HOME | THE NCE PROGRAM | Enhancing value with highly qualified people

Potential is too precious a commodity to waste.

In an interview after winning a 2005 Young Innovator Award, Dr. Charles Dugas, a former trainee with the Mathematics of Information Technology and Complex Systems (MITACS) Network, talked about the frustrating fate that used to await young mathematicians who "headed out to find a job, with very little chance that their graduate work would be truly relevant to the task."

That, he explained, is no longer the case because MITACS and the NCE program have paved the way for the next generation to pursue its passions. Each year, each network concentrates considerable effort on making sure its highly qualified personnel get every opportunity to enhance Canada's capacity to meet the challenges of the future. To cite just three examples:

• The Canadian Arthritis Network (CAN) receives $500,000 a year from The Arthritis Society for graduate students, research fellows and research scholars to acquire experience in basic science, clinical research, product services and development, and industrial partnering.
• The Canadian Institute for Photonic Innovations (CIPI) supported the participation of 10 students in the 2005 NATO Advanced Study Institute in photon-based nanoscience and technology.
• As part of the 2005-2006 Training Fund competition, seven ArcticNet graduate students participated in the Nansen and Amundsen Basin Observing System summer school onboard the Russian icebreaker Kapitan Dranitsyn.

Highly qualified personnel bring new ideas, fresh approaches and unbridled energy to solving problems. In 2005-2006, the NCE program directly supported 2,286 research staff (research associates and technicians) and research trainees (postdoctoral fellows, graduate and undergraduate students). Another 2,181 were involved in NCE project work while supported by other funding sources.