Institutions to receive CERC chairs announced

The results of the first phase of the second smaller round of the Canada Excellence Research Chairs (CERC) program have been announced with eight universities given the go-ahead to nominate world-renowned researchers to fill 11 chairs. The competition was announced in the 2011 federal Budget and launched last December, with 10 chairs worth $10 million each up for grabs in the four large priority areas outlined in the 2007 S&T strategic plan, with an added emphasis on the digital economy. An eleventh chair was added due to a vacancy from the first competition, which provided funding for 20 chairs (R$, May 21/10). McGill Univ, which was shut out of the inaugural competition received two chair positions, as did Queen's Univ and the Univ of British Columbia. The institutions will now recruit the new chairholders, who will be assessed to determine that they meet program criteria. The institutions and the areas of research are: École Polytechnique de Montréal (Data Science for Real-Time Decision-Making); McGill Univ (Personalized Pain Medicine, Green Chemistry and Green Chemicals); Queen's Univ (Particle Astrophysics and GeoFluids in Sedimentary Basins); UBC (Quantum Materials & Devices Based on Oxide Heterostructures and Digital Media Research and Innovation); Laval Univ (Neurophotonics); Univ of Calgary (Materials Engineering for Unconventional Oil Reservoirs); Univ of Saskatchewan (Integrated Infectious Disease Mitigation); and, Univ of Waterloo (Security and Privacy for the New Digital Economy)….