The prestigious Marie-Victorin Excellence Award was created to encourage students to pursue studies in botany at the Ph.D. level, and to promote high level research at the IRBV. Each year, the IRBV awards the Jacques-Rousseau bursarie to make it possible for students to present their scientific results at conferences or attend specialized training programs, as well as the bourse J.André Fortin excellence award for the best thesis of the previous year in the fields of mycology and mycorrhizae.