Funding, News and Announcements

Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) Major Science Initiatives Fund (MSI) – Draft Call for Proposals and Upcoming Competition

CFI has recently released a draft Call for Proposals for its upcoming Major Science Initiatives Fund (see attached).  MSI will provide multi-year support towards the operations and maintenance costs of national research facilities. 

The following criteria for facilities must be met:
1.  The facility enables research by providing an environment encompassing highly specialized equipment, services, resources, and scientific and technical personnel. No alternatives exist in Canada.
2. The facility is fully operational and is owned by one or more CFI-eligible institutions.
3. There is demonstrated demand by the Canadian research community for the equipment, services, resources, and scientific and technical personnel offered by the facility. This community represents a critical mass of users distributed across the country, in areas of research strength for Canada.
4. The facility has an established user access policy that is publicly available such that any interested potential user is able to request access to the facility.
5. The facility has demonstrated annual eligible O&M costs exceeding $500,000 to support significant human and operational resources beyond what is standard in Canadian research institutions.
6.  The facility has as an established governance model appropriate to the size and complexity of the facility, with a clearly defined mandate, structure and procedures.
7. The facility has a management structure and practices appropriate to the size and complexity of the facility.

Dalhousie’s Ocean Tracking Network (OTN) plans to apply to this competition.

As Expressions of Interest must be submitted to CFI by October 14, any other Dalhousie group that operates a “facility” that meets the above criteria and wants to apply to the upcoming MSI competition should contact Nancy.Hayter@Dal.Ca as soon as possible.