Laval Univ employs unique approach to fund 100 new research chairs within five years

Laval University has launched a novel research fundraising program that it hopes will bolster its already formidable research capacity by recruiting new talent and doubling the number of research chairs at the institution. The Program for the Advancement of Innovation and Research (PAIR) aims to establish 100 new $1-million chairs over the next five years by securing funding from government organizations, business and regional socioeconomic organizations.

PAIR was conceived by Dr Edwin Bourget, Laval's vice-rector of research and innovation, shortly after arriving at the university from Sherbrooke Univ last August. He has engaged Francois Sauve — most recently director of the Canada Research Chairs program secretariat — to serve as the director of PAIR. Funding for the first 10 chairs has already been committed with announcements slated over the next few weeks.

The PAIR chairs will be allocated along faculty lines — 25 for health and life sciences, 25 for science and engineering, 25 for arts and humanities and 25 at the discretion of the university administration. The latter category is further subdivided into 15 chairs for interfaculty projects and 10 for emerging sectors.

In addition to recruiting 100 chairholders, PAIR is also aimed at helping Laval increase its research funding by 30%, produce 500 more graduate students, enhance regional linkages and increase the number of research professionals by 15%.

"The university will not inject any funds into PAIR but we have regional partners who are interested. We have a provincial framework in the province for economic development and 40 or 50 of the chairs will be related to this," says Bourget. "Compare this to fundraising. The hard part is finding interesting projects. This is a framework where people have to build projects, justify them and then we go and leverage funding."

The aforementioned provincial framework is the Concerted Action for Regional Development Cooperation (CARDC) program. PAIR is closely aligned to coincide with spheres of excellence identified through CARDC.

The larger objective for PAIR is to establish distinct research programs around the chairs which in turn can be leveraged through traditional funding sources such as the federal and provincial granting councils. In addition to technological innovation, the research programs will also target pressing social issues and regional challenges.

Unlike McGill Univ, which used the CRC program for recruitment and established internal programs to deal with retention, Laval sees PAIR as a recruitment tool. It has been assigned 88 chairs under the Canada Research Chairs (CRC) program, 85 of which are now occupied. When fully implemented PAIR will more than double the research chairs at the university.

"CRC covered the retention side for our staff. This (PAIR) is to get new blood in," says Bourget. "Due to the economic situation, Laval has not been able to hire much in the past few years. The idea is to leverage funding from outside organizations and reinvest in the university."

Laval's current R&D plan (2006 to 2010) identifies particular strengths in the following research areas: northern studies, aquatic sciences, optics and photonics, forestry and geomatics, agriculture and food sciences, medicine, the natural sciences, engineering, theatre arts and museology.

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