This UK funding competition for nanotechnology-enabled healthcare projects is the first time I’ve seen where they offer the academic and business funding together.  From the Sept. 14, 2011 news item on Nanowerk,

The Technology Strategy Board in partnership with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is to invest up to £9m in grant funding to support highly innovative, business led collaborative research projects focussed on nanoscale technology-enabled solutions for the healthcare sector.

The competition encourages applications for business-led projects focussing on the targeted delivery of therapeutic agents and diagnostics, where nanoscale technologies are at the heart of the innovation.

Here are some more details from the Technology Strategy Board Competition page,

Up to £3m will be invested by the Technology Strategy Board for business and up to £6m by EPSRC for academia.

…

All projects must be business-led and collaborative, with at least one partner drawn from large or small businesses, academia, research and technology organisations, or not-for-profit organisations. We will invest in projects requiring a public sector funding contribution of typically between £500,000 and £2m over the whole project. We intend to invest in projects that, in the main, will contain a mix of applied research (attracting up to 50% public funding), and industry-orientated basic research (attracting up to 75% public funding).

The competition opens on 1 November 2011 and the deadline for registration is noon on 6 December 2011. A briefing day will be held on 15 November 2011.

To clarify my initial statement, I have seen situations where they cobble together funds from various agencies to cover the research and the business aspects of a project but I haven’t seen a joint offering here in Canada, at the federal level.