Templates

Mitacs Accelerate internships and Mitacs Elevate fellowships provide a way for UVic graduate students and postdoctoral fellows (PDFs) to intern, under the supervision of a UVic faculty advisor, with local businesses to conduct research that has industrial relevance.

For Mitacs program information, including details of available funding and intern/sponsor eligibility criteria:

• Mitacs-Accelerate
• Mitacs-Elevate

IP Terms

Standard IP conditions: Normally the company sponsoring the internship or fellowship owns IP developed by the student/PDF, while the student/PDF, faculty advisor, and UVic are granted a license to use that IP for non-commercial academic interests. Under these standard conditions, copyright in any publication is retained by the author of that publication (e.g., student/PDF, faculty advisor), excluding any software code and related technical documentation created as part of the project (which belongs to the sponsoring company). To confirm these are the conditions that will apply, student's/PDF's faculty supervisor must complete the following:

• Acknowledgment and Agreement to Accept Standard Terms - submit to ORS with the Mitacs application.

However, if special circumstances require that the arising IP be owned by its creator, rather than completing the Acknowledgement and Agreement to Accept Standard Terms, an IP agreement must be signed by the student/PDF, faculty advisor, and the sponsoring company and submitted to ORS with the Mitacs application. A sample agreement is provided for your information; contact recept@uvic.ca for help in preparing this agreement for signature.

Note: IP created in the first year of a Strategic Fellowship Program will not be considered arising IP belonging to the second year industry sponsor, unless such an arrangement is desired and confirmed by written agreement between the creator(s), UVic and the sponsor – contact recept@uvic.ca if you wish to pursue such anagreement.

Confidentiality agreements

If the sponsoring organization requires a confidentiality agreement, there is a Mitacs -specific Non-Disclosure Agreement that must be used. A sample MITACS NDA is provided for your information; contact recept@uvic.ca for help in preparing the NDA for signature.

NSERC Industrial Postgraduate Scholarships (IPS) provide financial support to enable qualified science and engineering graduates to gain research experience in industry while undertaking advanced studies in Canada.  The UVic Faculty of Graduate Studies coordinates IPS applications and sends the nomination documents to NSERC.

_________________________

Standard terms and conditions

In order to process your application, NSERC requires that an agreement be signed by all parties confirming acceptance of the terms involved. To help facilitate the NSERC IPS process, an application form and standard terms and conditions have been developed by the Office of Research Services, working in conjunction with the Faculty of Graduate Studies. In addition to confirming the specifics of the proposed project, these standard terms and conditions also confirm that all IP arising from the research project undertaken as part of the scholarship will vest in the creator, while granting the industry sponsor (the “Company”) rights to use, copy and internally distribute the research project reports for internal purposes.

If the Company wants to use the arising IP more broadly (e.g., for commercial purposes), there is an additional standardized Option Agreement providing the Company with an option to negotiate a license. If you wish to pursue this route, as part of the process the creators of the IP will need to assign the IP to UVic, but will consistent with the UVic IP policy and NSERC rules retain certain rights relating to the assigned IP (e.g., the right to use the IP for research and academic purposes, and the right to a share in any revenue resulting from commercialization). Contact recept@uvic.ca for help in preparing this Agreement for signature.

Both the standard terms and the Option Agreement terms are non-negotiable. If neither choice is acceptable to you or to your industry sponsor please consider other options, such as a co-op placement or directed research agreement.

Confidentiality agreements

If the Company will be disclosing confidential information as part of the project, there is an NSERC IPS-specific Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) that must be used. As with the other NSERC IPS agreement templates, this template is non-negotiable. A sample NDA is provided for your information; contact recept@uvic.ca for help in preparing the NDA for signature.