Fresh from its astonishing success in 2011, the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation has kicked off 2012 by announcing a new competition – the R3 Innovation Challenge.

The new competition is aimed at established companies that have a commercially viable idea for a new product or service, but need to perform some R&D to validate or develop the scheme. It will award two New Brunswick-based companies $50,000 worth of research each. The money will be paid to a post-secondary institution or research organization, which will assign a researcher to collaborate on the idea.

“Innovation is crucial for the province's economic growth," said NBIF Chair Robert Hatheway in a statement. "If New Brunswick wants to be competitive in the ever-changing environment of today's business world, then we have to put R&D and innovation at the center of everything we do. Companies that encourage collaboration with the research community can open themselves up to opportunities that even the biggest corporations are striving for.”

The deadline for entries is Feb. 28, and the winners will be announced at the R3 Gala in Fredericton on March 21, at which the NBIF will also honour  three of New Brunswick's top applied research with the R3 Innovation Award for Excellence in Applied Research.

The NBIF will continue to hold its biennial Breakthru competition, which is a business plan contest for entrepreneurs who want to start a new business based on innovation. The next Breakthru event will be in 2013.

The Foundation knocked the ball out of the park last year when it banked $9.2 million from its investment in Radian6, which sold out to Salesforce.com. NBIF helped launch the company in August 2006 with a seed investment of $50,000, which it topped up in December 2008 with a $276,973 VC investment.