The Research Support Fund assists Canadian post-secondary institutions with the indirect costs associated with managing their research enterprise, helping them maintain a world-class research environment. Grants can be used to pay expenditures in the following five categories:
- Research facilities (maintain modern labs and equipment);
- Research resources (provide access to up-to-date knowledge resources);
- Management and administration of an institution’s research enterprise;
- Regulatory requirements and accreditation (meet regulatory and ethical standards); or
- Intellectual property (transfer knowledge from academia to the private, public and not-for-profit sectors).
The Research Support Fund helps institutions defray a portion of these costs, based on their Tri-Agency (CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC) research funding. A full list of eligible expenses is provided here.
Research Support Fund 2023-24 Notional Amount
BCIT’s Research Support Fund notional amount for 2023-24 is $107,880. The proposed breakdown of expenditures is:
- Management and Administration: $57,880
- Regulatory Requirements and Accreditation: $40,000
- Intellectual Property and Knowledge Mobilization: $10,000
Previous Research Support Fund Amounts
| 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21 | 2021-22 | 2022-23 | |
| Management and Administration | $103,134 | $88,641 | $18,526 | $60,818 | $52,208 |
| Regulatory Requirements and Accreditation | $39,820 | $37,540 | $73,563 | $39,533 | $33,413 |
| Intellectual Property | $12,061 | $13,182 | $38,921 | $22,284 | $18,795 |
| Totals | $155,015 | $139,363 | $131,010 | $122,635 | $104,416 |
Management and Administration: The Research Support Fund grant was essential for the development of grant applications and research proposals, enabling the Applied Research Liaison Office to provide crucial support for our researchers. The grant increased interactions between existing and new researchers and granting agencies and other sources of external funding. The grant was also critical for research administration, enabling us to broaden our scope beyond what we would be able to accomplish without it.
Regulatory Requirements and Accreditation: The grant allowed us to provide administrative support for our Research Ethics Board and its Chair.
Intellectual Property: The grant has also permitted BCIT to aid technology transfer and provide support for technology licensing by the Applied Research Liaison Office. Safeguarding intellectual property (IP) developed by BCIT faculty is critical to research administration and the individual researchers because it increases the value of IP and ensures that the IP creators are supported by BCIT.