The Banff International Research Station (BIRS) has received renewal funding of $9.3 million from three funding organizations for the period covering 2006 to 2011. Funding was provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council ($2.75 million), the Alberta government ($3.4 million) and the National Science Foundation ($3.1 million). The latter is the largest NSF award ever received in Canada. BIRS is a major infrastructural resource for the global mathematical science community. It is an independent operation but is administered by the Pacific Institute for Mathematical Sciences in conjunction with the Mathematics of Information Technology and Complex Systems (MITACS) Network of Centres of Excellence, the Berkeley-based Mathematical Science Research Institute and the Instituto de Mathematicas at the Univeridad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico....