Stephen Toope, Taylor Drury, Premier Clark and Aaron Philips/Photo: Kim Stallknecht

On May 11, Premier Christy Clark announced a $3.5 million grant to MITACS.

The funding will provide graduate students and new PhDs with avenues to connect with businesses, and to apply their research to real-world challenges. It will also help to attract top international undergraduate students to local universities.

Established in 1999, MITACS is a not-for-profit research organization that partners with government, universities and industry to recruit, train and retain graduate students in BC. To date, the province has invested more than $14.1 million in MITACS.