Canada's Science Minister announced $53.5 million in federal funding to attract the world's top researchers to Canadian institutions.
“Canada Excellence Research Chairholders are some of the world’s leading minds,” Goodyear said during the morning event held in IQC’s nuclear magnetic resonance lab. “Their presence in universities will create jobs and long-term economic growth, as well as enable Canada to be at the cutting edge of innovative research.”
Goodyear announced that the federal government has committed $53.5 million over the next five years for the creation of 10 new chairs.
The first group of CERC chairholders was announced in May 2010, and included IQC faculty member David Cory, Canada Excellence Research Chair in Quantum Information Processing.
“What makes my research possible is this tremendous partnership,” Cory said of the CERC program.
The CERC funding has enabled Cory and his team of researchers to pursue quantum information research at the highest international level.
“We believe we are on the cusp of a new industrial revolution with the development of useful quantum devices,” said Cory, who came to IQC following a professorship in nuclear engineering at the Masschusetts Institute of Technology.
Speakers during the announcement included Kitchener-Waterloo MP Peter Braid, University of Waterloo President Feridun Hamdullahpur and representatives from the CERC selection board and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Philippe Van Cappellen, the University of Waterloo’s CERC chairholder in ecohydrology, was also on hand for the occasion.
President Hamdullahpur said the CERC chairholders, both current and forthcoming, “are going to make a significant difference to the world.”
“The new economy has to be fuelled by new knowledge,” he said, “and this program is how you create that knowledge.”
For more information, visit the Canada Excellence Research Chairs website.