Eligibility Criteria

• Eligible Recipients
• Eligible Areas
• Eligible Activities
• Eligible Costs

Eligible Recipients

Eligible recipients were firms, organizations or institutions established in Canada, that were prepared to conduct research, development and innovation activities in the eligible areas, and that could demonstrate their ability to achieve the stated objectives of the proposed project. These comprised incorporated entities, partnerships, cooperatives, or any trustee or legal representative thereof, or groups or alliances of eligible recipients where a lead recipient had been identified. Agencies of the Crown (including Crown corporations, government institutes, government laboratories, etc.) and universities were eligible as members of alliances, but not as lead recipients.

Eligible Areas

Environmental Technologies
Enabling Technologies
Aerospace and Defence Sector

• The Environmental Technologies component encouraged and supported the development and application of innovative technologies that contributed to the achievement of sustainable development, or that had significant environmental benefits. It involved projects in priority environmental areas such as the development of sustainable alternatives (better conservation of energy, water and non-renewable resources), pollution prevention through the development of clean process technologies (including clean-car technologies), pollution abatement (technologies that reduce waste or harmful emissions) and pollution remediation.
• The Enabling Technologies component encouraged and supported the development, application and diffusion of those critical technologies that had major impact and benefits within and across industry sectors. It involved projects in advanced manufacturing and processing technologies, advanced materials processes and applications, applications of biotechnology and applications of selected information technologies.
• The Aerospace and Defence component encouraged and supported the development and application of those technologies essential for the development of these sectors. It involved projects that sustained and expanded the technological capacity and capability of these sectors. Support was also available for defence conversion projects aimed at reducing the dependency of enterprises on military contracts.

Eligible Activities

The following activities were eligible for TPC funding:

• Industrial research: planned search or critical investigation aimed at the discovery of new knowledge, with the objective that such knowledge could be useful in developing new products, processes or services, or in bringing about a significant improvement to existing products, processes or services;
• Pre-competitive development: translation of industrial research findings into a plan, blueprint or design for new, modified or improved products, processes or services; conceptual formulation and design of products, processes or service alternatives; initial demonstration or pilot projects, and prototypes; and other related pre-production activities; and
• Studies: studies pertaining to potential industrial research or pre-competitive development projects and studies for related activities.

Eligible Costs

Eligible costs included labour, material and other costs that were directly attributable to the project. Overhead expenses such as indirect labour, materials and supplies, and general and administrative expenses were also eligible. Specialized equipment for the project may have been eligible as well. TPC did not support costs associated with land and buildings.