Canada’s stature in international research community enhanced with awarding of nine major projects by CFI

Canada’s stature in the international research community is certain to get a major boost with the announcement of funding for nine major projects aimed at increasing Canadian research infrastructure and providing access for Canadian researchers to international facilities. The projects cover an intriguing array of research disciplines and were funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) using two separate funding pools of $100 million each.

“These projects will help push Canadian research yet again,” says Dr David Strangway, the CFI’s president and CEO. “The CFI has already pushed Canada in a lot of ways and this is a new one.”

The CFI selected the nine projects from a field of 18 that were invited to prepare full proposals — a group pared down from 72 proposal outlines submitted when the competition was called. In most cases, the CFI is funding 100% of project costs while some projects involve money from other sources.

The amounts awarded to each project will not be officially divulged until terms and conditions are finalized. The lead institutions are planning to hold separate announcements when those negotiations are completed.

“The negotiations are ongoing,” says Strangway. “They vary from project to project but the negotiations could involve funding levels and conditions of funding, which if they aren’t met, could reduce the amounts or kill a project altogether.”

RE$EARCH MONEY has learned that neither fund has been exhausted, leaving close to $40 million for future projects. The competition was intended to be a one-off affair, but the remaining funds and growing pressure to renew the two programs leaves room for optimism that there will be another round of competitions. The CFI has not yet decided on how the funds will be used. Its board of directors has asked that a proposal be developed for its next meeting in October.

JOINT VENTURES

Three projects secured a total of $86 million under the CFI’s International Joint Venture Fund (IJVF). The largest project in dollar terms is the expansion of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) near Sudbury ON, which its backers assert will transform the experimental facility into a world class research centre for underground science. The upgrade includes excavation to create a new experimental hall, surface support facilities and new laboratory facilities at Laurentian Univ. Carleton Univ will serve as the administrative centre for the project but the institution is one of several that have combined forces to back the project.

The key technologies for conducting astroparticle and particle physics research lie in detector development. But advances are also anticipated in areas such as computers, water purification, electronics and radiation monitoring. SNO is a collaboration between institutions in Canada, the UK, US and Germany, with collaborations being negotiated with the Univ of Chicago and Prague Univ.

The second largest project under the IJVF is a research icebreaker for studying changes in the Arctic Ocean. The project involves the refurbishment of the Sir John Franklin icebreaker and equipping it with state-of-the-art research equipment. The vessel will be used jointly by international research teams and the Canadian coast guard service. The ice breaker will place Canada in a leadership role for research into changes in the Arctic Ocean and global climate change.

The third IJVF project is an advanced, five-beam laser light source. The equipment will help initiate a new approach to the use of lasers to manipulate and position molecules in various types of matter. Uses will range from chemical and biological structures to soft and hard condensed matter. The multi-beam femtosecond laser system will be housed at the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS) and Canadian researchers will work in collaboration with scientists from a large number of countries. Laser light sources may replace synchrotron light sources for some types of research and complement it in others. The implications of the research also hold enormous promise for other fields of research, notably nanotechnology and proteomics.

The CFI’s international funds were launched following the release of a 1999 report from the Advisory Council on Science and Technology (ACST). While the two $100-million funds don’t completely address the full scope of the ACST’s recommendation for an international fund, the S&T community has welcomed their objectives of building world class research infrastructure and facilitating access to international facilities.

In the latter category, six projects have been approved for funding under the CFI’s International Access Fund for a preliminary total of $75 million.

NEPTUNE PROGRAM

The project with perhaps the greatest commercial potential is the Neptune Program, a joint Canada-US effort to lay 3,600 km of optical cable to study the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate off the continent’s west coast. The submarine network will allow for the real-time transmission of huge amounts of data and is expected to provide major technological advances in the areas of engineering, computing capacity, remotely piloted vehicles, and sensor technology.

“Neptune will help to build a significant cluster in underwater marine research and work,” says Strangway. “It could also lead to the laying of similar cables on the Arctic and Atlantic coasts. It’s the next shot for Canada to get into the underwater research business.”

NEUTRON BEAMLINE

Funding to build one of the 24 beamlines at the Spallation Neutron Source at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee will will give Canadians access to one of the three largest facilities of its kind in the world. The requested amount represents 0.8% of the projected cost of the Oak Ridge facility — a pulse neutron source allowing for materials research beyond capabilities currently possible. Canada’s buy-in gives Canadians researchers only limited access and doesn’t eliminate the need for the Canadian Neutron Facility to replace a decaying reactor at Chalk River ON. McMaster Univ made the proposal on behalf of the entire Canadian neutron research community.

SCUBA-2 CAMERA

The Canada-UK SCUBA-2 submillimetre camera will be installed at the James Clark Maxwell telescope in Hawaii, and is thousands of times more sensitive than the original SCUBA (submillimetre common user bolometer array) camera it is replacing. Canada’s proposed contribution is $15 million and is part of a multi-instrument development program between the two countries. It addition to giving Canada a new leading-edge tool for exploring dark matter in the solar system, the engineering and electronics project is expected to have significant commercial potential and boost Canada’s instrument building capacity. The SCUBA-2 camera is not part of the Canadian Long Range Plan in Astronomy and Astrophysics (CLRPAA). The SCUBA-2 project is positioned to capitalize on recent developments in research of the structure, formation and clustering of galaxies.

KOPIO PROJECT

This new experiment in particle physics is aimed at making the US-based Alternating Gradient Synchrotron at Brookhaven National Laboratory a leader in the field of high precision studies of the fundamental constituents of matter, boosting its accelerator beam by 45%. The CFI funding will be devoted to component costs and personnel to extract a proton beam for the KOPIO experiment. It represents slightly more than half the amount that Canada is contributing to the $90-million project. Benefits include advances in accelerator technology and the positioning of Canadian researchers to better participate in research at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider and the planned $3-billion Japanese Hadron facility.

CANADA-KENYA LAB

This research laboratory provides a major boost to an international team of HIV researchers, which includes a group operating out of the Univ of Manitoba. The collaborating universities have made a 20-year commitment to the research and the state-of-the-art lab to be built in Nairobi, Kenya. The funding will allow for the construction, refitting and equipping of a biocontainment level 3 facility for retrovirology, hemorrhagic fever immunology, emerging pathogens, and other related research activity. The benefits will be new knowledge into the application of epidemiology, immunology, control and treatment of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases.

CANADIAN PARTICIPATION IN ALMA UNRESOLVED

The last of the six IAF projects is a Canadian contribution to the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimetre Array) telescope being constructed in Chile. The CFI portion of the $30-million project is $6 million and only covers the access fee to the facility. The proposal also included a request for $24 million to construct a correlator facility at ALMA, as part of Canada’s participation in the North American Program in Radio Astronomy. That portion of the proposal was not funded, leaving Canada’s participation in ALMA in limbo once again.

Canada’s contribution to the facility is projected to cost $60 million, with the National Research Council (NRC) committed to coming up with a substantial portion of the pricetag. The issue is considered extremely sensitive domestically and internationally and NRC will not comment at this time while it considers the implication of the CFI funding decision. The CFI has also refused comment. It’s likely that the correlator funding was denied because, even though the Univ of Calgary is the lead applicant, it was deemed to be an NRC request and therefore not eligible for CFI funding.

The 15-nation ALMA program will cost more than $1 billion and Canada has struggled to find funding to access what’s been described as the most important advance in radio astronomy for the next 20 years.

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