OTTAWA, ON--(Marketwired - July 28, 2015) - The U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities warmly welcomed today the federal government’s announcement of the first round of Canada First Research Excellence Fund awards. Several institutions will receive support from this pioneering fund to pursue exceptional, world-class research excellence.
“Today’s announcement is a clear demonstration that the federal government is committed to supporting globally competitive research excellence through its largest investment in our sector in years,” says Feridun Hamdullahpur, Chair of the U15 and President and Vice-Chancellor of Waterloo University. “The projects and partnerships these Canadian universities submitted for funding demonstrate that we have the capacity and drive to be world leaders in research and innovation.”
The funded initiative at a U15 institution announced today is:
- $114 million dollars for University of Toronto’s Medicine by Design initiative, which will undertake transformative research and clinical translation in regenerative medicine, enhance capability in synthetic biology and computational biology and foster translation, commercialization and clinical impacts.
“The successful initiatives announced today will expand and enhance our research landscape in Canada. When the federal government announces the second-round recipients, we will have even more research excellence to celebrate,” says Suzanne Corbeil, Executive Director of the U15. “The ground-breaking research resulting from CFREF investments will advance our scientific understanding, boost our global position and cement Canada’s reputation as a top destination for work and study by the best and brightest researchers here at home and around the world.”
As Canada’s 15 leading research universities, The U15’s members undertake 80 percent of all competitive university research in Canada, rank among the world’s premier institutions, and conduct about $8.5 billion worth of research annually. Collectively, we produce more than 75 percent of all doctorates awarded in Canada.
The U15 Member Universities:
| University of Alberta - David Turpin The University of British Columbia - Arvind Gupta University of Calgary - Elizabeth Cannon Dalhousie University - Richard Florizone Université Laval - Denis Brière University of Manitoba - David Barnard McGill University - Suzanne Fortier McMaster University - Patrick Deane | Université de Montréal - Guy Breton University of Ottawa - Allan Rock Queen’s University - Daniel Woolf University of Saskatchewan - Gordon Barnhart University of Toronto - Meric Gertler University of Waterloo - Feridun Hamdullahpur Western University - Amit Chakma |
Contact Information:
For further information, please contact:
Rob Rosenfeld
Director, Advocacy
U15 - Group of Canadian Research Universities
(613) 695-6755
media@u15.ca