Bring smart, enthusiastic and fresh thinking into your R&D activities with support provided by tertiary students in their summer break.
Our R&D Experience Grants are back for 2020/21.
The Experience Grant applications will be open between 17 August to 30 September 2020.
How can the grant help me?
The R&D Experience Grant is an internship designed as full-time work experience during the student summer break.
The student is expected to help you with an R&D project or activity.
How does it work?
Your business will receive funding of $8,460 (plus GST) for 400 hours of full-time work upon proof of your payment to the student. Public holiday and statutory holidays are included within this funding.
Who can apply?
For businesses
To apply for an R&D Experience Grant, your business must be an eligible business entity:
- Registered under the Companies Act.
- Registered under the Limited Partnerships Act.
- A Māori incorporation or trust established under the Te Ture Whenua Māori Act, a trust set up to manage assets as part of a Treaty of Waitangi settlement, a Māori statutory body, or a business controlled by one or more of these entities.
To qualify, your business must also:
- Have an active R&D programme i.e. a R&D budget and R&D staff
- Meet financial due diligence requirements.
Businesses can apply for a maximum of 10 students. Please see our guide for student/R&D personnel ratio: 
Experience Grants - Number of Grants per Business Guide
The student must be employed by the business and payslips will be required at claiming. Businesses must pay interns a minimum of $21.15 an hour.
Public holiday and statutory holidays are supported within the funding.
For students
To be eligible for an R&D Experience Grant internship, students must:
- Be studying, or have recently completed, an undergraduate or postgraduate degree or qualification at NZQA level 7-10. If study has been completed, the closing date of your final semester should be less than 6 months ago.
- Be studying science, technology, engineering, design or business at a New Zealand tertiary education institute.
- Be legally permitted to work in New Zealand.
- Not have been previously employed at the business unless part-time or temporary.
- Not have undertaken more than two Experience Grant internships with the same business.
Is there a limit to the grants funding?
There is a limit on the total amount of funding available for these grants. We anticipate this will be approximately the same amount of funding as we gave out last year.
R&D Experience Grants have been one of our most successful and popular initiatives. Applications are open between 17 August to 30 September 2020. We expect to see strong demand and these grants will be awarded on a first come first served basis for businesses that meet the criteria.
Further information
Answers to frequently asked questions about Experience Grants can be found at Student Grant FAQs.
For more information, contact your Callaghan Innovation manager or Regional Business Partner.
Updated: 4 August 2020