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Canada-Italy Innovation Award 2025 - Call for proposals

Overview

The Embassy of Canada to Italy is pleased to accept applications for the 13th edition of the Canada-Italy Innovation Award. This Award provides funding to members of the Italian innovation ecosystem including start-ups, innovation experts, researchers, scientists, or creative industry professionals to develop collaborative projects with Canadian partners in areas that will drive innovative, inclusive and sustainable socio-economic development.

Over the last decade, the award has resulted in transformational discoveries, research, and applications showcasing the significant potential for and impact of Canada-Italy cooperation.

Mission

The Canada-Italy Innovation Award aims to enable new partnerships between Canadian and Italian experts and deepen existing collaborations to deliver innovations that have impact.

Applications are open to Italian individuals who connect to Canadian counterparts that they will identify.

Initial outcomes should be delivered over the first 6 to 12 months following the completion of the project. Ideal outcomes would result in real world applications that can be incubated or scaled in evolving domains. This can include:

The use of innovative models of collaboration is strongly encouraged as is the pursuit of sustained relationships that remain lasting/active beyond the first 12 months.

Scope and priority areas

Through this Award, the Embassy of Canada to Italy aims to support the development of strong, targeted relationships between leading individuals, researchers and institutions in Italy and their counterparts in Canada.

Projects must seek to solve a problem in new ways, and address one or more of the thematic priorities detailed below, which are aligned with Government of Canada policy priorities and expressed in the Italy-Canada Roadmap for Enhanced Cooperation:

  1. Energy security
  2. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and sport
  3. Space technology
  4. Migration management

Under each theme, a menu of preferred areas of focus is outlined.

Thematic priority 1: Research on energy security

Both Canada and Italy are committed to developing and expanding the use of clean energy, which both countries recognize is necessary to enable sustainable economic growth and energy security. Innovation to support these transitions will need to include a focus on clean energy technologies, material and components. A 2024 study published by the European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, speaks to the value of making clean energy technologies fit for energy security challenges and addressing issues such as supply chain location and critical mineral supply and complexity and sustainability across the value chain for 2030 and beyond. Canada’s own research and developments in this area can be a great source of collaboration.

Projects funded through the Award are meant to develop and amplify new or existing networks and relationships between Canada and Italy focussed on:

  1. Social responsibility: Respecting the rights of people and communities impacted by the extraction and processing of critical minerals.
  2. Hydrogen as a complement to renewable power: Focus on the production and utilization of clean hydrogen to decarbonize hard-to-abate sectors such as heavy industry, transportation, and power generation. Hydrogen can complement renewable energy sources by providing on-demand power and reducing CO2 emissions.
  3. Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS): CCUS technologies and related technologies being developed to capture CO2 emissions from industrial processes and power generation. These technologies can store CO2 underground or use it in various applications, helping to achieve net-zero emissions by balancing unavoidable emissions.
  4. Enhancing extraction and recovery techniques of critical raw materials: Focus on environmentally friendly extraction methods to improve efficiency, reduce waste, and minimize ecological impact. Advance techniques for recovering raw materials from end-of-life products to promote a circular economy.
  5. Improving energy efficiency in manufacturing: Efforts to enhance energy efficiency in the manufacturing sector through advanced technologies and innovative processes. This includes optimizing energy use in industrial operations, reducing waste, and implementing energy-efficient practices to lower overall energy consumption.

Thematic priority 2: Artificial Intelligence (AI) for preventive healthcare and sport

Italy and Canada have established a Joint Advisory Group on Artificial Intelligence to explore the advancement of safe, secure and trustworthy design, development and use of AI. Building on the expansion of AI into health sciences, there is scope for further research on how AI can support healthy populations and enhancing physical health for optimized sport both at in the recreational and professional level, as Italy prepares to host the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games and Canada will co-host the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Projects funded through the Award are meant to develop and amplify new or existing networks and relationships between Canada and Italy focussed on:

  1. Data-driven decision making for early risk detection: Developing AI algorithms that analyze health data to identify potential risks at an early stage, enabling healthcare providers to implement timely interventions and improve patient outcomes.
  2. Health monitoring and lifestyle optimization: Creating AI-powered tools that track health metrics over the medium and long term, supporting individuals in making informed lifestyle choices while contributing to broader research on population health trends.
  3. AI innovations in sports medicine: Advancing AI applications for injury prevention, personalized rehabilitation, and performance optimization. This includes predictive modeling for injury risk, real-time monitoring via wearable technology, and tailored recovery plans that enhance athletes’ health and safety.

Thematic priority 3: Space technology

Space is a priority sector for Canada and Italy cooperation, and both are major international players and partners on international Space programmes.

Canada, through the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), is a cooperating state of the European Space Agency (ESA) and has several formal and informal partnerships and collaborative programs with space agencies in other countries, such as NASA, ISRO, JAXA, and SNSA. The CSA and ASI-Italian Space Agency have a longstanding multilateral and bilateral collaboration, including two recent bilateral MOUs in 2021 and 2024 focused respectively on “Peaceful Cooperation in Space” and “Cube Sats Enhanced Cooperation”.

Projects funded through the Award are meant to develop and amplify new or existing networks and relationships between Canada and Italy focussed on:

  1. Enhancing cooperation between Canada and Italy’s space ecosystems: industry, research entities, university, public sector stakeholders.
  2. Addressing global sustainability and resilience challenges: through collaboration between Canada and Italy in the space sector.
  3. Innovation in the Space sector: to define and develop innovative value-added solutions with a wide range of application and including in the areas of: Satellite communications, data systems, robotics, cube sats, lunar exploration, scientific missions, and earth observation.

Thematic priority 4: Migration management

Digital tools have emerged as important contributors to streamlining and improving processes to enable governments to manage migration flows responsibly and humanely. There is opportunity in this field for innovative research to propose for effective and efficient ways to enable the flow of people between borders including in relation to strengthening regular pathways to processing applications to addressing challenges in socio-economic integration.

Projects funded through the Award are meant to develop and amplify new or existing networks and relationships between Canada and Italy focussed on:

  1. Facilitating pathways for regular migration: through safe and legal preparation of migration pathways; making them accessible and inclusive therefore allowing more individuals to benefit from opportunities for development and projects, while reducing irregular migration.
  2. Harnessing AI and data insights: to elaborate on new and innovative ways to streamline and improve processing of applications.
  3. Enhancing resilience: to mitigate the socio-economic challenges can limit successful socio-economic integration of vulnerable communities.

Note: The Government of Canada is committed to equitable and inclusive research practices and to having policy and programs informed by (but not limited to) age, disability, education, ethnicity, gender expression and gender identity, immigrant and newcomer status, Indigenous identity, language, neurodiversity, parental status/responsibility, place of origin, race, religion, sexual orientation, and socio-economic status. For this reason, all applications should clearly explain how gender equality, diversity and inclusion considerations have been taken into account in the design of the project and/or in the composition of the project team, and how they will be promoted through the projects’ objectives and implementation.

See  for definitions and more information on GBA+ tools.

Funding scope

Awards are to support the applicant’s travel to Canada. The value of an Award will be up to a maximum of €4,000 (EUR). Travel expenses that are eligible for reimbursement include:

 Insurance is not eligible for Innovation Award funding.

Eligibility and funding criteria

The Canada-Italy Innovation Award is available to start-ups, innovation experts, researchers, scientists, and creative industries professionals, collaborating with Canadian partners. Private/public partnerships are encouraged.

Funding through the Canada-Italy Innovation Award is to support expenses incurred by the Italian awardee only for travel to Canada. Successful applicants will be required to complete a report immediately following the completion of the travel and must commit to providing brief updates on follow-up activities and outcomes 6 and 12 months after the completion of the project.

Evaluation criteria

Applications will be evaluated on the following criteria:

Special consideration will be given to applications that demonstrate why the proposed project would particularly benefit from an international collaboration.

Applications will be reviewed by relevant experts from the Embassy of Canada to Italy.

How to apply

Applications should be prepared in English or French using the Canada-Italy Innovation Award application form and submitted according to the instructions.

Note: If the link will not open the PDF, you can right-click on the link and select “Save link as…” to download it to your device. For more information, please contact鈥�rome-pa@international.gc.ca.

Disbursement of the Canada-Italy Innovation Award

The Canada-Italy Innovation Award will be provided as a reimbursement for the expenses incurred. The original expense receipts, a letter from the Canadian partner, and the final report must be returned for the payment to be issued.

Important dates

Within two weeks of completion the final report, the letter by the Canadian partner, and the expenditure records must be submitted.

For more information, please contact鈥�rome-pa@international.gc.ca.

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