I4G Program Technovate Grant Spark Grant Accelerate Grant

Accelerate Grant

The Accelerate Grant supports long-term, multi-year research activity with inclusive learning opportunities for emerging and diverse researchers committed to applied outcomes in training and competition environments. This Grant is partnered with Mitacs and provides opportunities for young researcher-practitioners to work with NSOs in developing new performance-related innovations or gain new insights from rigorous applied research addressing performance gap questions. 

Funding Amount Available

  • Funding starts at $15,000
  • PhD grants - (up to) $106,666 
  • Post-Doctoral - (up to) $60,000

Project Duration
PhD - up to 4 years
Post-Doc - up to 2 years 

Other research durations may be supported pending approval.

Eligible Researcher(s)

PhD/Post- Doctoral researcher(s) with University Supervisors

Eligible Research & Innovation Themes

  • Psychology & Athlete/Coach Well-Being
  • Training Sciences: Physiology, Nutrition, Strength & Conditioning
  • Injury Care & Sport Medicine
  • Biomechanics
  • Motor Learning & Skill Acquisition
  • Data Sciences & Statistics

Submission Deadline

  • February 15th (annual)
  • Successful applications will be contacted by April 6th, 2023 (revised date)

Year-End Reporting

  • Annual Report - March 15th
  • Final Report & Presentation (SPIN Summit)

Application Instructions:

  • Select the appropriate application for which you will apply (Spark, Accelerate, Technovate)
  • For Accelerate and Technovate grants, a student(s) has been secured to undertake the research
  • Download Project Rationale Form and complete with a description of the proposed research (the Project Rationale Form provides opportunity to collaborate with your research team before application submission)
  • Use the “APPLY NOW” button.   Fill in the application online and attach your Project Rationale Form


Accelerate Grant

Applications are now closed


Frequently Asked Questions

The Accelerate Grant is closely linked to Mitacs in terms of assessment. The initial ‘industry’ assessment will be carried out by an OTP-led Review Panel. Two assessment criteria will be used: research quality and rigour, and application of project deliverables in the high performance sport setting.
A two or four-year project seems daunting in terms of tracking outcomes and ensuring the project is applied rather than an academic exercise. As the industry partner, OTP is responsible for tracking annual reports and updates as well as disseminating knowledge to the NSO(s) at appropriate intervals including an end-of-project presentation. Projects are assessed on its applied outcomes both in the short and long-term.
The Accelerate grant is linked to the Mitacs Accelerate program. Funding starts at $15,000 but typically the investment is either 2 years (up to $60,000) for a post-doctorate student or four years (up to $120,000) for a PhD student. These interns share their time between academic, industrial, and high performance sport environments, tying together the major elements of the Canadian sport-research ecosystem. Projects must have a supervising professor from a partner university.
Yes. The Accelerate grant requires a university partnership since the graduate student will be enrolled in a university working under a supervising professor. CSIs have many partner universities with many staff members holding adjunct positions or relationship with university researchers. The goal of this grant is to leverage university research excellence and develop our brightest researchers and/or practitioners for Canadian high performance sport. 
For information about Mitacs please reach out to the Mitacs Advisor at your academic institution or contact Sarah Fairlie, Senior Advisor Strategic Partnerships (Social Innovation) [email protected]