The Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) program has announced a new competition with funding of $12 million annually. The open competition is expected to fund to or three new Networks and the deadlines for Letters of Intent and Full Applications are July 2/02 and March7/03 respectively. Successful Networks will begin operations in the fall of 2003. The last NCE competition was targeted and resulted in funding for Automobile of the 21st Century (AUTO 21), the Canadian Language & Literacy Research Network (CLLRNet), the Canadian Water Network and the Stem Cell Genomics & Therapeutics Network (STEMNet). All proposals will be assessed using criteria and be subject to separate interdisciplinary expert panel reviews....