CIFAR adds four new programs to portfolio of international research teams

The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) announced its new portfolio of international and interdisciplinary research programs, now grouped under four broad themes: Life & Health; Individuals & Society; Earth & Space; and Information & Matter. The portfolio includes four new programs and nine renewed or continuing programs.

The four new programs in the portfolio were selected from a shortlist of finalists from CIFAR’s Global Call for Ideas in 2018. They are: Fungal Kingdom: Threats & Opportunities; Boundaries, Membership & Belonging; Innovation, Equity & the Future of Prosperity; and Earth 4D: Subsurface Science & Exploration. Each program is organized around a set of orienting questions. For example, the Fungal Kingdom program — led by Dr. Leah Cowen at the University of Toronto and Dr. Joseph Heitman at Duke University — seeks to answer the question “What might we uncover in an unknown biosphere?”

The programs are international in scope, but all of the groups are led or jointly led by one or two Canadian researchers. Each program meets twice a year at different locations around the world, often tied to a relevant conference. CIFAR covers travel costs and gives a stipend to each of the fellows.  Program participants use the meetings to present unpublished or unfinished work for critique from their peers, and otherwise share ideas across disciplines. Program fellows conduct fundamental research, but they are supported by a knowledge mobilization team at CIFAR that will bridge the gap with industry or policy-makers.

The programs are primarily funded through CIFAR’s core funding from federal and provincial governments, as well as individuals, corporations and foundations. For example, the Brain, Mind & Consciousness program is supported by the Azrieli Foundation. The programs are funded for five years, and most are renewed at least once. The Gravity & the Extreme Universe program has been continually renewed since 1986.

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CIFAR’s most notable success has been the Neural Computation and Adaptive Perception program launched in 2004 under the direction of Dr. Geoffrey Hinton, the AI luminary credited with groundbreaking work in artificial neural networks. Dr. Yoshua Bengio and Dr. Yann Lecun were research fellow in that program, now renamed Learning in Machines & Brains. The three recently shared the A.M. Turing Award from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), considered the “Nobel Prize” in computing.

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