R&D Experience Grants

Bring smart, enthusiastic and fresh thinking into your R&D activities with support provided by tertiary students in their summer break.

We are currently experiencing a high level of demand for our R&D Grants and advice, and our processing may take a little longer than usual. Please bear with us as we work to support this demand.

Applications for 2020/21 R&D Experience Grants closed on 30 September 2020.

In the meantime, you can contact us at info@callaghaninnovation if you would like to talk about other R&D support options including R&D Fellowship Grants, R&D Career Grants, and Project Grants.

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 12 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.

How do I apply?

For Business

Applications are now open until 30 September. Talk to us and we’ll help you through the process. Phone Callaghan Innovation on 0800 4 CALLAGHAN (0800 422 552).

Please also see the R&D Experience Grant guides below.

For Students

Students apply directly to businesses. Businesses will begin advertising their R&D Experience Grant internships from August. Students may find internships through:

University Career Hub
MyWIL - Work-Integrated Learning at Waikato
AUT interNZ
University of Auckland's MyCDES Job board
Summer of Tech (IT and digital)
Industry Ready (Engineering)
Job advertising sites such as Student Job Search, Seek and Trade Me
Tertiary institution research and enterprise offices
Encouraging businesses that you want to work for to apply for a grant
Searching our Grants Recipient tool to find businesses approved for grants this year.

How do I find a student?

Businesses that have been approved for an R&D Experience Grant will need to recruit eligible students. The organisations below can assist you with finding the right student for your R&D project.

Summer of Tech is the premier IT internship programme for New Zealand. Callaghan Innovation R&D Experience Grant customers qualify for a discount on this service for 2020.
Industry Ready helps companies find the best skilled engineering students
NZUniCareerHub or at info@nzunicareerhub.ac.nz
The University of Waikato: Work-Integrated Learning
AUT interNZ
University of Auckland's MyCDES Job board
Job advertising sites such as Student Job Search, Seek and Trade Me 
Tertiary institution research and enterprise offices.

For more detail about these organisations, see our guide on Where to Find A Student.

R&D Experience Grant guides

Experience Grant - Application Guidelines and Template

Experience Grant - Funding Agreement Example

Experience Grant - Number of Student Grants per Business

Experience Grant – Student Eligibility Requirements Guidelines

Experience Grant - Post Approval Checklist

Experience Grant - Information for Students

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.