Author: Paul Dufour

A Paulicyworks Milestone 2020: Students and Science Policy

Published on

In October 2010, two student societies at McGill created a first annual Science and Policy Exchange. The SPE objective was to provide an ongoing local forum for policy dialogue regarding science and engineering in the province, in Canada and around the world. It would focus on ensuring the voices of students and postdoctoral fellows in…

Read More

A Paulicyworks Milestone 2020: A Landmark Report — Lamontagne at 50

Published on

The politician and the scientist must learn to become partners. They must not only live together but work together and help each other to serve society better. — the researcher will have to remain a true scientist but will also become a servant of the public with important social functions to fulfill….. (the) politician will…

Read More

A Paulicyworks Milestone 2020: Students on Ice Turns 20

Published on

What’s missing for the youngsters in the North is the sense of a future in the place where they were born. —-Peter Larkin, Science and the North: an Essay on Aspirations, December 1976 Many readers have probably not heard about the entrepreneurial enterprise of Students on Ice (SOI) established by its visionary leader Geoff Green…

Read More

A Paulicyworks Milestone 2020: Canada Research Chairs at 20

Published on

One of the most impactful programs created for the advancement of research in this country is arguably that of the Canada Research Chairs (originally labelled the 21st Century Chairs for Research Excellence). The context for the program was clear– Canada was losing some of its brightest minds to other countries—especially to the US. This brain…

Read More

A Paulicyworks Milestone 2020: Genome Canada – 20 years in the making

Published on

It’s 1997, responding to the emergence of global human genome investments, the Medical Research Council President, Henry Friesen, launches a Genomics Task Force (GTF). It is chaired by a dynamic geneticist, Lap-Chee Tsui, at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children. The 1998 report from GTF outlines a mission for Canada’s role in this emerging and disruptive…

Read More

A Paulicyworks Milestone 2020: CCA Milestone – Part 2

Published on

Following the 9/11 hiatus, the National Science Organization working group established by science minister Normand releases a proposal for a Canadian Academy of Sciences. With the appointment of Arthur Carty as National Science Advisor to the Prime Minister, efforts are re-mobilized by the academies and other groups. The concept of a new organization sees the…

Read More

A Paulicyworks Milestone 2020: Evidence First and Last – the CCA is born

Published on

It’s 1999, and NSERC’s President, Tom Brzustowski, returning from the UNESCO World Science Forum in Budapest, pens an article saying there is no Canadian Academy of Science and it’s time to do something about this. Interested parties lobby the newish Secretary of State for Science, Research and Development, Gilbert Normand. In April 2000, the presidents…

Read More