The announcement was made last Tuesday at SFU by the federal government
By Amara Janssens
Photos courtesy of PAMR
On Jan. 15 2013, the Honourable James Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages made a national announcement at Simon Fraser University that $215 million will be awarded to research institutions across the country. The Government of Canada, through the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI) will be funding university campuses, research institutes and hospitals. In total, 34 institutions and 75 projects were awarded funding. Moore says this funding “will help our universities attract top-notch researchers,” while ensuring Canada continues to be a global leader in science and technology.
SFU is involved with two national research projects that have attracted $8,715,700 of the federal funding: the Prometheus Project and the ATLAS Tier-1 Data Analysis Centre. “Today’s announcement will help SFU,” said SFU president Andrew Petter last Tuesday. “It’s wonderful news for us, and I thank you very much.”
The Prometheus Project is receiving $7,715,700 in funding and involves material science and engineering (MS&E) innovation. Over 20 scientists from SFU, the University of British Columbia, British Columbia Institute of Technology, and the University of Victoria have collaborated on this project, while over 1,200 students from these partner institutions have been involved in the project. The extra federal funding will help the project create prototypes“ closing the gap between invention and innovation,” CFI says.
The second project involving SFU is ATLAS Tier-1 Data Analysis Centre, which is receiving $1 million in funding from CFI. This project is led by SFU physics professor, Mike Vetterli, in collaboration with scientists from TRIUMF, Carleton University, McGill University, UBC, University of Alberta, UVic, University of Toronto, Universite de Montreal, York University, as well as various other academic institutions from around the globe. The Tier-1 Data Analysis Centre is located at TRIUMP Vancouver, and analyzes data from the ATLAS experiment (the multipurpose particle detector inside an atom-smashing collider housed at CERN in Geneva). The $1 million of funding will upgrade the equipment at the Tier-1 centre at TRIUMP Vancouver, which will help analyze an increased amount of data.
According to CFI, Atlas Canada is one of the largest projects in the country for high-energy physics. Created by the Government of Canada in 1997, CFI works to increase Canada’s research and technology capacity. Through investing in Canadian universities, colleges, research hospitals, and non-profit research institutions, CFI hopes to attract the world’s best researchers. In turn, this supports business innovation and private sector research and development.
Canadian institutions must apply to CFI to receive funding. Applicant funding approval is based on quality of research, need for infrastructure, ability to strengthen the capacity for innovation, and how the research benefits Canada.
