CALAREO and Mitacs sign agreement to fund student research mobility with Latin America

Posted: March 1, 2019

Christine MacDonald, Director of Business Development & Team Lead Ontario, Mitacs, and Dr. Andrew Dean, Vice President of Research & Innovation, Lakehead University and Chair of the CALAREO Consortium.

Lakehead University has signed a funding agreement that will increase student mobility between Canada and countries in Latin America.

The funding agreement, which is for three years, creates a special Mitacs Globalink Research Award for members of the Canada and Latin America Research & Exchange Opportunities (CALAREO) Consortium.

CALAREO consists of Lakehead University, Vancouver Island University, University of Lethbridge, Carleton University, École de technologie supérieure, and Memorial University of Newfoundland. The CALAREO Secretariat is hosted at Lakehead University, who signed the agreement on behalf of the consortium.

The Mitacs-CALAREO Globalink Research Award program will fund short-term research projects for advanced undergraduate, master’s, and PhD students, as well as post-doctoral fellows, lasting three to six months.

Under the agreement, up to 25 Canadian students per year will receive $6,000 for a research internship in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, or Mexico. As many as 20 students per year from CALAREO partner countries will also receive $6,000 for a research internship at one of the universities listed above.

The agreement represents a funding commitment of $810,000 for student research over three years.

“Lakehead University is very pleased to be signing this agreement for internship funding with Mitacs on behalf of the CALAREO Consortium,” said Dr. Andrew Dean, Lakehead University’s Vice-President, Research and Innovation.

“The Globalink Research award program is a highly innovative program at Mitacs and provides excellent opportunities for students to expand their horizons through exciting international research opportunities. Having a dedicated number of awards for the CALAREO institutions will greatly increase our opportunities for exchange with research institutions in Latin America,” he added.

“The CALAREO Consortium creates opportunity for research exchange between six Canadian universities and several Latin American countries,” said Dr. Alejandro Adem, Chief Executive Officer and Scientific Director, Mitacs.

“Within this agreement, Mitacs’s Globalink program enables bilateral research exchange and student mobility with unique, global research networks. As Mitacs celebrates its 20th anniversary, I am very proud of the development of this new innovation ecosystem,” Adem added.

“We are excited by the possibilities for research partnerships that the signing of the funding agreement brings and look forward to working through the detail as individual arrangements proceed,” said Dr. Neil Bose, Vice-President, Research, Memorial University of Newfoundland, a member of CALAREO.

“Carleton University has been a part of CALAREO since its inception and we are very excited by this new development,” said Dr. Karen Schwartz, Interim Associate Vice-President, Research and International, and International Liaison Officer at Carleton University, a member of CALAREO.

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