Here we go again! A headline from the latest NSERC-Contact newsletter.
CREATE adds industrial and international opportunities
“The CREATE program will have two new dimensions in the 2012 competition. In keeping with NSERC’s goal to give students the opportunity to learn skills needed in Canadian enterprises, an industrial stream has been added to the program. Up to half of the grants for the 2012-13 fiscal year will be awarded to proposals featuring a formal industrial link.”

But don’t worry, industrial partners, this won’t cost you anything!
“An industrial financial contribution is encouraged, but not required.”
The pitch sounds eerily familiar. Remember the infomercial:
Engage Grants: $25,000 from NSERC, no company cash required”

And we’ll just have to wait to see what surprises are in store for an enhanced CHRP (Collaborative Health Research Projects):

“Key features of the enhanced CHRP program will include increased funding, a requirement for researchers to work with non-academic partners, and the possibility of special calls for proposals that focus on research in identified priority areas.”

This comes on top of the latest 3 additions to NSERC programs that require collaboration with industrial partners, and adds to the more than 20 programs supported by the Tri-council (actually minimal contribution from SSHRC).

We also hear that NSERC’s President Suzanne Fortier has indicated that three reviewers from industry will be added to the selection panel for the next cycle of Vanier Scholarships program.

Here is a –likely partial– list of business-oriented programs supported by the Tri-Council. Rough estimate for the total cost of these programs: $500-million.

NSERC

1. Strategic Projects Grants: The objective is to increase research and training in targeted areas that could strongly enhance Canada’s economy, society or environment within the next ten years.
2. Collaborative Research and Development (CRD) Grants: To support research projects that give companies operating from a Canadian base access to the unique knowledge, expertise and educational resources available at Canadian postsecondary institutions,
3. Strategic Network Grants: To increase research and training in targeted areas that could strongly enhance Canada’s economy, society and/or environment within the next ten years.
4. College and Community Innovation: Increases the capacity of colleges to support innovation at the community and/or regional level.
5. Automotive Partnerships: A flexible and integrated approach to project review and funding in order to build a critical mass of research in the automotive industry.
6. Industrial Research Chairs: Assist universities in building on existing strengths to achieve the critical mass required for a major research endeavour in science and engineering of interest to industry.
7. Ideas to Innovation:  Accelerates the pre-competitive development of promising technology and promote its transfer to Canadian companies.
8. Engage: Fosters the development of new research partnerships between academic researchers and companies by supporting short-term research and development projects that address a company-specific problem.
9. Industrial Postgraduate Scholarships: Provides support to students to enable them to gain research experience in an industrial or other setting while undertaking their advanced studies.
10. Industrial R&D Fellowships: Helps partners hire a postdoctoral researcher for a two-year period to undertake a project (or projects) of importance to the organization
11. Industrial Undergraduate Student Research Awards: Helps a partnering organization hire an undergraduate-level researcher for 12-16 weeks to undertake a project of importance to the organization.
12. Chairs in Design Engineering: Improve the level and quality of design engineering activity within Canadian universities, and companies improve their access to leading design groups and can influence long- and medium-term university training directions.
13. Strategic Workshops: Funds workshops focused on building new collaborations between Canadian university researchers and government organizations and industry.
14. Interaction: To give companies an opportunity to meet researchers from Canadian universities in order to identify a company-specific problem they could solve by collaborating in a subsequent research partnership.
15. Collaborative Health Research (NSERC/CIHR): Supports focused collaborative research projects that are novel and which will  lead to health benefits for Canadians, more effective health services, or economic development in health-related areas.
16. Frontiers (See here).
17. Create (See above).

CIHR

1. Collaborative Research
2. Proof of Principle: To advance discoveries/inventions towards commercializable technologies, with a view to attract new investment, create new science-based businesses, organizations and initiatives, and ultimately improve health outcomes for Canadians.

Tri-Council

1. Networks of Centres of Excellence: Fosters partnerships among universities, industry, government and not-for-profit organizations.
2. Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECR): Provides grants to create large-scale Centres of commercialization and research expertise in priority areas where Canada has the potential to be a global leader.
3. Business-led NCE: Proposed, led and managed by not-for-profit consortia representing the private sector, the BL-Networks enhance private sector innovation, deliver benefits to Canadians and encourage an Entrepreneurial Advantage.
4. Industrial R&D Internship Program: It places graduate students and post-doctoral fellows from all disciplines in businesses to undertake research that addresses practical problems experienced by the host organization.