Alberta begins long process of building province’s future research strengths

Ingenuity Fund

The Alberta Ingenuity Fund (AIF) has launched its flagship Research Centres program with the funding of two centres at the Univ of Alberta (U of A). It marks the beginning of AIF’s objective of creating up to 15 centres focusing on areas of research considered strategic to the province’s future economic growth and well being. The new centres focus on machine learning and carbohydrate science, with the latter including researchers from the Univ of Calgary (U of C).

The winning proposals were selected from a field of 10 submissions chosen from 26 initial letters of intent. They will be funded at a level of $1.2 million in their first year before ramping up for a five-year total of approximately $7 million each. The decisions on the new centres were finalized in June by the AIF’s Science and Engineering Advisory Council (see chart).

The announcement was delayed for more than three months while necessary contractual agreements were completed and to accommodate the schedule of premier Ralph Klein who attended the event.

“The first round was very strategic and was aimed at economic diversification 20 years from now. I’m very pleased with the results,” says AIF president/CEO Dr William Bridger, noting that the first two centres are in fields not typically associated with the province’s traditional strengths. “Five years from now the fund will be fully fledged with 10 to 15 centres that will slowly turn over.”

The centres were launched despite lower than anticipated operating revenue from AIF’s $500-million endowment, which has been hammered by the downturn in the markets and is currently valued at less than $430 million.

“The Fund is a little hard up right now. The endowment has taken a beating on the markets,” says Bridger. “The main objective of the program is recruitment of people — scientists of outstanding calibre — so as the centres proceed with hiring they will need more money.”

The Centre for Machine Learning will explore fundamental and applied research underpinning a wide range of potential applications, including e-commerce, industrial processing and heath care. Research will focus initially on bioinformatics (protein function, cancer diagnosis, metabolic pathways) and interactive entertainment (building/enhancing computer games).

The centre will draw on U of A’s resident expertise in computer science and artificial intelligence — areas that have already received funding assistance from the highly regarded Alberta Informatics Circle of Research Excellence (iCORE). Dr Russ Greiner is the Centre leader of a team of four core principal investigators.

“We’re building up the roots of the artificial intelligence industry with this centre,” says Bridger.

The Centre for Carbohydrate Sciences encompasses a six-person team of principal investigators from the U of A and U of C. Led by Dr David Bundle, it will conduct research into complex sugars responsible for cellular interactions and many immune reactions. The objective is to establish new families of carbohydrates to be used for new vaccine development. Researchers also plan to create new analytical tools for studying complex carbohydrates.

The arm’s length AIF is the brand name of the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Science and Engineering Research. As the sister fund to the larger and more established Alberta Heritage Fund for Medical Research (AHFMR), it is managed and held by the provincial treasury as a sub account of the Alberta Heritage Saving and Trust Fund originally established by Peter Lougheed.

AIF was launched in 2000 at the height of the stock market boom with an endowment of $500 million, which was intended as an initial investment to be increased as the province’s finances allowed. Like the AHFMR, approximately 60% of the AIF’s endowment is invested in equities.

Although the first competition under the Research Centres program is long over, the AIF has yet to announce the second round. Bridger says the announcement is likely weeks away and can’t go ahead until he receives clarification from the government on how much the money it is authorized to commit.

“The provincial auditor wants clarification on what we are able to spend since the endowment has decreased in value. The original legislation is vague on this,” he says.

Bridger says this likely won’t be an issue in the long term once the markets improve and the endowment increases in value. He points to the AHFMR’s original endowment of $300 million in 1980 which is now worth more than $1 billion.

As for future, Bridger anticipates the AIF will continue with open competitions while “front-end loading” areas such as water quality management, climate change, energy, agriculture and the environment. He adds that enhancing a particular field of research doesn’t guarantee that a centre will ultimately be formed.

“We are the province’s instrument for long-term strategic growth so we are trying to identify areas where Alberta should have world class expertise,” he says. “But quality of research is the only criteria. The three cornerstones are excellence, impact and vision. These are the same as Ontario’s Challenge Fund so I have to give credit to Cal Stiller.”

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