Dr Pierre Coulombe

Dr Pierre Coulombe has announced that he will not seek a second five-year term as president of the National Research Council (NRC) and will be leaving the organization in February/10. Coulombe announced his pending departure in an October 19th memo to staff, adding that he will assist with the transition team to select a successor once the federal government launches a competitive process to find a new president. He arrived at the NRC in 2005, replacing interim president Dr Michael Raymont who headed the organization following the departure of Dr Arthur Carty to become Canada's national science advisor (R$, December 21 & April 6/04). Among the changes at NRC under Coulombe's leadership was a reorganization of its activities along horizontal, sectoral lines. During his tenure, however, NRC's budget fell from $824 million in FY05-06 to $780 million in FY09-10, according to the latest Statistics Canada data (see page 3)….