NBIF’s Lab to Market fund supports the advancement of innovations to real-world applications. This includes projects where a technology has a strong potential for commercialization, or address a specific need identified by a knowledge translation partner. The fund is intended to help build collaborative projects where input from knowledge transfer partners can influence the development of a technology and its implementation. Suitable projects will develop technologies that have achieved a sufficient level of development (TRL>3), should include a plan for creating and protecting intellectual property, HQP participation, a preliminary market, and a commercialization or knowledge transfer partner. NBIF will fund up to 33% of projects with NB SMEs or not-for-profit organizations, and up to 25% of projects that do not have NB SMEs or not-for-profit organizations as partners.

May be awarded to research faculty at any of NBIF’s eligible institutions (see award administration guidelines for details).

Expenses must be directly linked to the activities of the proposed project and can include:

Briefly, the award may be used for:

  • Purchase of lab equipment, software or licenses
  • Lab personnel salaries, such as students or postdocs
  • Travel directly related to the research project (g., data collection or access to facilities for experiments)
  • Purchase of computers or office equipment for use by the candidate or their research group

Exceptions can be approved by NBIF (with a written request/rationale).

Please see the detailed eligibility guide in the NBIF Award Administration Guide.

Submit applications via the NBIF Application portal. Once the application is submitted, NBIF will evaluate applications in accordance with program/internal guidelines and evaluation criteria. Notices of decision (NOD) will be sent to the institution’s research administration office and the applicant following review. Annual budgeting for this program is subject to change.

The award start date will be the date that the applicant has indicated in their submission. If that date is more than six months from the submission date, expect follow-up from NBIF as our standard six-month window to confirm award conditions applies in this situation. Lab to market grants can be held for a maximum of 2 years, after which remaining funding must be returned to NBIF. A maximum extension of 6 months is possible, on written request and subject to NBIF approval.

After 1 year, the recipient will be asked to provide a detailed technical report along with a final financial report.