• Save the date for SSTI's 2024 Annual Conference

    Join us December 10-12 in Arizona to connect with and learn from your peers working around the country to strengthen their regional innovation economies. Visit ssticonference.org for more information and sign up to receive updates.

  • Become an SSTI Member

    As the most comprehensive resource available for those involved in technology-based economic development, SSTI offers the services that are needed to help build tech-based economies.  Learn more about membership...

  • Subscribe to the SSTI Weekly Digest

    Each week, the SSTI Weekly Digest delivers the latest breaking news and expert analysis of critical issues affecting the tech-based economic development community. Subscribe today!

Canadian Government Provides $163M for New Centres of Excellence

February 27, 2008
  • Forward logo
  • LinkedIn logo

Earlier this month, the Canadian Minister of Industry announced the establishment of 11 new Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECRs) to pursue multidisciplinary work in the areas of environmental science, natural resources and energy, health and life sciences, and information and communication technologies. This $163 million investment joins a $105 million investment last year that created seven other CECRs across Canada.

 

The CECR initiative is a component of Canada’s Science and Technology Strategy (see the May 21, 2007 issue of the Digest) and is administered by the Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) program. Organizations that are eligible for CECR funding are nonprofit corporations formed by universities, research organizations, private firms or other nongovernmental parties. The average grant size for each CECR was around $15 million, to be distributed over 3-5 years.

 

Four of the 11 new centers are based in Vancouver:

  • Advanced Applied Physics Solutions Inc, a nonprofit subsidiary of TRIUMF, Canada’s National Laboratory for Particle and Nuclear Physics located.
  • The Centre for Drug Research and Development.
  • The Prostate Centre’s Translational Research Initiative for cancer research.
  • The Prevention of Epidemic Organ Failure CECR to minimize the problems of vital organ failure, located.

Other 2008 awardees include:

  • The Bioindustrial Innovation Centre to investigate sustainable feedstock research in Sarnia.
  • The Centre for the Commercialization of Research in Ottawa.
  • The Centre for Excellence in Personalized Medicine to develop medical solutions based on genomic technologies in Montreal.
  • The Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer to investigate cancer therapies in Montreal.
  • The Centre for Probe Development and Commercialization to develop diagnostic equipment for commercial and clinical use in Hamilton.
  • The multidisciplinary MaRS Discovery District in Toronto.
  • The Pan-Provincial Vaccine Enterprise to explore early-stage vaccine development in Saskatoon.

More information about the CECRs is available at: http://www.nce.gc.ca/comp/CECR/cecr_e.htm

International