NSERC: Celebrating 25 years of Investment in Discovery

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NSERC Celebrating 25 years of Investment in
Discovery
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McGill University, First Graduating Class
(Engineering, 1873) Chemistry Department First
Ph.D. 1909, Annie MacLeod
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Nutrition Class (1913)
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NSERC and McGill Facts and Figures

• NRC established in 1917.
• NSERC was established in 1978.
• First NSERC President Gordon McNabb.
• Our total funding from NSERC over 25 years is
  more than 550 million , putting us in fifth
  place nationwide.

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NSERC and McGill Facts and Figures (contd)

• McGill researchers received about 6 million the
  first year (1978-79).
• McGill received 30 million for 2003-04.

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NSERC and McGill Facts and Figures (contd)

• 88 faculty members, including one woman, have
  held NSERC grants for 25 consecutive years.
• 480 McGill researchers hold at least one NSERC
  grant in 2003-04, about 15 of whom are women.
• 24 NSERC Grant first-timers at McGill in
  2003-2004 (5 are women)

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NSERC Discovery Grant Facts and Figures
(2003-2004)

• McGills success rate 88
• National success rate 83
• Average McGill award value 35,000/year.

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Steacie Fellowship

• There have been 11 Steacie Fellowship winners

• Victoria Kaspi (2003)
• Henri Darmon (2002)
• Peter Grutter (2001)
• Louis Taillefer (1998)
• D.B. MacFarlane (1994)
• Philippe Gros (1993)

• M.R.P. Murty (1991)
• Luc Devroye (1987)
• Kelvin Ogilvie (1982)
• D. P. S. Verma (1981)
• R.I.L. Guthrie (1979)

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Other NSERC Prizes won include

• Synergy Awards for Innovation, showcasing
• innovation and the benefits of pooling resources
• to make the most of Canadian ingenuity.
• 2002 McGill (Macdonald Campus) and PATLQ
• 1997 McGill (John Gruzleski) and Timminco

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Industrial Research Chairs

• Since the mid 1980s, we have had the following
  IRCs, with a total NSERC contribution of nearly
  10 million

• John Jonas
• Peter Kabal
• Urs Kühnlein
• Charles Lin
• Bob Marchessault
• Lawrence Mysak
• Ron Stewart
• Frank Tooley

• Vinod Agarwal
• Martin Buehler
• Graham Darling
• James Finch
• Wagdi Habashi
• Allan Hay
• Scott Hinton
• John Hollerbach

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Some other current NSERC-funded major research
initiatives at McGill

• NSERC Chair for Design in Extreme Environments,
  held by Jorge Angeles
• Agile All-Photonics Network, headed by David
  Plant
• NSERC Nano Innovation Platform, of which
• Peter Grutter is research director
• Climate Variability Network, headed by
• Jacques Derome

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NSERC Student Funding at McGill
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Students Promoting Awareness of Research
Knowledge (SPARK)

• We also have an active group of SPARK student
  science
• writers under the mentorship of Linda Cooper,
  Associate
• Director of the Centre for the Study and Teaching
  of
• Writing.

SPARK Writers, 2003-2004
Ian Popple (Biology) Anna Lisa Lucido
(Neurological Sciences) Ben Kennedy
(Volcanology) Mythri Kappantagula (Anatomy and
Cell Biology) Niki Boyd (Biochemistry) Maciej
Kotowski (Economics and Political Science) Sara
Strawczynski (Biology)
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SPARK Writers

• These writers have published articles about
• cutting-edge NSERC-funded research at
• McGill in a variety of publications, including
• the McGill Reporter, the Montreal Gazette,
• the National Post, Seasons Magazine and
• the National Geographic News.

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SPARK articles include

• A not-so birdbrained idea (Louis Lefebvres
• investigation of the relationship between brain
  size
• and intelligence in birds, written by Ian Popple.)

Photo credit Owen Egan
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SPARK articles (contd)

• Teaching an old DNA new tricks (Hanadi
• Sleimans research on programming DNA
• for a multitude of potential purposes,
• written by B. Jesse Shapiro.)

Photo credit Owen Egan
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SPARK articles (contd)
Watching worms wend their way (Joanne Whalens
study of the effect of earthworms on soil,
written by Tyler Smith.)
Photo credit Owen Egan
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SPARK articles (contd)
"Turning drug design on its head" (Albert
Berghuis's research on drug design, going from
bacteria to drug rather than drug to bacteria,
written by Jan Cooper.)
Photo credit Owen Egan
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Pictures and comments from some of McGills
25-year grantholders
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Professor Ian Butler (Department of Chemistry)
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Professor John Harrod (Department of Chemistry)
Pictured, left to right John Harrod, Denis
Gilson and Ian S. Butler

• "I received my first "NRC" grant in 1966, ca.
  6000. That amount,
• together with help from the Department, some
  colleagues, and
• equipment gifts from my former employer was
  sufficient to start
• me off with four graduate students and enough
  equipment to hit the
• ground running. In those early days, the granting
  system was very
• lightly bureaucratized.

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John Harrods comments (contd)

• By the time I served on the NSERC Chemistry
  Grants
• Selection Committee in the early 1990's, things
  had
• changed dramatically. The whole granting system
  was
• tightly controlled by a professional bureaucracy.
  In
• some respects this led to major improvements in
  the
• fairness of grant distribution.

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Professor G.S. Vijaya Raghavan (Bioresource
Engineering), NSERC 25-year grantholder, NSERC
funding has been key throughout the years to
equip and supply our laboratories to offer a
great environment for fundamental and applied
research in food and agriculture processing.
Professor Raghavan taking his job very seriously
for the sensory evaluation of chapathis. This
study aims at evaluating the incorporation of
sorghum flour in doughs for traditional Indian
cooking.
Hard at work in the texture measurement
laboratory on the Macdonald Campus.
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Professor Lucjan Kops (Mechanical Engineering),
25-year grantholder
Professor Kops film entitled, Infrared
Radiation in Surface Grinding, won first place
in the 1978 ASME Film Festival.
1978 Forum Theme Film Festival First Place
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Any comments or questions?