As part of the province’s innovation strategy, the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation last week launched a new graduate and doctoral scholarship initiative mainly aimed at students in the sciences.

The provincial innovation agency is administering the new scholarship in a bid to attract and retain talent to the province, and help provide the human resources needed to grow the innovation and startup community.

The scholarships range between $4,000 and $21,000 each for students studying science, technology, engineering, mathematics or social innovation. The New Brunswick Department of Post-Secondary Education, Training & Labour provided the funding for the $7 million New Brunswick Graduate Scholarship Initiative as part of the provincial government’s innovation strategy.

"We're very proud to be offering these important scholarships for the first time in New Brunswick," said NBIF Chair Robert Hatheway in a statement. "There is a lot of ground breaking research happening in the province as we speak, and we need to build on this. These scholarships will help recruit and retain the best students and inspire them to seriously consider innovation as a career path here."

The New Brunswick government has made innovation a pillar of its economic strategy, and has tagged NBIF as the agency to administer the innovation programs. The province will a sink an additional $80 million over five years into innovation and research, and NBIF will be responsible for about $60 million of those expenditures.

The government has added $14 million to the foundation’s Research Innovation Fund, which will help to finance about 140 applied research projects. And NBIF has announced its new Innovation Voucher Fund, which allows all small to medium-sized businesses in New Brunswick to receive research funding of up to $80,000 for commercial projects.