By the Numbers: CFI pours $518 million into 102 research projects across Canada

The Canada Foundation for Innovation announced more than half a billion dollars in funding last week for 35 institutions and 102 research projects across Canada. 

Some projects address the COVID-19 crisis, while other projects focus on areas such as the health of Canada's oceans, reconciliation with First Nations and Inuit peoples and the detection of dark matter.

"Whether you're looking for better cancer treatments or developing blockchain technologies, our Canadian researchers — you — need these kinds of tools to turn their bold ideas into reality," said Science and Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne at a press conference on March 3. "This is both about leadership and excellence."

The grants were provided through the first Innovation Fund competition since the CFI received permanent funding in 2018. Up to 40 percent of the funds go towards infrastructure costs for each project. The competitions will now be held every 24 to 30 months, which the CFI says is intended to allow institutions to plan strategically when seeking funding for projects.

The funding can be divided into three large categories: $394 million for research projects through the Innovation Fund, $118 million of additional funds from the Infrastructure Operation Fund to cover operating and maintenance costs and an extra $6.2 million for 22 multi-institutional proposals to cover administrative costs.

The research projects that received funding include:

• $1.8 million for a research platform to develop and test vaccines run by a team of researchers at the CHU de Québec hospital research centre and Université Laval.
• $6.9 million for the development of a liquid-argon particle detector for the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNOLAB) in a collaboration between the University of Alberta, Carleton University and Queen’s University.
• $13.9 million for a brain inflammation research project at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine and hospital partners.
• $11.1 million for CGEn, a national platform for genome sequencing and analysis run by the Hospital for Sick Children in partnership with the University of British Columbia and McGill University.
• $6.7 million for genomics research on North American bison at the University of Saskatchewan with research partners Saskatchewan Polytechnic and the University of Alberta.
• $3.5 million for a team of researchers led by Dalhousie University and Memorial University to study climate change impacts in the North Atlantic Ocean.
• $7 million for Baffin Island environmental research stations run by Université Laval.
• $6.7 million for an edge computing project to explore alternative AI models in a collaboration between the Université de Sherbrooke, Université du Québec and École de technologie supérieure.
• $1.1 million for a “living laboratory” to study virtual care at the Women’s College Hospital in Toronto.

The following 35 institutions received funding:

The full list of funded projects can be found on the Canadian Innovation Fund website here.