Summary
The University of Waterloo’s internationally recognized Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience (CTN) receives hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in research funding in support of its mission to develop robust explanatory theories of mind and brain through education and research. The CTN (founded in 2006) has 18 members and is an administrative unit of the Faculty of Arts. The CTN was the first Canadian research institute dedicated to theoretical neuroscience and the first to offer a graduate diploma for Theoretical Neuroscience. Hundreds of the University of Waterloo students with diverse educational backgrounds have benefited from the interdisciplinary educational opportunities the CTN provides, which include formal courses, a colloquium series, an annual Brain Day, an annual Research Day, and graduate supervision. Core and Affiliate CTN faculty have achieved a vigorous interdisciplinary program that represents five of the university’s six faculties. The faculty of the CTN in the aggregate consistently receive between half a million to a million dollars a year in direct research funds and are growing new programs. The recent establishment of a new NRC initiative on campus is a direct result of the activities and research of current and former Centre members, post-docs, and students. While the university has a number of programs and institutes devoted to applications, the University of Waterloo’s CTN is a world-class Centre, and one of only a few such Centres in the world, devoted to developing and testing new theories of brain and general intelligence at a fundamental level using mathematical models. Such advances are the prerequisites for the next generation of practical advances.
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