|
Français | Contact Us | Help | Search | Canada Site | ||||
| |
Home | Site Map | Program Guides |
Program News |
On-line Services |
|||||
| About NSERC | Funding | |||||||||
| |
 |
|||||||||
|
|
NSERC to Reallocate $27 Million to Research Community's New Priorities
for Basic Research
Ottawa, Ontario, July 11, 2002 – Tom Brzustowski, President of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), announced today that NSERC will reallocate $27 million to invest in 50 initiatives and priorities proposed by the Canadian university research community. The decision follows an extensive peer review process to ensure that the Council's funding supports the most important new developments in university research in science and engineering. "We want Canada to move from 14th to being among the top five countries in the world for research and development," said Allan Rock, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for NSERC. "Increasing our commitment to research and development and the continued strategic investments of NSERC will help us retain the best and brightest minds in Canada." "As part of the Reallocations Exercise, each discipline we fund returned 10 per cent of its annual budget to NSERC," said Dr. Brzustowski. "Then we asked each discipline community to identify its priorities and present its case for new initiatives and needs that would be important to Canada," he said. Referring to a detailed report to the Canadian research community, published today, Brzustowski underlined the challenge faced by the Reallocations Committee: "The quality of the submissions was, in my opinion, the best ever, so the Committee was faced with the extremely difficult task of recommending which of the 90 proposals requesting more than $120 million should be funded from the $27 million pool." Specific initiatives to be supported include:
A common theme in many successful proposals involved support for new faculty, as well as for students and other research personnel trained in university laboratories. The Committee noted that many areas of the natural sciences are either growing or in renewal, which translates into increasing demand for well-trained students and research personnel. Also favoured were interdisciplinary research, high-risk research and high-cost research methodologies that offer significant opportunities for new discoveries and benefits to Canada. The breakdown of the $27 million appears in the report. "All the disciplines will be using a portion of their budget to support at least some of the priorities identified in their submissions, and a significant portion of the reallocated funds will be directed to support new applicants," said Dr. Brzustowski. He also noted that the timing of the reallocations was particularly fortunate. Earlier this year, the Government of Canada launched Canada's Innovation Strategy, a plan to address skills and innovation challenges for this decade. The Government stated an ambitious goal to move Canada into the top five countries in the world in terms of research and development effort per capita by the end of this decade, and a strategy to achieve that goal. "The submissions fit in with this strategy by highlighting Canadian strengths and areas where we can be competitive," said Dr. Brzustowski. "The community put a great deal of thought and effort into their submissions. We must do all that we can to ensure that influential Canadians read them." The details of the reallocations, as well as the full text of all the submissions and the Council's Report, are available at http://www.nserc.ca/programs/real2000-e.htm. For further information, contact: Danielle Ménard Isabelle Blain Tim Nau
|
||||||||
 | ||||
|
|
Important Notices | ||
