IRAP (NRC Industrial Research Assistance Program) is Canada's most generous non-repayable R&D funding for SMEs: first-time applicants typically land $75K–$200K, covering up to 80% of R&D salaries and 50% of Canadian contractor costs — no equity, no repayment.
It is also the most counter-intuitive program: there is no web portal and no application form to download. The only thing you can do on the official site is call 1-877-994-4727 or leave your details, and wait for an ITA (Industrial Technology Advisor) to contact you. The ITA is both your entry point and your first reviewer — without their endorsement you never get to apply at all.
Who qualifies
Only three hard requirements, each with a hidden meaning:
- Canadian for-profit corporation, ≤500 FTE. Sounds generous, but IRAP in practice favours 5–50-person companies with a product or revenue — idea-stage founders rarely get past the ITA.
- Growth potential. Your ITA will probe the business plan: after this R&D, how do revenue and hiring grow? No answer = downgrade.
- Genuine technological uncertainty. Where 90% of first-timers fail: buying off-the-shelf software, building an ordinary website, or wiring up an API does not count. It must be a problem where existing approaches demonstrably fall short and systematic experimentation is required.
Two experience-based thresholds on top: keep 3–6 months of operating cash (IRAP reimburses after you spend), and costs incurred before approval are never claimable — do not start the work first.
The full version also includes: the line-by-line first-call script, the three-part proposal template, the budget table with a worked example, the 8 most common rejection reasons from the reviewer's chair, and the compliant IRAP × SR&ED stacking play.