.

N.B: The review committee will not produce any comments on the evaluation.

¹ Depending on the availability of the reviewers, emphasis will be laid on an inclusive committee.

For the company(ies) or organization(s) involved:

• Provide the in-kind and cash resources described in this document;
• Provide prior notice to IVADO of any change to the financial structure as submitted. IVADO reserves the right, after reviewing a modification request, to adjust its financial contribution or even suspend it if the modifications are no longer compatible with the terms and conditions of the call for projects;
• Acknowledge the support of IVADO and Université de Montréal when disseminating research results and, more broadly, in all activities in which you take part that mention this project (name IVADO and Université de Montréal, include logos, etc.).
• If the project extends over more than one year, complete a progress report demonstrating that the Year 1 commitments have been fulfilled, thereby warranting the allocation of the funds for Year 2.

For the supervisor:

• Provide a work environment conducive to completion of the project;
• Oversee the project team;
• Collaborate with the IVADO team on the activities relative to progress reporting and project follow-up.

Our commitment to Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

To ensure all members of society draw equal benefit from the advancement of knowledge and opportunities in digital intelligence, we promote principles of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion across all of our programs, and we commit to providing a recruitment process and research setting that are inclusive, non-discriminatory, open, and transparent.

• Does the proposal need to be in a specific format?
  Please refer to Section 5.

• Is there a requirement for the students receiving funding to be from Université de Montréal as well?
  The project must be led by a Université de Montréal professor, as stated in the section “Eligibility criteria.” The team—including the student members—may include students and research professionals from other university-  and college-level institutions in Québec.

Have other questions? Please send them to: info@ivado.ca