Article Type: Generic

A new report by the union representing federal scientists says $2.6 billion is slated to be cut from the budgets of science-based departments and agencies (SBDAs) between 2013 and 2016, on top of $596 million (in 2007 constant dollars) already axed between 2008 and 2013.

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Electronics manufacturing, new technologies for ultra deep mining, biomarkers for personalized clinical trials and environmental technologies for the aerospace sector shared $49.

Ottawa telecom research powerhouse

Nortel Networks Corp may have vanished from the Canadian S&T landscape, but the massive campus where it once thrived in Ottawa’s west end is anything but idle. Nortel’s assets and state-of-the-art facilities were acquired by several high tech firms, including Ciena Corp, an innovative developer and manufacturer of advanced telecommunications networking equipment.

13th Annual RE$EARCH MONEY conference

Budget 2014: Rebalancing Innovation Support Programs

22-23 April 2014
National Arts Centre, Ottawa

This year’s RE$EARCH MONEY conference will look at how Budget 2014 is changing the ratio of indirect and direct support of firms and the balance between supporting basic and applied research in academia and academic-industrial research collaboration.

Dr Ford Doolittle has won this year’s Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering. The medal comes with $1 million and is the top prize awarded annually by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC).

Industry Canada has released a consultation paper for the updating of its 2007 science, technology and innovation (STI) strategy, giving interested parties one month – until February 7 – to make their submissions.

Action required to reverse sector’s decline

Canada’s nuclear sector and its long history of technological and market accomplishments could be squandered unless its R&D capacity is enhanced and the aging reactor used for research is either replaced or further refurbished.

The annual Conference of Montreal (CoM) will host a special one-day meeting of science ministers from around the globe that could become an annual event. The meeting — one of the first of its kind — is being organized by Quebec chief scientist Dr Rémi Quirion to exchange perspectives on the role of the chief scientist in helping to craft effective science and innovation policy.

Montreal is bidding to become the headquarters for a secretariat for Future Earth, a 10-year platform for international research aimed at generating climate change-related knowledge and identifying opportunities for global sustainability.

By Dr Alan Bernstein

The launch of the Government of Canada’s new Global Markets Action Plan last year has received much attention for its implications for Canada’s foreign policy. The plan aims to focus Canada’s diplomatic efforts towards economic diplomacy, promoting Canadian exports through an ambitious trade policy as a priority foreign policy objective.