There is substantial federal partnership activity with organizations that focus on Indigenous STEM programs. The most prominent partner is Actua, a national STEM youth outreach organization whose National Indigenous Youth in STEM (InSTEM) program reaches approximately 40,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Métis youth annually in over 200 Indigenous communities across Canada. In December 2023, the Government of Canada announced Actua as a recipient of the newly launched Strategic Science Fund (SSF), and in May 2024 confirmed $38.4 million over five years through that program, with an explicit component directed at Indigenous land-based science and equity-focused STEM skill development. Actua also receives support through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) PromoScience program, which in recent competitions has provided $3.6 million across 66 recipients and has grown to approximately $10.9 million per year.5
Beyond Actua, the federal research funding ecosystem has established multiple formal partnership structures with Indigenous STEM and research organizations. These include the Interdepartmental Indigenous Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (I-STEM) Cluster, established in December 2019 and now extending across 15 federal departments, supported by an Indigenous Advisory Circle; the Tri-Agency Setting new directions to support Indigenous research and research training in Canada strategic plan; the Indigenous Leadership Circle in Research, which advises the presidents of Canada’s three federal research funding agencies; and the Reference Group for the Appropriate Review of Indigenous Research, a community group of Knowledge Keepers, youth, and academics that guides culturally appropriate peer review. A 2023 scoping review of Indigenous science outreach programs on Turtle Island identified 20 such programs between 2010 and 2022, with 12 showing full collaboration during development and implementation, indicating a growing ecosystem of partnership-based Indigenous STEM programming to which federal partners contribute.
