Looking for a way to stay innovative and ahead of the game by engaging Ontario's brightest minds?
Tap into fresh ideas and new perspectives with Ontario Centres of Excellence's Connections program. Connections has successfully linked final-year students from universities and colleges across Ontario with industry partners for almost twenty years.
What is Connections?
Connections is an Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) collaborative program that brings together final-year college and university students and innovative Ontario companies. Connections offers students the opportunity to apply technical and professional skills to real-world problems, helping them grow as innovators and leaders in business.
Connections projects are diverse, but in all cases students act as consultants or subcontractors to their industry partners. They must develop their own scope of work, meet regularly with their industry partner, and deliver results. The ultimate purpose of the Connections program is to provide an opportunity for students to apply their knowledge and skills to an industry-relevant problem.
Over the years, Connections has engaged thousands of students and hundreds of companies. Last year alone, more than 1,500 students from 20 universities and colleges across Ontario participated in over 320 industry projects.
Click here to learn more.
We recently asked Connections participants what they thought of the program and here is what they told us:
- 84% of companies responding to the survey said that participating in Connections was worthwhile for the company;
- 68% of student solutions would be used by the industry partners; 44% said they had already implemented the student's solution;
- 70% of students felt their projects had an economically beneficial impact for their industry partners; 15% felt their projects had a positive environmental impact; 18% felt their project had a positive social impact.
This academic year, in addition to the regular program, the Ontario
Power Authority (OPA) is continuing their generous support of OCE's Connections program and encouraging companies to consider energy conservation related projects. To learn more, visit the OPA Energy Conservation Connections information webpage.
To download or print a PDF backgrounder on Connections, click here.
What makes a Connections Project?
Connections projects are typically run in association with existing college and university curricula. In most cases, projects are completed by students as part of final year courses or honours thesis projects. What differentiates Connections from a co-op placement or a summer job is that students act more as consultants than employees. Student teams are given a problem to solve and are responsible for developing the project plan and solution with input and guidance from academic and industry experts.
Successful Connections proposals contain the following elements:
- Projects are defined by the industrial participant with the assistance
of a faculty member.
- The project addresses an industry-relevant problem where the student’s work may include: technical problem solving; product or process validation; systems integration; prototype and product design; process optimization; business and marketing challenges for new technologies; cost benefit analyses; mathematical modeling; and other OCE approved topics that meet the industries needs.
- The faculty member selects and matches students to projects.
- Industry partner makes a cash and/or in-kind contribution that matches or exceeds that of OCE.
- The company dedicates a supervisor from their organization to provide oversight, support and guidance to the student(s).
- Student project leader(s) are appointed for each project to work with the company supervisor and develop objectives, schedules and budgets for the project.
Who qualifies as an industry partner?
Industry partners can be a company, not-for-profit, association, or municipality in Ontario. To see some of the Ontario companies and academic institutions that participated in Connections over the past year, click here.
How does the funding work?
OCE invests up to $3,500 per team to support project activities such as prototype fabrication, product testing, materials costs, student travel, and other expenses subject to OCE approval. Industry partners contribute an amount in cash and in-kind that matches or exceeds that of OCE. Typically, project courses of this nature also receive departmental funding from their respective institutions.
OCE contributes:
- Up to $500 for each project involving only one student
- Up to $1,200 for each project involving two students
- Up to $3,500 for each project involving three or more students
Project proposals may cover work conducted anytime from September 2010 to September 2011. Quarterly reporting will be required. Most proposals cover student projects running in the fall (September to January) and winter semesters (January to April), however projects extending into the summer semester (May to August) are also permitted. Application Process
OCE is accepting Connections applications via an online information management system.
Faculty at an Ontario college or university with interested students should contact james.doran@oce-ontario.org for a username and password to access the system. Researchers who have previously accessed OCE's online system will be able to login with their existing OCE user name and password.
Interested Colleges and Universities should contact James Doran or Geraldine Barrett to confirm eligibility and initiate the online application procedure. Eligible programs will have until September 30th to complete their full proposals. Notification of funding will be given by mid October 2011.
To learn more about Connections, please contact:
James Doran, Ph.D.
Program Manager, OCE Connections
Ontario Centres of Excellence Inc.
Tel: (519) 998-2476 or (416) 861-1092 x6006
james.doran@oce-ontario.org
Geraldine Barrett
Project Coordinator
Ontario Centres of Excellence Inc.
Tel: (905) 823-2020 x3221
Fax: (905) 823-4141
geraldine.barrett@oce-ontario.org
For more information, applicants can also contact a member of OCE's Business Development team working in their sector. |
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