ICT main focus of follow-on CECR competition

The Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) secretariat has announced a new competition for the Centre of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECR) program with a high priority being given to information and communications technology (ICT). The targeted nature of the competition acknowledges the absence of successful ICT proposals in the inaugural round, which prompted criticism from at least one unsuccessful applicant from Carleton Univ, IBM and Nortel Networks Corp (R$, March 27/08). A call for letters of intent and details on deadlines and updated guidelines will be posted May 30 on the NCE website. Second-round applicants will compete for $52 million in funding, compared to $163 million in the first round (R$, February 25/08)….