Scholarship for Internship in a Practice Environment (BSMP) – 2023-2024

1. OBJECTIVES

• Foster collaboration between the academic research community and organizations in the public, parapublic and private sectors;
• Stimulate interest in knowledge application and the acquisition of work experience in a practice environment;
• Support practice environments in their efforts to provide jobs for people enrolled in master’s or doctoral research programs;
• Encourage students pursuing a Master’s or PhD research program to gain practical experience complementary to their program of study, but separate from the research leading to the completion of the Master’s or Doctorate thesis. As such, the proposed funding is not intended for the continuation of the master’s or doctoral training program, nor for the pursuit of research for the production of the thesis.

Peer-reviewed publications resulting from the research made possible by this award must be released as immediate open access (without embargo), under an open license, in accordance with the FRQ Open Access Policy for the Dissemination of Research (revised in 2022).

2. TARGET GROUP

This program is intended for students pursuing a master’s or PhD research program in the humanities and social sciences, arts and literature who wish to do an internship in a practice environment.

3. VALUE AND DURATION OF THE SCHOLARSHIP

The value of the BSMP scholarship is $1,500 per month, for a minimum of two months and up to a maximum of six months.

The amount is paid directly to the scholarship holder.

4. ELIGIBILITY

Since this program has among its objectives the development of competences complementary to graduate studies, the proposed internship project must not consist in the realisation of the Master’s or Doctorate thesis project. If so, the application will be deemed ineligible by the FRQSC.

4.1 Applicants eligibility

Applicants must meet all following eligibility requirements when submitting the application form and throughout the duration of the scholarship.

To be eligible to apply for this program, applicants must:

• Be enrolled as a full-time student in a master’s or doctoral research or research-creation program in a Québec university and maintain the full-time enrollment throughout the internship[1].
• Plan to conduct an internship in Québec.
• Remain supervised by their master’s or doctoral research supervisor throughout the internship.
• Be under the supervision of another person, employed by the internship environment.

A person may not be awarded more than two BSMP during his/her/them graduate studies, namely:

• a BSMP award within the framework of the master’s program,
• a second BSMP award within the framework of the doctoral program.

4.2 Internship eligibility

• Mandatory and/or for-credit internships that are part of the master’s or doctoral program and internships that are independent of a university program are not eligible.
• The internship cannot serve to conduct field of research for the thesis (e.g. data collection, interviews, completion of the creative portion, etc.).
  If an organization offers to host multiple applicants, the internship projects sent to the Fonds must be different.
• The internship may be carried out in several stages within a period of nine months.
  The average time spent on the internship may vary between a minimum of 12 hours and a maximum of 20 hours per week, to be broken down according to project needs.
• When submitting the application form, no more than 50% of the internship may already be completed. However, as the scholarship is not retroactive, only the months of internship remaining on the date of submission of the application can be funded.
• It is up to the student to ensure that he/she/they has insurance coverage throughout the internship. If insurance coverage is not provided by the institution or the internship host, the student is responsible for taking out private insurance.

^{1 Professional master’s and doctoral programs are not eligible. To be considered a research program, a master’s program must have at least 18 credits (or 40% of program credits) dedicated to research training and lead to the writing of a thesis (for example an essay, a research report, a dissertation, or an article are not accepted). A doctoral program must have at least 36 credits dedicated to research training and lead to the writing of a doctoral thesis.}

5. INTERNSHIP HOST

Eligible: Public, parapublic, community or private sector organizations in Québec, and College Centers for Technology Transfer (CCTT).

Ineligible: Postsecondary teaching institutions and university-affiliated research centers and laboratories.

Exception: a host environment located at a postsecondary teaching institution or university-affiliated research center or laboratory could be considered eligible if the applicant demonstrates that the host environment is not conducting research in his/her/them field or discipline. The applicant must also demonstrate the relevance and added value of carrying out an internship in a host environment outside his/her/them discipline in terms of practical experience and the acquisition of new skills, compared to those acquired through his/her/them master’s or doctoral research project.

Should you fail to find an internship host, please consult the list of partners interested in hosting interns.

6. FREQUENCY OF COMPETITION

The scholarship application may be submitted at any time. The internship must begin no later than six months after the application is submitted.

7. APPLICATION PROCESS

Before completing a scholarship application, the applicant must create a user account on the Fonds website, if this has not already been done. Individuals who already have a personal identification number (PIN) have direct access to a FRQnet account and must update their profile in the E-portfolio.

It is preferable that the application form be filled out in French, but it can also be filled out in English. However, the title must imperatively be in French. This information will be used by the Fonds for promotional and dissemination purposes (CGR, art. 3.6).

Please refer to the FRQnet Application Presentation Standards document to properly format any documents to be attached to the application.

The scholarship application must include the following, to be sent via the E-portfolio in the sections intended for that purpose or in the “Other documents”, section where applicable:

• A duly completed application form, available in the “My forms” section of the FRQnet E-portfolio.

In addition to completing the different sections of the application form, the following documents must be scanned and grouped in a single PDF document in the order indicated and attached in the “Other documents” section:

• REQUIRED DOCUMENTS (Mandatory):

1.      LETTER OF SUPPORT from the person directing/supervising your master’s or doctoral thesis (one page) supporting the applicant’s internship.

2.      Internship host Form Formulaire pour le milieu d’accueil – Offre de stage (available in the Toolbox, only accepted version) duly completed by the person supervising the internship.

THE APPLICANT MUST NOT FORGET TO TRANSMIT THE APPLICATION AFTER COMPLETING AND VALIDATING IT.

At any time, applicants can verify in their E-portfolio that their application has been successfully transmitted to the Fonds. The application file in “My forms” must be flagged as “Transmis au Fonds”. This indicates that the application has been received by the Fonds.

All applications received by the Fonds are assessed for eligibility. Applicants will be informed by email, at the latest one month following the submission of the application, of the progress of their application and, if applicable, its transmission to the evaluation committee. The evaluation committee has the right to declare an application ineligible if it considers that the application does not meet the program conditions and objectives.

Applicants whose application package is deemed incomplete or invalid will be notified by email that their application has not been transmitted to the evaluation committee.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Throughout the application process, applicants are encouraged to check that no correspondence from the Fonds has ended up in the “junk” or “spam” folder of their email Inbox.

8. ASSESSMENT

Evaluation criteria, indicators, and weighting 

Internship (50 points)

• Objectives and relevance of the internship
• Appropriateness of the internship with respect to the program of study
• Added value of the internship for the host environment and for the applicant (in relation to his/her/them research training)

Time frame (25 points)

• Relevance of the proposed activities
• Timeframe: Realism and feasibility of the internship project (including a description of the anticipated activities and the number of hours expected to be spent at the host environment)

Host environment and supervision (25 points)

• Quality of the host environment (expertise; networking; access to material, documentary, financial or other resources, etc.)
• Planned supervision methods

Evaluation process

The evaluation committee can recommend a funding period based on the proposed time frame and the objectives of the internship. Consequently, the recommended length of the internship may differ from that indicated in the application.

The number of recommended applications that receive funding will depend on the availability of funding for the program.

9. ANNOUNCEMENT OF RESULTS

The results will be announced within 6 weeks of the date of submission of the application form via the applicant’s FRQnet E-portfolio.

10. TERMS OF THE SCHOLARSHIP

BSMP recipients must continue to be enrolled as full-time students in their program of study for the duration of the internship. The Fonds must be advised immediately of any change in status during it is implemented.

BSMP recipients cannot be employed and/or remunerated by the internship host throughout the duration of the internship. The internship starts and end dates may be modified, subject to Fonds approval of a documented modification request submitted via the FRQnet E-portfolio. The proposed changes must meet all eligibility conditions and cannot change the nature of the internship initially evaluated. The Fonds will analyze the request and decide whether to continue, reduce, suspend, or terminate funding. The Fonds may also require repayment of amounts already paid. The decision will be communicated by email.

SCHOLARSHIP INSTALMENT

The scholarship payment will only be made once the Fonds has received proof of full-time enrolment in the graduate program and an attendance certificate signed by the internship supervisor and confirming the official start date of the activities, via the scholarship holder’s FRQnet E-portfolio.

INTERNSHIP REPORT

BSMP scholarship holders agree to submit to the Fonds a report summarizing the work done and the extent to which the objectives were achieved (see CGR, section 7.2). This report must be signed by the master’s or doctoral research supervisor, the internship supervisor, and the scholarship holder, and submitted in the scholarship holder’s FRQnet E-portfolio.

CONCURRENT AWARDS

A BSMP scholarship cannot be held concurrently with any other scholarship providing funding for the same internship project.

However, concurrent funding is permitted with a master’s or PhD merit scholarship from the Fonds de recherche Société et culture or the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (non-exhaustive list).

EFFECTIVE DATE

The provisions set out in this document apply to the 2023-2024 fiscal year.