CFI supports Canada Research Chairs with close to $9 million in infrastructure funding
MONTREAL, QUEBEC — Today, the Honourable Pablo Rodriguez, Minister of Transport of Canada and Quebec Lieutenant, announced $8.7 million in research infrastructure funding through the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) to support 40 Canada Research Chairs (CRCs) at 22 universities across the country. He made the announcement at the Université de Montréal, on behalf of the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry and the Honourable Mark Holland, Minister of Health.
“This funding will help keep researchers at the forefront of their fields. Their world-class research will address pressing societal challenges and improve the wellbeing of all Canadians,” says Roseann O’Reilly Runte, President and CEO of the Canada Foundation for Innovation.
The investments are being made through the CFI’s John R. Evans Leaders Fund (JELF), a program that helps universities compete to recruit and retain exceptional researchers by supporting the innovative research infrastructure they need to advance their work.
Projects being funded through the JELF-CRC include:
- The University of Toronto: A Centre for Real-World Evidence in prescription drug research
Although clinical trials provide evidence of the safety and efficacy of new drugs, there is often a limit on how much can be understood about how a drug will perform outside a controlled trial. At the proposed Centre for Real-World Evidence, researchers in computer science, statistics, medicine, and pharmacy intend to scan health databases across Canada to analyze how a greater diversity of people respond to a particular drug. The centre will begin by building the infrastructure — funded by CFI — to host national and local health datasets and start a researcher training program. The analysis will help guide drug policymakers in their goals of reducing healthcare costs and improving the health of Canadians.
- The University of British Columbia in Vancouver: The Indigenous Archaeology Lab for Indigenous Futures
Past archaeological practices involved taking artifacts from Indigenous communities, with many institutions holding extensive collections, sometimes out of sight and severed from the communities they came from. A new facility supported by the CFI will enable researchers at the University of British Columbia to study some of these collections and help change archaeological approaches. Indigenous communities will be invited to partner with the institutions that hold the artifacts. Through art, design, performance and storytelling, the lab will support Indigenous interpretation of these collections with the goal of shedding new light on Indigenous culture and knowledge and providing a better understanding of the histories of Indigenous Peoples in Canada.
- Université Laval in Quebec City: A zero-carbon footprint for Canada’s aluminum industry
Canada’s aluminum industry has announced a target of being carbon-neutral by 2050. The major environmental challenge of the aluminum production process is the amount of petroleum coke and coal-tar pitch consumed, which is the main source of emissions for the industry. The CFI-funded technology proposed by researchers at Université Laval would replace petroleum coke with biomass-based carbon, which has net-zero carbon emissions. The research team plans to engineer biomass to make it a functional carbon source replacement with the goal of not only helping the aluminum industry reach its target, but helping other metallurgical industries reduce their environmental footprints.
Quick facts
- These investments are part of a $1.7 billion suite of Government of Canada support for science, researchers, students and research infrastructure announced today at Université de Montréal.
- The total investment made today by the Government of Canada through the CFI is $8.7 million, which includes $6.7 million in infrastructure and $2.0 million awarded under the CFI’s Infrastructure Operating Fund, which helps institutions with the incremental operation and maintenance costs associated with the new infrastructure.
- The CFI collaborates with the Canada Research Chairs Program to create competitive packages for the funding of infrastructure and research support at institutions.
Associated links
- Details on the CFI’s John R. Evans Leaders Fund
- Discover why facilities like those being funded today choose to become part of the CFI’s Research Facilities Navigator, an online database of labs and facilities that are open to working with business
Contact
Sara Frizzell
Media Relations and Social Media Specialist
Canada Foundation for Innovation
613-943-2580
sara.frizzell [at] innovation.ca (sara[dot]frizzell[at]innovation[dot]ca)
Funding for infrastructure associated with a Canada Research Chair
List of approved projects by institution
Chairholder | Project title | Maximum CFI contribution |
| Algoma University | ||
| M. Isabel Molina | Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) System for Functional Genomics of Plant Lipid Metabolism | $93,806 |
Total | 1 | $93,806 |
| Brandon University | ||
| Sarah Plosker | Quantum Computing Mobile Lab | $75,000 |
| Rachel Herron | Rural and Remote Mental Health (RRMH) Laboratory | $26,269 |
Total | 2 | $101,269 |
| Concordia University | ||
| Balbir Singh | Dark Opacities Lab | $100,000 |
Total | 1 | $100,000 |
| Dalhousie University | ||
| Sonil Nanda | Next-Generation Biorefining of Agri-Forestry and Biogenic Feedstocks to Bioenergy and Bioproducts | $210,826 |
| Vahid Adibnia | From nanoscale to macroscale: Sustainable design of functional polymeric biomaterials | $125,000 |
| Amina Stoddart | Wastewater Treatment Technology and Surveillance | $159,911 |
Total | 3 | $495,737 |
| MacEwan University | ||
| Marielle Papin | Canada Research Chair in Urban Wellness | $74,665 |
Total | 1 | $74,665 |
| Memorial University of Newfoundland | ||
| Octavia Dobre | Advanced Aerial Communications, Sensing and Computing Laboratory (A2CSCL) | $78,655 |
Total | 1 | $78,655 |
| Mount Allison University | ||
| Doreen Pearse | Sackville Undergraduate Music Research (SUMR) Diversity Lab | $75,000 |
Total | 1 | $75,000 |
| Queen’s University | ||
| Eva Kaufmann | Investigating the impact of aging and infections on the induction of Trained Immunity in asthma | $517,084 |
Total | 1 | $517,084 |
| Toronto Metropolitan University | ||
| Maria Natasha Rajah | CRC in Sex, Gender, and Diversity in Brain Health, Memory, and Aging | $152,000 |
Total | 1 | $152,000 |
| Université de Montréal | ||
| Sylvana Marie Côté | The 'Born in Quebec' data base | $149,025 |
Total | 1 | $149,025 |
| Université de Sherbrooke | ||
| Michelle Scott | Canada Research Chair in Bioinformatics of Non-Coding RNA | $274,931 |
Total | 1 | $274,931 |
| Université du Québec - École de technologie supérieure | ||
| Sylvain Bouix | Neuroinformatics for Multimodal Data | $249,717 |
| Sylvain G Cloutier | Advanced FHE fabrication and characterization with tandem LA-ICP-MS and LIBS spectroscopy | $247,613 |
| Nicole Demarquette | Rheology to develop novel polymeric materials: a tool to fight climate change | $249,149 |
Total | 3 | $746,479 |
| Université Laval | ||
| Francois Gros-Louis | Génie tissulaire et modélisation 3D des maladies du cerveau | $120,000 |
| Annie LeBlanc | Video-Ethnography Health Lab Phase II: Practice Satellites | $120,000 |
| Mariana Baz Etchebarne | Pre-pandemic and Pandemic viruses and therapeutic strategies | $120,000 |
| Sophie Gobeil | Canadian Research Chair in Synthetic Biology and Systems Biomedicine | $135,249 |
| Houshang Alamdari | Sustainable Carbon sources for extractive metallurgy | $134,999 |
| Pascale Tremblay | Studying plasticity in the aging speech system using brain stimulation in naturalistic environments | $117,844 |
Total | 6 | $748,092 |
| University of British Columbia (The) | ||
| Kristen Barnett | Indigenous archaeology Lab for Indigenous Futures (IaLIF) | $170,084 |
| Leluo Guan | Functional genomics research for sustainable food and agriculture production | $125,000 |
| William Hughes | DNA Nanotechnology Laboratory | $360,000 |
| Anotida Madzvamuse | High Performance Scientific Computing of 3D Cell Migration using Geometric- and Bulk-Surface PDEs (3DGeoCell Lab) | $125,000 |
| Alanaise Ferguson | Indigenous Community Based Participatory Research Communication Centre for Health and Cultural Revitalization | $80,221 |
Total | 5 | $860,305 |
| University of Ottawa | ||
| Julie Lee-Yaw | Genomic and spatial data to understand the distributions of and protect at-risk species under global change | $189,999 |
| Joseph Moran | Systems chemistry | $438,452 |
Total | 2 | $628,451 |
| University of Prince Edward Island | ||
| Sara Sadri | Water Security and Food Security Through Sustainable Agricultural and Water Management | $74,997 |
Total | 1 | $74,997 |
| University of Regina | ||
| Arthur Situm | Small Modular Reactors Fuel Corrosion Lab | $200,000 |
| Gojko Vujanovic | Multi-scale studies of the nuclear medium via multi-messenger Bayesian analysis | $83,109 |
Total | 2 | $283,109 |
| University of the Fraser Valley | ||
| Lauren Erland | BERRI: Berry Environmental Resilience Research and Innovation Lab | $617,125 |
Total | 1 | $617,125 |
University of Toronto | ||
| Mina Tadrous | Developing a Centre for Real-world Evidence to improve the use of medications for Canadians | $110,000 |
Total | 1 | $110,000 |
| University of Waterloo | ||
| Kaylena Ehgoetz Martens | Can Gait Identify and Predict Brain Health? | $100,000 |
| Aukosh Jagannath | Mathematical Foundations of Data Science | $80,000 |
| Ruodu Wang | Quantitative Risk Management Lab | $80,000 |
Total | 2 | $180,000 |
| University of Western Ontario (The) | ||
| Lindsay Nagamatsu | Healthy Aging Lab: Uncovering the relationship between mobility, cognition, and brain health | $231,321 |
Total | 1 | $231,321 |
| York University | ||
| Godfred Boateng | Resource Insecurity, Health and Sustainable Livelihoods | $35,000 |
Total | 1 | $35,000 |
TOTAL | 40 projects | $6,707,051 |
NOTE:
As part of this announcement, an additional $2,012,115 was awarded under the Infrastructure Operating Fund, a mechanism that assists institutions with the incremental operating and maintenance costs associated with the new infrastructure.