Research and mentorship

A free seven-month mentorship pairing you one-to-one with a U of A engineering student, who helps with university applications, the move from high school and what engineering is really like. You meet at least monthly however suits you both, and there are group events like class shadowing, design challenges and facility tours. Students from anywhere in Canada can join; travel to in-person events is not covered. Applications for 2026-27 close September 30, 2026.

You are paired with a U of T math graduate student, postdoc or professor and work on a research project in a field of math you choose, from January to May. Meetings can be online, but the January reception and the May showcase happen in person in Toronto, so an Alberta student needs two trips. The top projects are presented at the Canadian Undergraduate Mathematics Conference. Applications open November 3 and close December 1, 2026.

An online research incubator where you pick a problem that matters, get matched with a mentor and produce a real piece of work over the cohort, in anything from policy and economics to computer science and biology. It runs in three tiers: Research Foundations gives a certificate and community access, Research Fellows adds mentorship and project grants, and Research Scholars adds custom mentorship and a $10,000 scholarship. Applications for the next cohort open in November 2026, with a priority deadline of December 15, 2026 and a final deadline of January 4, 2027. Widely circulated figures about a $500 acceptance award and $30,000 in seed funding are not on the Non-Trivial site as of August 2026, so treat the tiers above as the published offer.

Ten weeks of one-to-one research with a PhD mentor, ending in a paper, podcast or prototype. Tuition-based, with need-based financial aid.

A quarterly journal that publishes history research papers written by secondary students. Essays run 5,000 to 10,000 words or more with Chicago-style endnotes, and about 5% of submissions are published. Papers are accepted on a rolling basis and stay eligible for the next three issues (quarterly cutoffs are August 1, November 1, February 1 and May 1).

A peer-reviewed science journal run by graduate students that publishes original research by middle and high school students. Every manuscript needs a student author and an adult senior author, and editors and reviewers give detailed feedback that guides the paper through revision to publication. Submissions are accepted year-round.

A paid online research mentorship where each student works one-on-one with a PhD mentor to learn about a field and produce an independent research paper. Cohorts start several times a year with separate deadlines, and finishing earns credit from UC San Diego Extended Studies. It has given over US$1.8 million in financial aid to low-income students.

A Canadian peer-reviewed, open-access journal for research by high school and university students. Papers go through double-blind review by subject experts before publication. Original research, reviews and shorter viewpoint pieces are accepted any time. Publishing costs $400 CAD once a paper is accepted, with discounts or waivers for some competition winners.

A paid online course in artificial intelligence in groups of about five students per instructor, taught by graduates of Stanford, MIT and similar universities. You learn Python and AI basics, then build a mentored AI project for social impact. Sessions run in fall, winter and summer, and applications are rolling. The winter 2026-27 intensives run daily over the holiday break. It is expensive and not affiliated with any university, so weigh it against free options.

A 10-week program where teams of high school students, led by an undergraduate mentor, run their own research project on open-source data in areas like bioinformatics, public health and economics, using the R programming language. Teams present at a regional symposium, the best go on to a national one, and top manuscripts can be published after peer review. Applications for the 2026-27 program open this fall. There is a CA$80 program fee.

Applications for the 2027 program reopen in fall 2026. A one-week program where Indigenous high school students conduct research alongside university professors and graduate students at the U of A.

A hands-on research placement for high school students in a university lab. You are mentored one-on-one by a graduate student, help with their experiments, shadow the lab team, and attend lab meetings and seminars. In Alberta the host is the University of Calgary; UBC, Queen's, Guelph, York, TMU and two U of T campuses also host. Each university has its own application form on the REO page, and dates are set per host.

Applications open April 1 and close in early July, with decisions by August 31. A free online research program from the New York Academy of Sciences where students team up on industry-set challenges with a mentor.

Applications for the 2026-27 cohort are open now. TKS is a 10-month after-school program where students go deep on AI, biotech and robotics and build projects with companies; alumni have reached research labs and startups before 19.

Open only where your school or district has joined SSEP as a community. Those teams design flight experiments from September 1 to November 3, 2026, with community submissions to NCESSE by November 12 for Mission 22 to the International Space Station.

A global talent program that names 100 Global Winners a year and backs them for life. Winners get a four-year post-secondary scholarship covering tuition and a living stipend, awarded on need and only where other financial aid does not already cover it, plus a fully funded residential summit, a laptop or tablet, and the ability to apply for funding for their own projects later on. It suits students who already run something that serves other people rather than students with a strong report card alone. Check the status before you plan around it: the most recent cohort announced on the Rise site is 2024, and as of August 2026 the apply subdomain redirects to the homepage with no open cycle posted.

Students design an experiment small enough to fit in a 4 cm or 10 cm cube and propose it for flight. Selected experiments fly on a NASA sounding rocket or scientific balloon and come back for analysis. Registration for the 2027 missions opens November 9, 2026; students from outside the US can fly on the balloon missions.

A paid summer on Western University's severe storms team. The hail internship is based in Olds, Alberta and chases hailstorms to collect data; flights and housing in Olds are covered. High school interns get the same $10,000 as university interns. The 2026 round opened December 1, 2025 and closed January 26, 2026, with a required virtual info session in January.

A teacher and a group of students design their own experiment and run it on a beamline at Canada's synchrotron in Saskatoon, then present what they found. Students lead the project with mentors from the Light Source. The teacher applies, not the student, so show this to a science teacher. The spring 2026 call closed April 1, and the next call opens in October 2026.

A free online summer research program where high school students work on a real project with a university mentor, in neuroscience, biology, computer science, electrical engineering or chemistry. It uses open data and published papers, so no lab is needed, and ends with students presenting what they found. Student applications for 2026 are closed; apply again for next summer.