The first IRDI competition was launched in December 2007. Funded organizations have the responsibility for placing interns with participating businesses.

On April 16, 2008, it was announced that ACCELERATE Canada
http://www.acceleratecanada.ca, a not-for-profit consortium led by MITACS, had been selected to run the IRDI program. ACCELERATE Canada will receive $8.6M over the next two years, and will place graduate students and post-doctoral fellows with businesses all over Canada.