Joint Infrastructure Interdependencies Research Program (JIIRP)

Duration	Application Deadline	How to Apply
Up to 3 years	September 1, 2004	Forms 101, 100 and 183A Letters of support
Program Contacts

Objectives

The Joint Infrastructure Interdependencies Research Program (JIIRP) is jointly funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and the department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada (PSEPC) (http://www.ocipep.gc.ca/home/index_e.asp). PSEPC promotes research in the areas of critical infrastructure protection and emergency management to improve understanding of these issue areas and to develop solutions that will help manage, reduce, or mitigate Canada’s exposure to risk and losses due to disasters, and enhance response capabilities to all hazards.

The ultimate outcome of the JIIRP is to produce new science-based knowledge and practices to better assess, manage, and mitigate risks to Canadians from critical infrastructure interdependencies. The program has four overlapping objectives:

1. Expand and leverage academic, industrial, and government research activities in the area of infrastructure interdependencies to develop relevant new knowledge, techniques, and policies to better assess, manage, and mitigate risks resulting from these interdependencies.



2. Build Canadian research capacity by promoting Canadian academic expertise in infrastructure interdependency issues and, thereby, providing a training environment for highly qualified researchers and professionals of the future.



3. Raise awareness of infrastructure interdependency research issues and promote Canadian academic interdependency research, education, and training.



4. Build linkages, networks, and partnerships across Canada and among relevant disciplines to facilitate effective transfer and dissemination of research results to the private and public sectors.

Description

JIIRP will fund innovative research projects with an emphasis on cross-disciplinary research, in the area of infrastructure interdependencies, for a term of up to three years. Research in this area will require experts and scientists from many different fields in the engineering and social and natural sciences to work together to produce new and innovative solutions. Non-traditional approaches and collaborations are, therefore, expected and encouraged.

Research projects that focus on a single infrastructure are not the target of this program. It is expected that researchers will form multi-disciplinary teams to focus on the cross-sectoral issues raised by infrastructure interdependencies.

The active participation and involvement of one or more appropriate Canadian non-academic organization(s) that could apply or utilize the results is a requirement. Eligible non-academic partners in interdependency research are diverse and may include government agencies and departments, non-governmental organizations, industrial consortia and trade organizations, and private-sector companies. Cash contributions from the non-academic partner(s) are desirable but not required. (Cash contributions, however, will be viewed favorably during proposal evaluation as an indication of the level of commitment of the non-academic partner.) Non-academic partners must be active in all stages of the research project from the development of the proposal, through ongoing interaction with the academic researchers on the direction of the research and participation in the research, to guidance relating to exploitation and/or commercialization of the results. Proposals that do not include the participation and involvement of a non-university partner will be rejected.

Applicant eligibility for the program will be based on the NSERC eligibility criteria, as outlined in NSERC’s Program Guide for Professors. Staff members of Canadian postsecondary institutions that meet the general eligibility requirements for NSERC are eligible to apply for funding.

The priority research issues are:

• understanding and defining which elements of the various infrastructures are “critical” in the context of Canadian society and identity, how the criteria for criticality are established, and how criticality can be dynamic;
• design and development practices that specifically address infrastructure interdependencies, in order to promote resilience and high assurance and minimize vulnerabilities to disruptive cascading effects;
• methods, tools, and technologies for identifying, quantifying, and modelling infrastructure interdependencies and the risks they pose both to other infrastructures and to communities;
• planning, design, governance, institutional arrangements, and use of infrastructures and systems to promote self-sufficient, sustainable communities; and
• impact and scope of interdependencies caused by the pervasive use of information technology in all infrastructures.

The research focus of this program will be on Canadian issues. The uniqueness of Canadian society, geography, and law require home-grown solutions, so while the use of international contributions and collaboration is encouraged, research projects must deal primarily with the Canadian situation.

To foster the development of an infrastructure interdependencies research community, researchers receiving funding from the program will convene annually of a symposium held in Ottawa, to present the progress and results of their work in this area to each other and to other interested parties.

Target Area Description

Canada’s Critical Infrastructure

Critical infrastructure (CI) refers to the physical and interconnected information technology networks, utilities, and services which if disrupted or destroyed would have a serious impact on the health, safety, security or economic well-being of Canadians and/or the effective functioning of governments. Recent events such as the Ontario/US power blackout of 2003, SARS and computer worms such as Blaster and SoBig highlight the unpredictability of the risks facing Canada and the need for continuous vigilance in preparing for these events.

Canada’s CI has been grouped at the national level into 10 key sectors:

• Energy and Utilities (including electrical and nuclear power, natural gas and oil production and transmission systems, and dams);
• Communications and Information Technology (including telecommunications [phone, fax, cable, satellites], broadcasting systems, software, hardware, and networks [including the Internet]);
• Finance (including banking, securities and investment);
• Health Care (including hospitals, health-care facilities, blood-supply facilities, laboratories, and pharmaceutical stockpiles);
• Food (including food safety, agriculture and food industry, and food distribution);
• Water (including drinking water, wastewater and wastewater management)
• Transportation (including air, rail, marine, and surface);
• Safety (including chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear safety, search and rescue, emergency services [police, fire, ambulance and others] and dams);
• Government (major government facilities, services [e.g., meteorological services] and information networks or assets, key national symbols [cultural institutions and national sites and monuments]); and
• Manufacturing (including chemical industry and defense industrial base).

Each of these infrastructures is a complex and sophisticated system in its own right, but more complex still are the various interconnections and interdependencies amongst these infrastructures, and between them and society. Interdependencies leave infrastructures vulnerable to collapses or events in others, causing hard-to-predict cascading effects that can magnify the impacts of failures and the consequences to society. The interdependencies caused by pervasive use of information technology are particularly worrying because they are so poorly understood.

Cross-disciplinary research involving natural scientists, social scientists, engineers, community officials, and infrastructure owners and operators is needed to understand and predict the effects of interdependencies on the resilience and reliability of our critical infrastructures, and to guide further development and innovation.

Examples of the expertise and disciplines that could contribute to eligible research projects include:

• Specialized knowledge and experience as relevant to each of the sectors (e.g., medical and epidemiological training in the health care sector, engineering, physics, and chemistry expertise from the energy sector, and information technology expertise as applied in all sectors).
• Policy, political, and legal skills, including issues of litigation, regulation, jurisdictional responsibilities, and insurance in the various infrastructure sectors.
• Many of the engineering fields, including electrical, mechanical, structural, water resource (hydrology), and computer fields.
• Economics (micro and macro), in particular the impacts of infrastructure outages on economic stability, and market mechanisms that affect infrastructure assurance.
• Mathematics and computer science, particularly in the areas of complex systems modeling, simulation, and tools.
• Risk assessment and management, including issues of risk perception and crisis communications.
• Geography and geomatics, particularly with respect to the natural hazard sciences, spatial visualization tools, and modelling.
• Urban and regional planning including issues of regulation and public relations.
• Emergency and crisis management.

Application Procedures

The deadline for receipt of applications is September 1, 2004. To apply, submit an Application for a Grant (Form 101), a Personal Data Form (Form 100) for the applicant and each co-applicant, a letter from each non-academic participating organization and a Information Required from Organizations Participating in Research Partnerships Programs (Form 183A). See Completing Form 183A for details.

Please send the original application, and an additional nine copies to:

Research Partnerships Programs
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC)
350 Albert Street
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 1H5

Within the 10 pages allowed (on Form 101, Part 2), proposals must address the selection criteria for this program and must clearly elaborate the:

• objectives: both short and long term;
• literature review pertinent to the proposal;
• methods and proposed approach;
• anticipated significance of the work;
• training aspect of the proposal;
• funds requested from JIIRP and estimated cash and in-kind contributions from participating non-academic organizations;
• justification of requested funding;
• role of applicant and collaborators, including management structure;
• plan for utilization of results; and
• benefits to Canada, including the relevance of the research to the Canadian user community and/or business partner(s), its potential socio-economic impact in Canada, and the time frame for this.

Funding is available for a maximum of three years.

The maximum amount for any grant will depend upon the proposed project costs, other projects under consideration and the amount of funds available. PSEPC and NSERC are each contributing $500,000 to this program for each of the three years.

Requests for equipment must be incorporated into the research proposal. Applicants must justify the need and urgency for the equipment to effectively conduct the research. Separate equipment requests will not be accepted.

Support Letters

Each non-academic partner must complete Form 183A and provide a letter from a senior representative of the organization, on official letterhead, that indicates:

• the involvement of the organization in the development of the proposed project;
• the organization's support for the co-operative activity and its agreement with the proposal;
• the nature and extent of the proposed interaction/collaboration;
• the support committed, as indicated in the proposed expenditures;
• the organization's reason for its involvement in the joint undertaking;
• how it expects to benefit (expressed as quantitatively as possible);
• how the organization proposes to integrate the research results into its operations; and
• its willingness to apply and exploit the research results in a manner beneficial to the Canadian economy and/or society.

Information Sharing

To ensure the widest possible use of knowledge acquired or developed through the program, JIIRP funded research project teams are requested to submit their results or related research documents to PSEPC for its use or dissemination within the terms of existing copyrights and patent protection.

PSEPC will hold an annual symposium to bring together, and encourage the networking and shared learning of the researchers and other academic, private sector, and government stakeholders. The funded researchers will be expected to attend and to present their findings to-date. Expenses for the researcher’s travel should be included in the project budget.

Review Procedures

Proposals will be initially evaluated by external reviewers with specific expertise in the area of the proposed research. Experts in infrastructure and risk management issues from public and/or private sector organizations, along with experts from other related fields, will be assembled to form a multi-disciplinary selection panel. The selection panel will establish the ratings and rankings of proposals, and will make the final recommendations on funding to a joint committee of NSERC and PSEPC representatives. Awards will be announced in early 2005.

Selection Criteria

Proposals will be evaluated on the basis of the following equally-weighted criteria:

• Scientific merit: The project must be scientifically sound, technically feasible, and promise either to generate new knowledge or to apply existing knowledge in an innovative manner.
• Project work plan: The proposal must include a project work plan that should clearly outline the project description, including objectives, research methodology, milestones, deliverables, collaboration and communication among the researchers, need for funds, management of project, and availability of equipment and infrastructure.
• Research competence: The applicant and the research team together must have all the expertise required to address the defined objectives competently and to complete the project successfully. Academic expertise may be complemented with the know-how residing in the partnering organizations.
• Relevance to infrastructure interdependencies: The proposal must clearly articulate the research team’s definition and treatment of the issue of interdependencies, and must identify how the work is relevant to the objectives of the JIIRP.
• Collaboration: The project team must be cross-disciplinary, and involve at least one appropriate non-academic partner. Good partnerships will engage the partner(s) in the initial planning of the research questions and objectives, use the partner(s)’ knowledge in planning the research, involve the partner(s) in carrying out the research where possible, communicate the research results to the partner(s) in a format that they can use easily, and involve ongoing communication and interaction before, during, and after the research process.
• Contribution to the training of highly qualified personnel: The proposal should indicate how the knowledge and experience gained by graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, research assistants or others, including personnel from the partnering organization(s), are relevant to the advancement of the field, to developing practical applications of knowledge, or to strengthening the receptor capacity research base. The number of undergraduate and graduate students trained is expected to be commensurate with the size of the project.
• Benefit to Canada and non-academic participating organizations: The proposal must indicate how the results of the research will be utilized by non-academic partners, and should outline additional, potential social and/or economic benefits that will be realized by Canadians.

Reporting

Grantees are required to submit progress reports and university financial statements on an annual basis during the grant period. The non-academic organizations involved in the project will be asked to provide comments on the project’s progress. Payment of the next instalment of the grant is contingent upon satisfactory progress on the research project, on the continued active participation of the non-academic partner(s), and on the need for funds. Grantees will be advised of the timing of such reports. Reports must detail the progress achieved by the project with respect to:

• the objectives of the JIIRP, focusing on impacts of the research, training, partnerships; and
• the participation and continued commitment and support of the partner(s).

Ninety days following the completion of the award, all grantees must submit a final report on the project’s achievements with respect to its objectives. The report will be reviewed by some or all of the non-academic organizations involved in the project.

Note: It should be noted that proposals, reviews (edited for anonymity of the referee), and progress reports will be provided to PSEPC. These documents will be maintained in a confidential manner by PSEPC.